MTVThis is an American music channel based in New York, which launched 1st August 1981 with the

original aim to play music videos. I am completing a PowerPoint on MTV because it is part of the history

of music videos and how they have become so popular, also MTV has a huge influence on the music industry even with the awards ceremony known as

the VMA’s

- MTV has had a profound effect on the music industry and popular culture by popularising music videos

- There have been many debates on MTV’s morals for being based for young adults with issues of censorship for example

- Ironically, the first music video played on MTV was ‘Video killed the Radio Star’ by The Buggles and the second video was called ‘You better run’

- HBO helped MTV by occasionally playing music videos between movies and having a programme called Video Jukebox lasting for 30 minutes for the MTV launch and up until 1986

- As record companies began to recognise the potential from the MTV channel, their viewer ratings went up and more videos were seen on the channel

- However, there has been criticism that they are ignoring the importance of music but are only focused on making money

- In 1986, MTV released a new show called 120 Minutes based on alternative rock and other ‘underground’ videos

- Soon after, many stars such as Metallica, Michael Jackson and Guns N’ Roses became popular with their music video directors

- Nirvana came into MTV in the 1990’s with their songs and videos becoming globally famous and eventually a wide range of music was played on their channel

- Soon, MTV progressed towards pop music with the success of Spice Girls and the up rise in boy bands from Europe such as Take That

- On the 1st of August 2001, MTV celebrated their 20th anniversary- Recently in the summer of 2008, Pete Wentz, a band member of Fall Out Boy

hosted the newly launched programme FNMTV designed to premiere brand new music videos

The MTV awards are also called the VMA’s established at the end of the 1984 summer, designed to celebrate the best videos of the year. They have become a well respected awards ceremony. They have usually been set in either Los Angeles, Las Vegas or New York. The statue given to winners is an astronaut on the moon which represents the first launch of MTV. It brings iconic artists together to celebrate pop culture but also has changed pop culture, for example, they awarded for first black woman an award for Whitney Houston. Many stars such as Britney Spears and Madonna have gained much respect from singing and performing and the awards ceremony has always gained much publicity and is often considered as controversial sometimes.

Examples of controversy at the awards are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOHyLvRshjohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z8gCZ7zpsQ

MTV Music Awards