There were videos before MTV started in 1981 but very few shows would show them in the US. Maybe they were more widely shown in Europe? How many shows in Europe showed videos? For instance, music videos (that weren't solely just concert footage) were apparently not uncommon for English / European bands in the pre-MTV days. Queen did a number of them, for example; I imagine that it was for shows like Top of the Pops.

And I know that Michael Nesmith's PopClips (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopClips) aired on Nickleodeon a year before MTV started. HBO used to run music videos as filler between movies.

Here's an interesting thing on videos. In England, bands started filming them so that they could appear on a show even when away. This is one reason British bands were heavily represented in early MTV. Also, Mike Nesmith of the Monkees came up with the idea of MTV long before MTV, in fact, the Monkees is considered a forerunner to MTV. Finally, do you know the first video? people often list the first one played on MTV (Video Killed the Radio Star) or they will mention Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, but it goes further back to 1930. Yep, the first music video is Minnie the Moocher by Cab Calloway!One of the reason he created a video was so that a black artist could appear in white theaters.