MTV
This article is about the MTV television channels in general. For the German-language MTV, see MTV Germany. For other meanings, see MTV (disambiguation).
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MTV (formerly the acronym for Music Television) is an American television network based in New York City with international affiliates. It is part of the ViacomCBS media group.
MTV was launched on cable television in the United States on August 1, 1981, and was the first specialty channel at the time to focus its content exclusively on music videos. It developed 50 regional offshoots in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, North America and the Middle East. It claims to reach 481.5 million households in 179 countries.
MTV originally showed mainly music videos, but now the US and UK versions do without them completely. Other international offshoots, such as those in German-speaking countries, have often restricted them to the early morning hours and mornings. Instead, MTV now focuses on reality shows and series tailored to teenagers and young adults.
Meaning
At the beginning, MTV almost represented an art form of its own within the TV landscape, which was characterized by new formats, fast image cuts and completely new video art. MTV was a pioneer in the establishment of a global pop culture. With the advent of the Internet and video portals such as YouTube, MTV had to completely relinquish its great social significance.
In March 2018, Berliner Woche rated MTV's return to free TV a failure, saying the market share of its German offshoot MTV Germany, based in Berlin's Friedrichshain district, was barely measurable.
In the song Money for Nothing by Dire Straits, whose music video went over the airwaves for the start of MTV Europe on August 1, 1987, the lines "I want my MTV", sung by guest singer Sting, and "You play the guitar on the MTV" can be heard. The German rock band Selig penned the song Popstar, which includes the phrase with portmanteau "MTViva liebt dich" in its lyrics, and was released in 1997 as the first single from the album Blender. "Viva loves you" was long an advertising slogan of the rival TV channel Viva in the mid-1990s. In the song People Like Me by Finnish glam rock band Hanoi Rocks, released on the 2002 album Twelve Shots On The Rocks, the line occurs, "I'm the missing link, Radio and MTV, you need people like me". In the same year, 2002, the German rock band Böhse Onkelz released an anti-song against the music channel titled Keine Amnestie für MTV, on the album Dopamin. In relation to MTV's media coverage of the Frankfurt rock band's far-right past, the Böhse Onkelz felt misunderstood and misrepresented by the music channel, for these reasons the quartet composed this song.
Europe and German-speaking countries
- Main article: MTV Europe (English-language programming in Europe).
- Main article: MTV Germany (formerly MTV Central; MTV offshoot for Germany and Austria).
- Main article: MTV Switzerland (MTV offshoot for Switzerland).
