Mark Ritson: Think TV is dying? You’re forgetting about the ‘Knopfler Effect’

Photo: Victor SchiferliAlas, I am old. I can remember glimpsing the initial efforts of MTV on American TV screens and then, a little later, on the sets back in the UK. And I can recall the videos that dominated those early years of the nascent music channel too. There was a lot of Billy Ocean, way too much Def Leppard, and a whole series of dodgy Whitesnake videos (ask your dad).
But more than anything I remember MTV as essentially a promotional channel for Dire Straits. You couldn’t make