Everything about Mtv Com totally explained
MTV (
Music Television) is an
American cable television network based in
New York City. Launched on
August 1,
1981, the original purpose of the channel was to play
music videos. Today, MTV plays a limited selection of music videos but primarily broadcasts a variety of
pop culture,
youth culture, and
reality television shows aimed at
adolescents and
young adults.
Since its premiere, MTV has revolutionized the
music industry. Slogans such as "I want my MTV" became embedded in public thought, the concept of the
VJ (video jockey) was popularized, the idea of a dedicated
video-based outlet for music was introduced, and both
artists and
fans found a central location for
music events,
news, and
promotion. MTV has also been referenced countless times by
musicians, other
TV channels and
shows,
films and
books.
MTV has spawned a handful of
sister channels in the U.S. and dozens of affiliated international channels around the world. MTV's moral influence on young people, including examples of
censorship and
social activism on the channel, has been the subject of debate for years. MTV's choice to focus on non-music programming has also been contested relentlessly, demonstrating the channel's continued impact on
popular culture.
The launch of MTV
Previous concepts
MTV's pre-history began in 1969, when Warner Cable (a division of Warner Communications, and an ancestor of
WASEC, Warner Satellite Entertainment Company) launched the first two-way
interactive cable TV system,
Qube, in
Columbus, Ohio.
The Qube system offered many specialized channels, including a children's channel called
Pinwheel which would later become
Nickelodeon. One of these specialized channels was
Sight On Sound, a music channel that featured concert footage and music oriented TV programs; with the interactive Qube service, viewers could vote for their favorite songs and artists.
Robert 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. Pittman's boss,
WASEC COO John Lack, had shepherded 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.
In the book
The Mason Williams FCC Rapport, author
Mason Williams states that he pitched an idea to CBS for a TV show that featured "video-radio" where disc jockeys would play avant-guarde art set to music on the air. CBS quashed the idea, but Williams premiered his own musical composition "
Classical Gas" on the
Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, where he was head writer. The book in which this claim is made was first published in 1971, ten years before MTV first came on the air.
HBO also had a 30 minute program of music videos, called
Video Jukebox, that first aired around the time of MTV's launch and would last until late 1986. Also around this time, HBO would occasionally play one or a few music videos between movies.
SuperStation WTBS launched
Night Tracks on
June 3,
1983, with up to 14 hours of music video airplay each late night weekend by 1985. Its most noticeable difference was that
black artists received airplay that MTV initially ignored. The program ran until the end of May 1992. Shortly thereafter,
NBC launched its music video program called
Friday Night Videos which was considered network television's answer to MTV. It ran from 1983 to 2002.
A few markets also launched music-only channels; most notably Las Vegas'
KVMY Channel 21, which debuted in the summer of 1984 as KRLR-TV
Vusic 21. The first video played on that channel was Michael Jackson's
Thriller.
Music Television debuts
On
August 1,
1981, at 12:01 a.m., MTV: Music Television launched with the words
"Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll," spoken by original COO
John Lack. Those words were immediately followed by 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 Alan Goodman and
Fred Seibert used this
public domain footage as a conceit, associating MTV with the most famous moment in world television history.
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". Sporadically, the screen would go black when an employee at MTV inserted a tape into a
VCR.
MTV's early days
Personalities and format
The early format of MTV was modeled after
top 40 radio. Fresh-faced young men and women were hired to host the network'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 died in 2004) became hosts on
Sirius Satellite Radio.
The early music videos that made up the bulk of MTV'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.
A large number of rock bands and performers of the 1980s were made popular by MTV. Such acts ranged from
new wave bands as
The Police,
Adam Ant,
The Cars,
Eurythmics,
Culture Club,
The Fixx,
Split Enz,
Ultravox and
Duran Duran to
hard rock or
heavy metal bands like
Van Halen,
RATT,
Def Leppard,
Prince, and
Bon Jovi. The network also rotated the videos of
"Weird Al" Yankovic, who made a career out of parodying other artists' videos.
Also, MTV played some
classic rock acts from the 1980s and earlier decades including
David Bowie,
Journey,
John Mellencamp,
Billy Joel,
Rolling Stones,
Rod Stewart and
ZZ Top and forgotten acts such as
Michael Stanley Band,
Shoes,
Blotto and
Will Powers. The hard rock band
Kiss publicly appeared without their trademark makeup for the first time on MTV in 1983.
Madonna rose to fame on MTV in the 1980s. Madonna is one of the most successful video performers in MTV history, and to this day she uses MTV to market her music.
Michael Jackson
MTV put
Michael Jackson's videos in heavy rotation throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Before then, Jackson struggled to get MTV airing because he was black. To change this,
CBS Records President
Walter Yetnikoff denounced MTV, saying "I'm pulling everything we've off the air" and "I'm not going to give you any more videos. And I'm going to go public and fucking tell them about the fact you don’t want to play music by a black guy".
According to
The Austin Chronicle, Jackson's video for the song "
Billie Jean" was "the video that broke the color barrier, even though the channel itself was responsible for erecting that barrier in the first place." When the 14-minute-long "Thriller" video aired in December 1983, MTV ran it up to twice an hour to meet demand. MTV, a struggling cable channel, became huge. Jackson's videos were credited to this success and MTV's focus switched from
rock to pop and R&B. This helped other black artists such as
Prince and
Whitney Houston break into heavy rotation during the same time.
Award shows
MTV Video Music Awards show, or VMAs. Perceived by some as a fit of self-indulgence by a fledgling network at the time, the VMAs developed into a music-industry showcase marketed as a more relevant youth-targeted antidote to the
Grammy awards. The first award show, in 1984, was punctuated by a live performance by
Madonna of "
Like A Virgin." In 1992, the channel would add the
MTV Movie Awards with similar success.
MTV also created an award show for
Europe after the success of the VMAs. The
MTV Europe Music Awards, or the EMAs, were created in 1994, ten years after the debut of the VMAs. The EMAs are not shown live in the United States. A condensed, edited version of the broadcast is usually shown on MTV about two weeks after the original airing in Europe, and then the full version is shown on MTV's sister channel,
MTV2.
MTV comes of age
Format evolution
In 1985, Viacom bought Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, which owned MTV and Nickelodeon, renaming the company MTV Networks. Within a few years, music videos were no longer the center-piece of the programming. Conventional 'TV shows' would soon replace VJ-format music video programming. Before 1987, MTV featured almost exclusively music videos, but as time passed they introduced a variety of other shows, including some that were originally intended for other channels.
MTV introduced
120 Minutes in 1986, a show that would feature low-rotation,
alternative music videos for the next 17 years. Another after hours show was added in 1987,
Headbangers Ball. This popular show featured heavy metal music and news regarding metal music. Before its abrupt cancellation in 1995, it featured several hosts, notably
Riki Rachtman and
Adam Curry. Headbangers Ball remains an iconic identifier of heavy metal music. In 1988, MTV debuted
Yo! MTV Raps, a hip-hop/rap formatted program. The program continued until August 1995. It was renamed to simply
Yo! and played for one hour from 1995 until 1999.
Non-music video programming began in the late 1980s with the introduction of a music news show
The Week in Rock, which was also the beginning of MTV's news division,
MTV News. Around this time, MTV also introduced a dance show
Club MTV, a game show
Remote Control, and music-based specials such as
MTV Unplugged, an acoustic performance show.
These new shows would be just the beginning of new genres of shows to impact MTV. As the format of the network continued to evolve, more genres of shows began to appear. In the early 1990s, MTV debuted its first
reality shows,
The Real World and
Road Rules.
Animated shows
» Further information: List of MTV shows: Animation
In a continuing bid to become a more diverse network, focusing on youth and culture, as well as music, MTV introduced animated shows to its line-up in the early 1990s. The animation showcase
Liquid Television (originally a BBC import, later acquired and produced by MTV) was one of the networks first programs to focus on the medium. In addition to airing original shows created specifically for MTV, the network also occasionally aired episodes of original cartoon series created by sister-station
Nickelodeon (
Nicktoons) in the early 1990s. MTV has a history of cartoons with mature themes, notably
Beavis and Butthead,
Æon Flux,
Grimmy,
Celebrity Deathmatch, and
Daria. Although the channel has gone on to debut many other animated shows, few of MTV's other cartoon series have been renewed for additional seasons, regardless of their reception.
Variety of programming
By the second half of the 1990s, MTV's programming consisted primarily of non-music shows. In 1997, MTV was being heavily criticized for not playing as many music videos as it had in the past. In response, MTV created four shows that centered around music videos:
MTV Live,
Total Request,
Say What?, and
12 Angry Viewers. Also at this time, MTV introduced its new studios in
Times Square.
A year later, in 1998, MTV merged
Total Request and
MTV Live into a live daily top ten countdown show,
Total Request Live, which would become the channel's unofficial
flagship program. In 1999, MTV shifted its focus to prank/comedic shows such as
The Tom Green Show,
Jackass, and
Punk'd; and soap operas such as
Undressed.
The network also was selected to produce the halftime show for
Super Bowl XXXV in
Tampa, Florida, in which the bands
NSYNC and
Aerosmith performed. On
September 11, 2001, when the attacks on the World Trade Center occurred, MTV (along with sister cable channel VH1) suspended all of its programming and went into a simulcast of then-sister network
CBS' news coverage of the events until 11:00 pm that night. The network later joined a plethora of other broadcast media that took part in a Celebrity Telethon to benefit the 9/11 victims.
MTV in recent years
Reality shows
» Further information: List of MTV shows: Reality series
In the early 2000s, MTV placed a stronger focus on
reality shows, building on the success of
The Real World and
Road Rules in the 1990s. MTV continued to play some music videos instead of relegating them exclusively to its
sister channels, but around this time, the channel began to air music videos only in the early morning hours or in a condensed form on
Total Request Live. As a result of these programming changes over the next several years,
Justin Timberlake challenged MTV to "play more damn videos" while giving an acceptance speech at the
2007 Video Music Awards.
MTV's Fear, created by
Martin Kunert and
Eric Manes, became the first 'scare' based reality show and the first reality show in which contestants filmed themselves. The show ran for three seasons and spawned numerous imitations, such as
Scare Tactics.
Some of the reality shows on the network also followed the lives of musicians.
The Osbournes, a reality show based on the everyday life of former
Black Sabbath frontman
Ozzy Osbourne, his wife
Sharon, and two of their children,
Jack and
Kelly, premiered on MTV in 2002. The show went on to become one of the network's biggest-ever success stories and was also recognized for the heavy use of bleeped profanity by the Osbourne family members. It also kick-started a musical career for
Kelly Osbourne, while
Sharon Osbourne went on to host her own
self-titled talk show on U.S. television. Ozzy Osbourne announced that production for his show would cease in November 2004. Another such show was, another popular reality TV show that follows the lives of pop singers
Jessica Simpson and
Nick Lachey, a music celebrity couple, began airing. It ran for four seasons and ended in early 2005 and they later 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; the show hosted competitions between bands vying to play in Ozzfest, a yearly
heavy metal music tour hosted by Osbourne.
In 2007, MTV aired the reality show
A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, chronicling
MySpace sensation
Tila Tequila's journey to find a companion. Her bisexuality played into the series—both male and female contestants were vying for love—and was the subject of criticism. It was the second-most popular show at that time, behind
The Hills. A spin-off series from
Shot of Love,
That's Amoré!, followed a similar pursuit from previous
Shot at Love contestant Domenico Nesci. MTV will also welcome
Paris Hilton to their lineup in
October 2008 with the launch of her new reality series
My New BFF.
Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show
MTV also produced the halftime show for
Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004, with performances by such artists as
Nelly,
P. Diddy,
Janet Jackson, and
Justin Timberlake.
CBS, then-owners of MTV, aired the Super Bowl as well as the halftime show live on
February 1,
2004. However, the show became controversial after Timberlake tore off part of Jackson's outfit while performing his hit song "
Rock Your Body" with her, revealing her right
nipple. All involved parties apologized for the incident, and Timberlake referred to the incident as a "
wardrobe malfunction".
Michael Powell, then-chairman of the
Federal Communications Commission, ordered an investigation of the show the day after its broadcast. In September 2004, the FCC ruled that the halftime show was indecent and fined CBS $550,000. The FCC upheld its decision in early 2006.
In the weeks following the controversial halftime show, MTV censored much of its programming. Several music videos, including "This Love" by
Maroon 5 and "I Miss You" by
blink-182, were edited for sexual content. Exactly one year after the halftime show, the
Parents Television Council released a research report documenting sex, violence, and profanity it perceived on MTV's spring break programming from March 2004. Jeanette Kedas, an MTV network executive, called the PTC report "unfair and inaccurate" and "underestimating young people's intellect and level of sophistication", while
L. Brent Bozell III, then-president of the PTC, stated that "[t]he incessant sleaze on MTV presents the most compelling case yet for consumer cable choice", referring to the practice of cable and satellite companies to allow consumers to pick and choose the channels for which they pay.
Anniversaries
On
August 1,
2006, MTV celebrated its 25th anniversary. On their web site, MTV.com, visitors could watch 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. The introduction of the first five VJs was also shown.
Additionally, MTV.com put together a "yearbook" consisting of the greatest videos of each year from 1981-2006. Along with that, music.mtv.com offered a special online viewing of the top music video of each year since 1981. MTV itself only mentioned the anniversary once on
TRL. The main highlight of the day on the channel was
The Real World.
Current trends
In 2005 and 2006, MTV continued its focus on reality shows, with the debuts of popular shows such as
8th & Ocean,,
NEXT,
Two-A-Days,
My Super Sweet 16, and
Parental Control. In addition, in recent times, the channel has re-aired other programs from
Viacom-owned TV networks, such as
BET's
College Hill and
VH1 programs
I Love New York and
Flavor of Love. Other programs from non-Viacom networks include reruns of the shows
Fastlane (from
FOX),
Life As We Know It (from
ABC) and
CW programs
America's Next Top Model,
Beauty and the Geek, and
Hidden Palms.
MTV has also begun showing
movies targeted toward the teen/young adult demographic on Friday evenings, including
My Boss's Daughter,
Shaun of the Dead, and
Napoleon Dynamite. The channel has also broadcast several of its own productions of its film-producing division
MTV Films, such as
8 Mile,
Crossroads,, and .
Today, MTV's main source of music video programming is still
Total Request Live, airing four times per week, featuring short clips of music videos along with VJs and daily guests. A
hip-hop music video show,
Sucker Free, also airs sporadically. Throughout each day, MTV shows excerpts from
music videos, usually the
hook, in
split screen format during the
closing credits, along with the web address of the MTV web site to encourage the viewer to watch the complete video online. On most days, music video rotation continues in the early morning hours.
Social activism
MTV has a long history of promoting social, political, and environmental
activism in young people.
In 1992, MTV started a pro-democracy campaign called
Choose or Lose, to encourage up to 20 million people to register to vote, and hosted a town hall forum for
Bill Clinton. In the 1990s and early 2000s, MTV promoted annual campaigns known as
Fight For Your Rights, with the slogan "Speak Out/Stand Up Against Violence", to bring forth awareness on America's crime, drugs and violence issues.
On
April 6,
2001, MTV voluntarily 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 1998 murder of 21-year old
Matthew Shepard, a gay college student. After the film and a discussion, MTV went dark and showed names of hate crime victims.
MTV also aired a documentary covering a trip by the musical group
Sum 41 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.
In recent years, other politically diverse programs on MTV have included
True Life, which documents people's lives and problems, and
MTV News specials, which center on very current events in both the music industry and the world. One special show 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. MTV worked with
P. Diddy's "
Vote or Die" campaign, designed to encourage young people to vote.
MTV's most recent activism campaign is
think MTV, which discusses current political issues such as
same-sex marriage, U.S.
elections, and war in other countries. The
slogan of the program is "Reflect. Decide. Do." As part of
think MTV, the channel also airs a series of pro-conservation ads called
Break The Addiction, as a way of encouraging their viewers to find ways to use less
fossil fuels and energy.
Criticism and censorship
Criticism of MTV
As early as 1984, because of its visibility as a promotional tool for the
recording industry, MTV was accused of devaluing the importance of music in the
music industry, replacing it with a purely visual aesthetic, and putting equally popular but less image-centric or single-based acts at a distinct disadvantage. Since then, MTV has been criticized over the years by various groups about programming choices, social issues, and a perceived negative moral influence on young people.
Censorship on MTV
On the other side of the moral influence debate, MTV has also come under criticism for being too
politically correct and sensitive,
censoring too much of their programming. Many of MTV's shows were altered or removed from the channel's schedule. Additionally, many music videos aired on the channel were censored, moved to late-night rotation, or banned entirely from the channel.
Beyond MTV
Sister channels in the U.S.
MTV operates a group of channels under the name
MTV Networks, a division of its corporate parent,
Viacom. In 1985, MTV saw the introduction of its first true sister channel,
VH1, which was originally an acronym for "Video Hits One" and was designed to play
adult contemporary music videos. Today, VH1 is aimed at celebrity and popular culture programming. Another sister channel,
CMT, targets the
country music and
southern culture market.
The advent of
satellite television and
digital cable brought MTV greater channel diversity, including its current sister channels
MTV2 and
MTV Tr3s, which initially played music videos exclusively but now focus on other programming. Music videos still occupy most of the schedule on two additional channels,
MTV Hits and
MTV Jams. MTV also broadcasts
mtvU, a
college-oriented channel on campus at various
universities.
Recently, MTV Networks launched
MHD (Music: High Definition), a
high definition channel that features programming from all three of the major music-themed channels owned by MTV Networks: MTV, VH1, and CMT.
In 2005 and 2006, MTV launched a series of channels for
Asian Americans. The first channel was
MTV Desi, launched in July 2005, dedicated toward South-Asian Americans. Next was
MTV Chi, in December 2005, which catered to Chinese Americans. The third was
MTV K, launched in June 2006 and targeted toward Korean Americans. Each of these channels featured music videos and shows from MTV's international affiliates as well as original U.S. programming, promos, and packaging. All three of these channels ceased broadcasting on
April 30,
2007.
The Internet
MTV.com, the official website of MTV, expands on the channel's broadcasts by bringing additional content to its viewers. The site's notable features include an online version of MTV News, podcasts, and a video streaming service supported by commercials. There are also movie features, profiles and interviews with recording artists and even clips from MTV television programs. In 2006, MTV.com went through a massive change, transforming the entire site into a video-based entity, in the style of the former MTV Overdrive service. In 2007, MTV.com reverted to a traditional
HTML-based web site design.
MTV around the world
MTV (UK) operates 16 channels solely in the
United Kingdom.
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 Greece,
MTV Canada,
MTV Ireland,
MTV Russia,
MTV Spain,
MTV Austria,
MTV France,
MTV Germany,
MTV Europe,
MTV Portugal,
MTV Adria,
MTV Hungary,
MTV Denmark,
MTV Finland,
MTV Italy,
MTV Netherlands,
MTV Norway,
MTV Poland,
MTV Arabia,
MTV Romania,
MTV Lithuania,
MTV Latvia,
MTV Estonia,
MTV Sweden,
MTV Asia,
MTV Japan,
MTV Indonesia,
MTV China,
MTV Korea,
MTV Philippines,
MTV Taiwan,
MTV Turkey,
MTV Pakistan,
MTV India,
MTV Latin America,
MTV Brazil,
MTV Australia,
MTV New Zealand,
MTV Ukraine, and
MTV Base in Africa. Also an International version of MTV known as
MTV International was shown on the Internet.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Mtv Com'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://mtv.totallyexplained.com">MTV Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
