Music Channels

Music television (including music channels) is a type of television programming which focuses predominantly on playing music videos for their viewers. These music videos can be by a range of different artists and bands. The channels are also normally shown on satellite and cable and may also host their own award shows or chart shows. Some music channels include MTV, 4music and VIVA.

The first music channel was MTV which started in August, 1981 which now has many sister channels in the US and affiliated channels internationally. Since MTV, many other television companies have followed it’s lead and produced their own music channels...

Introduction

Probably the most famous and well-known music channel in the world Is MTV with nearly 100,000,000 American households receiving the channel!

It was launched in America and is a basic cable and satellite television channel owned by the MTV Networks Music & Logo Group (all part of Viacom).

It’s initially purpose was to play music videos guided by television personalities however nowadays, the channels includes a variety of programmes such as documentaries and reality TV shows.

The target audience of the channel has also changed over the years – at first, MTV was aimed at young adults however now it is typically aimed at teenagers.

Although some of the shows shown on MTV today seem controversial, the channel has edited many music videos in the past to remove references to drugs, sex etc.

MTV

4music channel is one of the main music channels in the United Kingdom.

Compared to MTV, it launched much later in August 2008 replacing The Hits music channel.

It is also the only channel 4 branded channel within the Box Television network.

Like MTV, it also has many sister channels including 4seven, Channel 4, Film4, E4 and More4.

Many of 4music’s programmes include chart shows like ‘Today’s 4Music Top 10’, ‘Fresh Music Top 20’ and ‘Your Official Top 20’.

As well as chart shows, 4Music includes programmes where they interview various artists to promote their new music.

4Music

Viva is one of the newest music channels and was launched in October 2009 by Alexandra Burke with an exclusive performance of her new single ‘Bad Boys’.

Like 4Music, Viva also replaced another channel called TMF and is owned by Viacom.

Viva was also originally a German channel. Viva is also similar to MTV, in the sense it shows many other

programmes including reality TV shows and dramas such as ‘The Hills’, ‘Pretty Little Liars’ and ‘My Super Sweet 16’ – many of which are shown on MTV as well.

It is also the first channel from MTV that is on Freeview. Viva now runs across Europe in Austria, Germany, Hungary,

Ireland, Poland, Switzerland and the UK.

Viva

Other music channels including Kerrang TV are loosely connected to magazines. Clearly the music channel Kerrang TV is linked to Kerrang magazine.

The music channel shows music videos which are normally requested by viewers via text.

The TV station's playlist is mainly nu metal and pop punk, although there are sometimes exceptions.

Certain acts get played more often due to more requests (these include Tenacious D and Limp Bizkit).

More interestingly, the station unusually guarantees to play a requested video, unlike others where a voting system is in place. However, it may take some time for the video to be played.

This channel is also shown on Freeview online, satellite and cable.

Kerrang TV!