MARTHA QUINN

Martha Quinn is best known as both an on-air radio personality and cable television host for the groundbreaking music video channel, MTV.  

While pursuing an undergraduate college degree first in Utica, New York, at Colgate University and then at New York University, she appeared on college radio stations as host of music-based programs. While in NYC, Martha auditioned for the ground-breaking music video channel with MTV. She became one of the first five MTV VJ’s in August 1981 when the cable channel debuted. That long-lasting, career-changing opportunity changed her life and forever associated her with music of the 1980’s and beyond. She left her full-time role at MTV in 1986 before returning later for a duration of time hosting special programming and events that lasted several more years.

In 2005, Martha reentered the media business after becoming a full-time mother to two children. She joined the on-air staff at SiriusXM and continued her nationwide media presence until 2016. It was then she began hosting her own morning show, The Martha Quinn Show, on 103.7 FM / KOSF in San Francisco, a station known as 80’s+ to San Francisco area listeners before taking on middays at the same station. Not long after, iHeartMedia began distributing Martha’s midday weekday program on more than 60 radio stations. She continues to be a highly visible radio personality in those markets, sharing stories of her interactions with music artists and groups popular in the 1980’s, while also being very current with her audience’s lifestyles all those years later.

In 2025, Martha Quinn was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.