MTV

MTV (formerly an initialism of Music Television) is an American basic cable and satellite television channel which is a part of the "Viacom Music and Entertainment Group" unit of the Viacom Media Networks division of Viacom, of which it is a subsidiary. The channel itself is headquartered in New York City. Launched on August 1, 1981, the original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by television personalities known as "video jockeys," or VJs. The network's current target audience is teenagers and young adults, with programming consisting mainly of original reality, comedy and drama programming and some off-network syndicated programs and films, along with limited music video programming in off-peak time periods. In its early years, MTV's main target demographic were young adults, but today, MTV's programming is primarily targeted at teenagers, high school students and college-aged students.

MTV has spawned numerous sister channels in the U.S. and affiliated channels internationally, some of which have gone independent. MTV's influence on its audience, including issues related to censorship and social activism, has been a subject of debate for years.

MTV Video Music Award

An MTV Video Music Award (commonly abbreviated as a VMA) is an award presented by the cable channel MTV to honor the best in the music video medium. Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards (in the video category), the annual MTV Video Music Awards ceremony has often been called the "Super Bowl for youth", an acknowledgment of the VMA ceremony's ability to draw millions of youth from teens to 20-somethings each year. By 2001, the VMA had become a coveted award. The statue given to winners is an astronaut on the moon, one of the earliest representations of MTV, and colloquially called a "moonman". The statue was conceived by Manhattan Design—also designers of the original MTV logo—based on the 1981 "Top of the Hour" animation created by Fred Seibert, produced by Alan Goodman, and produced by Buzz Potamkin at Buzzco Associates. The statue is now made by New York firm, Society Awards. Since the 2006 ceremony, viewers are able to vote for their favorite videos in all general categories by visiting MTV's website.

Atari Video Music

The Atari Video Music (Model C240) is the earliest commercial electronic music visualizer released. It was manufactured by Atari, Inc., and released in 1976. The system creates an animated visual display that responds to musical input from a Hi-Fi stereo system for the visual entertainment of consumers.

Overview

By interpreting an input musical waveform, the Video Music translates the levels of musical intensity and mellowness into colors and shapes that are output to a graphical display. The console is attached to an audio source and then operated by an adhesive-backed switch box that is glued to the back of a television display. Audio signal visualizations take the basic form of a two-part diamond. The outer part represents the left audio channel while the right channel is represented by the inner part. Varying colors and shapes provide a wide variety of patters, designs, and images depending on the audio sample played.

After the unit is powered on, a toggle switch may be used to select between "TV" (music visualization inactive), and "Game" (music visualization active). When in the "Game" position, visual data is broadcast on VHF channel 3 by default, but may be set to channel 4. Unlike Atari's previous video game systems, the Video Music system's switch box featured a 75 Ohm pass-through F connector allowing the television antenna or cable to remain attached and thereby eliminating the tiresome process of detaching and reattaching the cable every time the user switched from watching normal television broadcasts to using the visualizer. Any audio source may be used for visualization including Atari's video game system audio, and visualizations can either be watched "live" on a television screen or recorded on a VCR by using a balun converter.

MTV News

MTV News is the news production division of MTV. The service is available in the US with localized versions on MTV's global network. In February 2016, MTV Networks confirmed it would refresh the MTV News brand in 2016, to compete with the likes of BuzzFeed and Vice.

MTV News content is available from respective MTV websites, Apps, YouTube and on-air.

History

MTV News began in the late 1980s with the program The Week In Rock, hosted by Kurt Loder, the first official MTV News correspondent. Since 1990, the opening riff to Megadeth's "Peace Sells" has been the main opening theme for The Week In Rock.

It first began covering political news in the 1992 American presidential elections, through its "Choose or Lose" campaign. Since then, MTV has run "Choose or Lose" for other presidential elections in the United States. For the 2008 election, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appeared on an MTV special to discuss the Iraq war.

MTV News in the U.S.

Current correspondents

Former correspondents

Vmas

Vmas is a Spanish-language network.