History of MTVBy Me

Intro.

• MTV, originally an initialism of Music Television, is an American cable television channel based in New York

City that launched on August 1st 1981. MTV now primarily broadcasts a variety of reality and scripted

television programs targeted at adolescents and young adults.

• The creator of MTV, Robert W. Pittman, who later became president and chief of MTV Networks. In the 70’s Pittman had tested the music format by hosting and producing on a show on WNBC.

The Creator.

The Beginning.• MTV launched with the words "Ladies and gentlemen,

rock and roll," spoken by John Lack, and played over footage of the first Space Shuttle launch countdown of Columbia, which took place earlier that year.

• These words were spoken by John Lack, straight after this went to the MTV opening.

• After the opening the first music video was shown, which was ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ by The Buggles.

More TV Shows.• In the late 1990s and early 2000s, MTV placed a stronger focus on

displaying reality TV shows and related series, like The Real World and Road Rules in the 1990s. Towards the late 90s MTV started to move further into shows, they began to focus on prank/ comedy shows. These included shows like The Tom Green Show and Jackass. MTV kept there musical roots by doing reality shows on the lives of musicians. The most famous one of these is the show called The Osbournes, a realty show based on the everyday life of Ozzy Osbourne and his family Sharon, Jack and Kelly Osbourne. The show became one of the networkʼs biggest success stories.

…

• In 2005 and 2006, MTV continued its focus on reality shows, with the debuts of popular shows such as 8th & Ocean, Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County, NEXT, Two-A-Days, My Super Sweet 16, and Parental Control.

• By keeping these successful show MTV have kept there younger audience by giving them things they want to watch and something they can relate to.

Larger Audience.• How has MTV used synergy and convergence to broaden

its audience base? (MTV awards/products made/TV formats sold/animations)

• MTV have developed ways to broaden their audience base for example having different MTV awards such as MTV Video Music Awards and MTV Movie Awards. This use of synergy has attracted many people in watching the shows and keep doing so.