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Writer's pictureBrandon Olmedo

History of MTV (Music Television)

Updated: Jun 30, 2022


MTV or Music Television is a cable television network. It was originally established in the United States in 1981 by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, a company merged by Warner Communications and American Express, but in 1985 it became the property of Viacom.



In its beginnings it was created by businessman and music producer Robert W. Pittman as a channel dedicated to music videos, this created a new concept for television, because thanks to this format viewers could see the artists, which was a great change avobe the radio.

MTV started a revolution in the music industry, where not only was music given a big boost, but also new stars were created and the people who appeared on the channel were given popularity.

MTV began its transmissions on August 1, 1981 with the video of the band The Buggles entitled "Video Killed The Radio Star".

In the 80's MTV was involved in a controversy, because basically it was "forced" to broadcast videos of people of African descent, because at first they only played music made by whites. MTV excused itself by saying that they weren't doing it because of race, but because it was what people were voting on.

In this same decade MTV began to use the photograph of the arrival of Apollo 11 on the moon, changing the United States flag for MTV's, referring to the impact that MTV was causing in the world.



This astronaut with the MTV flag became a desired figure from 1984, when the VMA (Video Music Awards) were released, which rewarded the best music videos of the year. This award was very prestigious for the artists, who aspired to be able to take home a statuette in the shape of a silver-plated astronaut.



In the 90's MTV was a sponsor of the Formula 1 team Simtek.



Over the years MTV changed so much that music became just one more section of the channel, and not its main reason, so in 2011 it decided to change its logo, eliminating the phrase "Music Television", leaving in Of course, now it wasn't just a music channel.



In 2013 MTV made a collaboration for the Video Music Awards in Brooklyn with the artist Brian Donnelly, better known as KAWS, being this an artist and designer of limited editions of toys and costumes.

The collaboration consisted of a redesign of the classic moon person statuette


In 2015, MTV made another collaboration for the redesign of the moonperson statuette; this time it was with Jeremy Scott, creative director of the fashion brand Moschino.



Finally, in 2016 MTV announced that it would reincorporate the phrase “Music Television” into the logo, thus seeking to return to its beginnings, even being able to relaunch the classic Unplugged program.



In 2019 Funko made a Pop! for the AD Icons series of the Moon Person statuette.



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