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MTV (Music Television) is a cable television network headquartered in New York City. Originally devoted to Music, MTV has since opted to show almost no music oriented programming, and has become an outlet for a variety of different television shows aimed at adolescents and young adults. Broadcast began on August 1, 1981 as an operation of Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment Company, a joint venture of Warner Communications and American Express known as WASEC. In 1984, Warner and Amex attempted to take some cash out of their WASEC investment. The companies divested WASEC and it was renamed MTV Networks Inc. The parent companies registered for a stock IPO, which eventually went public at $15.00 per share. A year later, MTV saw the introduction of a sister channel, VH1, short for Video Hits One. In 1986, MTV Networks Inc. was acquired by Viacom Inc., and was renamed MTV Networks, still a division of Viacom today. By 1987, Viacom itself was the target of a successful hostile takeover by National Amusements.
History
August 1, 1981 On August 1, 1981, MTV: Music Television launched with a programming format created by the visionary media executive, Bob Pittman (who later became president and chief executive officer, of MTV Networks *, and, in the 1990s COO of AOL, America Online). (Pittman had test driven the music format by producing and hosting a 15 minute show, Album Tracks, on WNBC, New York, in the late 1970s. And Pittman's boss, WASEC COO John Lack, had sheparded a TV series called PopClips, created by former Monkee-turned solo artist Michael Nesmith, the latter of whom by the late 1970s was turning his attention to the music video format. * The channel went to air at 12:01 a.m. with the words (by original COO John Lack) "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll!" and the original MTV theme song, a crunching guitar riff written by Jonathan Elias and John Petersen, playing over a montage of the Apollo 11 moon landing (MTV producers used this footage because it was in the public domain.) The official subscriber count across America was 3,000,000 (the actual number was 500,000), but the immediate impact would have argued that every young adult's home in the country was watching. Sporadically, the screen would go black when someone at MTV inserted a tape into a VCR. * Appropriately, the first music video shown on MTV was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles. The second video shown was Pat Benatar's "You Better Run". With similar tongue-in-cheek humor, the first video shown on MTV Europe was "Money for Nothing," by Dire Straits, which starts and finishes with repetition of the line "I want my MTV", voiced by Sting. On MTV Latina, the first video shown was "We Are South American Rockers" by the Chilean band Los Prisioneros and on MTV Brasil it was Garota de Ipanema, sang by Marina Lima. Early format The early format of the network was modeled after Top 40 radio. Fresh-faced young men and women were hired to host the show's programming, and to introduce videos that were being played. The term VJ (video jockey) was coined, a play on the acronym DJ (disc jockey.) Many VJs eventually became celebrities in their own right. The original five MTV VJs in 1981 were Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J. Jackson and Martha Quinn. In 2005, this group (except for J.J. Jackson, who had died in 2004) was reunited as hosts on Sirius Satellite Radio. * Early videos The early music videos that made up the bulk of the network's programming in the 1980s were often crude promotional or concert clips from whatever sources could be found; as the popularity of the network rose, and record companies recognized the potential of the medium as a tool to gain recognition and publicity, they began to create increasingly elaborate clips specifically for the network. Several noted film directors got their start creating music videos, including Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, and David Fincher. Notable rock bands and performers A large number of rock bands and performers of the 1980s and 1990s were made into household names by MTV. 1980s acts immediately identifiable with MTV include Van Halen, The Police, The Cars, Eurythmics, RATT, Culture Club, Def Leppard, Duran Duran, Bon Jovi, and "Weird Al" Yankovic, who made a career out of parodying other artists videos. Many of the more successful musicians featured on MTV could frequently be seen doing station identification spots for the network, exclaiming the signature line, "I want my MTV!!" The heavy rock band KISS publicly appeared without their trademark makeup for the first time on MTV in 1983. Michael Jackson launched the second wave of his career as an MTV staple. Madonna rose to fame on MTV in the 1980s. Madonna is the most successful video performer in MTV history, and to this day she uses MTV to market her music. 1984-1987
1987-1999 Before 1987, MTV featured almost exclusively music videos, but as time passed they introduced a variety of other shows. Many of these shows were originally intended for other channels. The new genres include animated cartoons such as Beavis and Butt-head and Daria; reality shows such as The Real World and Road Rules; prank/comedic shows such as The Tom Green Show, Jackass, and Punk'd; and soap operas such as Undressed Non-music video programming began in the late 1980s with the introduction of The Week in Rock, Club MTV and Remote Control. By the second half of the 1990s, MTV programming consisted primarily of non-music programming. 2000-2004 In 2000, MTV's Fear became the first 'scary' reality show where contestants filmed themselves. The show ran for three seasons and spawned numerous imitations, including Fear Factor on NBC. In 2002, MTV aired the first episode of another reality show, The Osbournes, based on the everyday life of former, Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne, his wife Sharon, and two of their children, Jack and Kelly. The show went on to become one of the network's biggest ever success stories and kick-started a musical career for Kelly Osbourne, while Sharon Osbourne went on to host a talk show on U.S. television. In 2003, Newlyweds, another popular reality TV show that follows the lives of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, a music celebrity couple, began airing. It ran for three seasons and was ended after Jessica and Nick divorced. The success of Newlyweds was followed in June 2004 by The Ashlee Simpson Show, which documented the beginnings of the music career of Ashlee Simpson, Jessica Simpson's younger sister. In the fall of 2004, Ozzy Osbourne's reality show Battle for Ozzfest aired. 2004-2006 In 2004, MTV's parent company Viacom bought Germany's largest provider for music television Viva Media AG, thereby creating the largest company for music on the European mainland. In November 2004, MTV announced it would begin airing MTV Base in Africa from February 2005, * thereby reaching the world's last major populated area previously not served by MTV. In 2006, MTV plans to launch MTV Ukraine, to pursue the emerging music market. There are already launched services in the Baltic states with MTV Estonia, MTV Latvia and MTV Lithuania. MTV Türkiye, the Turkish service, was launched October 23, 2006, which was also the time the festival of Eid was celebrated. The founder of MTV Türkiye deliberately launched it on Eid because she wanted it to be an Eid present for Turkey's youth. In June 2006, MTV announced the creation of MTV K, the first music and pop-culture destination for young Korean-Americans. The channel will import the hottest and latest superstars from Korea, artists like BoA, Rain, and Se7en and will introduce new and emerging Korean-American artists making noise of their own. This will provide a chance for Korean and Korean-American artists alike to gain U.S. exposure. 25th Anniversary On August 1, 2006, MTV celebrated its 25th anniversary. On their broadband video channel, MTV Overdrive, MTV executives let people view the very first hour of MTV, including airing the original promos and commercials from Mountain Dew, Atari, Chewels gum, and Jovan. Videos were also shown from The Buggles, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, and more, and even the introduction of the first five original VJs (Alan Hunter, Martha Quinn, J.J. Jackson, Nina Blackwood, and Mark Goodman). Also mtv.com put together a "yearbook" consisting of the best and greatest videos of each year from the early age of MTV of 1981 to the current videos of 2006. Along with that, music.mtv.com had a special online viewing of the top video of each year since 1981. Those videos were: Strangely enough, MTV the network barely mentioned the anniversary, instead preferring to promote a new episode of The Real World--the show that has divided viewers into two camps: those who think it made the network more of a force and created the reality television genre, and those who think it was the catalyst for the network's shark jump. Diversification The advent of digital satellite and cable has brought greater channel diversity including channels such as MTV2, which features the slogan "Where The Music's At." In the U.S., MTV2 initially focused on playing music videos and other music-related programming exclusively; in Europe, MTV2 plays specific genres of music, each in their own timeslots, and lately has begun to air their own non-music programming as well as reruns of original MTV programming. Viacom, parent company of the MTV Networks, is also behind VH1, which is aimed at celebrity and popular culture programming; and CMT, which targets the country music market. Robert Bartz is CEO of MTV enterprises. MTV recently broadcast a University-oriented channel mtvU. MHD — Music: High Definition is a high definition channel that MTV Networks launched on January 16, 2006. Originating from a studio in Vail, Colorado, MHD features programming from all three music-themed channels owned by MTV Networks — MTV, VH1 and CMT. Thusfar, only Verizon's FiOS TV , Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Cable have agreed to carry the channel. Cox systems carrying MHD as of March 2006 include Atlanta, New Orleans, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Phoenix with Boston getting MHD through Comcast. In June 2006, Cox began carrying MHD in the Fairfax market. Mitsubishi Electric Digital Televisions is the exclusive sponsor of MHD. MTV.com, the website of the channel, expands on its broadcasts by bringing additional content to its viewers. Its notable features include its podcasts, including MTV News RAW, which interviews various musical artists; MTV Overdrive, a video steaming service supported by commercials. Additionally there are movie features, profiles and interviews with recording artists and even clips from MTV television programs. More recently, mtv.com has gone through a huge change to the site. Now it seems as though the whole site has been transformed into the "overdrive" style. MTV World MTV World launched a series of channels for Asian Americans. The first channel was MTV Desi, in July of 2005 dedicated towards South Asian Americans. Next up was MTV Chi in December of 2005 which catered to Chinese Americans. The third installment is MTV K for Korean Americans which was launched on June 27, 2006. Each of these channels feature music videos and shows from MTV's international affiliates as well as original programming, promos and packaging designed in the U.S. International divisions MTV Networks and Viacom have launched numerous native-language MTV-branded music channels to countries worldwide. These channels include (but are not limited to): MTV Canada (formerly talktv), MTV UK and Ireland, MTV Spain, MTV Austria, MTV France, MTV Germany, MTV Europe, MTV Portugal, MTV Adria, MTV Denmark, MTV Finland, MTV Italy, MTV Netherlands, MTV Norway, MTV Poland, MTV Romania, MTV Lithuania, MTV Latvia, MTV Estonia, MTV Sweden, MTV Asia, MTV Japan, MTV China, MTV Korea, MTV Philippines, MTV Taiwan/Hong Kong, MTV Turkey, MTV Pakistan, MTV India, MTV Latin America, MTV Puerto Rico, MTV Brasil, MTV Australia, MTV New Zealand and MTV Russia. Commercialism Because of its visibility as a promotional tool for the recording industry, MTV has been criticized as overly commercial and accused of denigrating the importance of music in the music industry (replacing it with a purely visual aesthetic); putting equally popular but less image-centric or single-based acts at a distinct disadvantage. As early as 1985, some musicians were criticizing MTV for these reasons, perhaps most famously Dead Kennedys with the song "MTV − Get off the Air" in the album Frankenchrist. Airtime for music videos In a contradiction to their own title and purpose, MTV put a stronger focus on reality shows such as Road Rules, The Real World, Laguna Beach, among others, over the past few years. The primary U.S. MTV channel does occasionally play music videos (albeit rarely) instead of exclusively relegating them to their genre channels; however, the music videos are either in the small hours of the morning or in an extremely cut and talked-over form on TRL. MTV has established a network, known as MTV Hits, that shows music videos 24 hours a day. Critics also claim that bands sell well because they get a lot of exposure on MTV, rather than MTV picking the best bands to promote; and that MTV has too much influence in the music industry. Although it could be argued that MTV is simply giving airtime to the most popular acts in a given country, the counter-argument could also be made that these acts get popular simply because of the exposure that MTV gives them. More criticism has been brought heavily upon the 'Making the Video' segments where it features artists on production of music videos. Recently, when +44 had announced their special world premier of their video 'When Your Heart Stops Beating', the program was never aired, and instead replaced with AFI. Angels & Airwaves had a similar case with their premier of 'Do It For Me Now'. Many have come to speculate that MTV only airs popular artist's music videos and if given exposure is returned in ratings. In response to this contradiction, many older viewers are reminiscing about when the network did show more music videos, by poking fun at the station through Faceboook groups such as the one titled "When I was your age, MTV actually showed music videos" (gid=2214237192) Moral influence There have been some critics who have said that MTV promotes bad behavior (mainly violence, and recreational drug use) to the youth of America by embracing the behaviors of certain celebrities who are not good role models. Critics claimed MTV was like "pornography for children."* Since the early 1990s, MTV began to edit and rewrite its programs on moral behaviors to influence their audience. Characters, for example, must not exhibit underage drinking, to promote regular school attendance, to support environmental issues, and on "coolness" on being "socially responsible" for youth to take part in volunteer work in their community. There are also critics of MTV and their reality shows such as NEXT, the dating game show that involves making the daters complete various tasks and games to avoid being "Nexted" on the basis of looks. In the summer of 2005, MTV began to examine the depiction of women in their programming after women's rights groups criticized MTV for allowing misogyny in images and music videos. The channel also faced criticism in the wake of the Super Bowl XXXVIII half time show — which it produced. This infamous halftime show, which was shown on live television, featured the partial exposure of one of Janet Jackson's breasts. Afterwards, the NFL indicated that MTV would not produce future Super Bowl halftime shows or any NFL-sponsored public event. In 2006, fans of R&B singer Janet Jackson started a petition against MTV for blacklisting the video for her single "Call on Me." It was reported that the channel refused to play the video due to continued disagreements with Jackson over the 2004 Super Bowl incident. Live 8 In July 2005, MTV and VH1 drew heavy criticism for their coverage of Live 8, the multinational concert of musical artists which raised awareness for African debt relief. The broadcast of music was limited, as the network cut to its on-air personalities, celebrity interviews and commercials in the middle of live acts. VJs even referred to the event as "Live 8 2005" or "Live Aid 8" proving their lack of knowledge for the cause. The epitome of this was the widely reported decision to cut to commercial during Pink Floyd's performance in London, which was bassist Roger Waters' first performance with the rest of the band since 1981. MTV VJs came onscreen to talk during the first guitar solo in "Comfortably Numb," then cut back for a few seconds before playing a commercial. * Because of the criticism the channel received over this, both MTV and VH1 decided to air 6-hours of footage from performers the following weekend, this time without any commercial breaks or VJ interruptions. Censorship MTV also came under criticism for being far too politically correct and sensitive when it came to censorship. This was most prevalent in the eventual decline of the hit show Jackass. The creators of Jackass often felt that MTV's producers did not let the show run its free course due to the excessive restraints placed on the Jackass team. MTV's influence also affected its famous animated program, Beavis and Butt-Head. In the wake of controversy that followed a child burning down his house after allegedly watching the show, producers moved the show from its original 7 p.m. time slot to a late-night, 11 p.m. slot. Also, Beavis was no longer shown flicking a lighter and screaming the word "fire" in subsequent episodes. MTV has also heavily edited a number of music videos to remove references to drugs, sex, or weapons. Edits include, but are not limited to: MTV received a heavy load of criticism from the religious right in the 1980's and parent-media watchdog groups (such as the PMRC) over certain music videos had "graphic and sacrilegious imagery" of satanism and the devil. MTV has developed a strict policy on refusal to air videos that may depict devil worship. However, MTV have also left certain words uncensored: Usually, all ethnic and racial slurs are censored on MTV music videos and programming. MTV has emphasized racial tolerance and diversity awareness for all creeds, minorities, women, and homosexuals. Political influence After so many shots to the network about the content of programmes from left-wing activists, MTV started airing a plethora of political and economic shows that seemed to cater to the viewpoints of these groups. These shows included: "think MTV," which discusses current political issues such as gay marriage, the 2004 U.S. presidential election, and war in other countries, among other topics. The slogan of the program is "Reflect. Decide. Do." MTV aired a popular band's Sum 41 trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, documenting the conflict there. The group ended up being caught in the midst of an attack outside of the hotel and were subsequently flown out of the country (Rocked: Sum 41 in Congo). In 1992, MTV started a pro-democracy campaign called "Choose Or Lose", to encourage up to 25 million people to register to vote, and hosted a town hall forum for Bill Clinton. Other politically diverse programs include True Life, which documents people's lives and problems, and shows an epilogue of after the show was shot (True Life); MTV News Specials, which centers on very current events in both the music industry and the world; and a lot of other shows based on the current times. It covered the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, airing programs focused on the issues and opinions of young people, including a program where viewers could ask questions of Senator John Kerry on live TV (Sherman). MTV worked with P. Diddy's "Vote or Die" campaign, designed to encourage young people to vote. Allegedly, P. Diddy did not vote in the 2004 election (Vargas). In the 1990s and early 2000s, MTV promoted annual campaigns "Fight For Your Rights" and "Speak Out/Stand Up Against Violence" to bring forth awareness on America's crime, drugs and violence issues. April 6, 2001 was the only time in MTV's history that the network ceased regular programming for 24 hours as part of the year's Hate Crimes awareness campaign. On that night, MTV aired a made-for-TV movie Anatomy of a Hate Crime, based on a true story of the 1999 murder of 21-year old Matthew Shepherd, a gay college student in the town of Laramie, Wyoming. MTV also airs a series of pro-environmental ad spots entitled "Break The Addiction", as a way of encouraging their viewers to find ways to use less fossil fuels and energy. Ironically, the "addiction" phrase was first introduced by President George W. Bush, opponent to the MTV-sponsored candidate John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election. Cartoons MTV has a history of cartoons with mature themes, notably Beavis and Butt-head, and its spin-off, Daria. Few of MTV's other cartoons have been renewed for additional seasons, regardless of their reception. Cartoons produced by MTV include: MTV2 MTV Station IDs Innovative network branding identifications were created by independent animation studios like Colossal Pictures (San Francisco) *, Broadcast Arts (Washington, D.C.), and Buzzco (New York) *. The radical MTV logo was designed by tiny New York design firm Manhattan Design (Pat Gorman, Frank Olinsky, and Patty Rogoff). Alan Goodman and Fred Seibert developed the identity and promotional strategies which put MTV in the forefront of the world media industry by establishing the idea that television channels were brands. Slogans In music In television In film In Books Related Channels Trivia MTV has awarded at least three fictional characters their version of the lifetime achievement award: Godzilla, Jason Voorhees, and Chewbacca. Jason was awarded the honor in 1992. Godzilla was awarded it in 1996, and Chewbacca followed in receiving the award the following year. Godzilla is the first fully non-human fictional character to be granted the award. Chewbacca is the second. See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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