John Martin (Canadian broadcaster) facts for kids
John Martin (born 1947, died 2006) was a famous Canadian TV person. Many people say he almost single-handedly created music television in Canada. He helped start popular music channels like MuchMusic.
John Martin's Early Life and Work
John Martin was born in Manchester, England. He left school when he was 16 years old. Then he moved to London. There, he worked as a rock drummer. He also wrote articles for different places.
When he was 20, he moved to Canada. He started working as a researcher for CBC Radio. Later, he worked for CBC Television. For radio, he was the first Canadian to share news about a certain topic during the Vietnam War. For TV, he helped make parts of shows like Weekend. He also worked on Peter Gzowski's 90 Minutes Live.
Creating Music TV: The New Music and MuchMusic
After 90 Minutes Live ended, John Martin had a new idea. He wanted to create a TV show about rock music. He called his idea "rock and talk." It would be like music magazines but on TV. It would show and explain music culture.
At first, TV networks in Canada were not interested. But Moses Znaimer, who ran CITY-TV in Toronto, liked Martin's plan. So, The NewMusic started in 1979. It became very popular. It was Canada's most watched TV show that was shown on many different stations.
After this success, Martin started planning a whole TV channel just for music. This channel was MuchMusic. It began in 1984. John Martin, Moses Znaimer, and CITY's parent company, CHUM Limited, launched it. Martin later said, "We were a bunch of loonies." He remembered it as a fun time. MuchMusic became very successful. It led to other music channels and shows in Canada and other countries. It also helped create VideoFACT, which supports music video artists.
After MuchMusic
John Martin left MuchMusic in 1993. After that, he worked on special TV projects. He directed The Genius of Lenny Breau in 1999. This film was about the life of Canadian guitar player Lenny Breau. He also directed Hank & Jimmie: A Story of Country in 2000. This film showed the lives of Hank Snow and his son, Jimmie Rodgers Snow. Martin also worked as a program director for a Canadian dance music channel called bpm:tv.
John Martin passed away in 2006. He was 58 years old.
