Goodman started in radio at rock station 93.3 WMMRPhiladelphia in 1978 and later became the music director of the station. In 1980, he moved to New York to work at WPLJ, at the time the top rock station in the U.S. He was heard Monday through Saturday from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.[citation needed]
Goodman was on the air the night in December 1980 that John Lennon was murdered in front of his Manhattan apartment building. Goodman reported extensively on the events as the news began to spread about Lennon's killing.[3]
In 1981, Goodman left WPLJ to join the new and as yet unknown music video channel named MTV. He became one of the five original hosts who introduced music videos and gave short music news reports and artist interviews. These hosts would be called Video Jockeys or VJs by MTV, as opposed to radio hosts who played records and were known as disc jockeys. Goodman interviewed many of the top Rock and Roll artists of the day. He also hosted several special shows for the channel, including The Week in Rock, 120 Minutes, and The Top 20 Video Countdown.[citation needed]
In a 1983 interview with David Bowie, the singer pressed Goodman on MTV for playing few music videos by black artists during that time. MTV actually played few minority acts of any genre in its first few years. Goodman's defense was that the network was thinking in terms of "narrow casting" at suburban youth. The channel was set up like an album rock radio station which concentrated on artists playing rock music, who were largely white.[citation needed]
Through the 1990s, Goodman hosted several different TV shows and music specials. In particular, "Fit TV" ran on cable for years after the final episodes were shot. Goodman received no royalties from replays of the show but was pleased to help people learn how to eat right, exercise more, and be open to alternative methods of healing and stress reduction. Goodman also hosted the game show Illinois Instant Riches and its revamp Illinois' Luckiest from 1994 to 2001.[citation needed]
Marriage
From 1982 to 1987, Goodman was married to New York City rock DJCarol Miller.[4] They first met when they both worked on radio station 95.5 WPLJ. Goodman has one daughter from a subsequent relationship and is currently married to Jill Goodman.[citation needed]
In 1999, Goodman became senior VP of Music Programming for Soundbreak.com, an internet radio station. He developed the format, hired and trained the air staff and developed all the special programming that became available for syndication to other sites, including British Telecom Open World, As Seen In (Aaron Spelling's site), and Newgrounds.[citation needed]
In the mid-2000s, Goodman was seen on VH-1 and VH-1 Classic doing interviews and hosting special programs while continuing to broadcast seven days per week on Sirius XM.[citation needed]
Book
In 2013, Goodman, along with Blackwood, Hunter, and Quinn, co-authored the book "VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave", published by Atria Books.[5]
Sirius XM
From 2016 to 2022, Goodman hosted a weekday afternoon talk show on Sirius XM's music discussion channel "Volume".[citation needed]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
