VIVA (abbreviation for: translating to "Video Exploitation Facility") was a German

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...

music television channel, first broadcast on 1 December 1993. The channel was intended to compete against

MTV Europe MTV Global (formerly as MTV Europe) is the international version of the American TV channel MTV, a 24-hour music and entertainment TV channel that began broadcasting on August 1, 1987, as part of the worldwide MTV network. Initially, MTV serve ...

and was the first German-language music TV channel, while MTV was only broadcast in English until the introduction of MTV Germany in 1997. It was also supposed to focus more on German music and pop culture while MTV only broadcast anglophone music by artists mostly from North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia. After years of competition for audience share,

MTV Networks Europe Paramount Networks Europe, Middle East, Africa & Asia (EMEAA) is a division of Paramount International Networks which is fully owned by Paramount Global. The unit's headquarters are in Berlin, with additional offices in Madrid, Lisbon, Paris, Am ...

eventually acquired VIVA on 14 January 2005 after it had outrun its own efforts for better ratings. MTV operated VIVA channels in Austria, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In June 2018, Viacom announced that it would shut down all Viva operations worldwide at the end of 2018. The channel ceased to broadcast at 14:00 on 31 December 2018, being replaced by

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programmin ...

History

Initial concept

The concept behind VIVA originated in 1992, when major record labels were frustrated by

's decision to program mostly English-language music videos to the Germanophone markets, in what was perceived as its refusal to play major German-speaking artists. Executives at US media giant Time Warner, keen on increasing their market share of its music repertoire and business in Germany, planned the new TV station in 1992. Eventually, they recruited

DoRo Productions DoRo Produktion Ges.mbH DoRo Productions is a film company based in Vienna, Austria. DoRo was named after the surnames of founders Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher. History Dolezal and Rossacher, also known as the "Torpedo Twins", first start ...

, producers of music videos for notable acts such as

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The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the g ...

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

, in the design of the music channel. Time Warner executives Tom McGrath and Peter Bogner assembled a group of record labels that included its very own Warner Music, EMI Music, Polygram Records and Sony Television along with Frank Otto, Apax Partners, and Austrian producers

Rudi Dolezal Rudi Dolezal ( sl, Doležal, born 5 February 1958) is an Austrian film producer and film director best known for his music videos. He has directed and produced videos for artists such as Tom Waits, the Rolling Stones, Frank Zappa, David Bowie, M ...

and

Hannes Rossacher Hannes Rossacher (born 16 October 1952, Steyr) is an Austrian film director and film producer. Rossacher has worked with Rudi Dolezal since 1976 in their production company DoRo Productions. His contributions to the ORF youth program "Ohne Maulko ...

. In a concept paper of Time Warner, Peter Bogner analyzed MTV's market position as vulnerable, and "while MTV is betting on a diet of pure Anglo-American video clips, VIVA should broadcast at least 40% more German music." VIVA became an immediate success with the audience, while ultimately providing German artists with a music channel that could help expose their music to the German audience.

Competing with MTV

With Dieter Gorny eventually as its second managing director on board, VIVA applied for cable carriage licenses in the various German states. DoRo Productions designed the original programming format which while clearly a music video channel, sought to differentiate itself from MTV not just by having a German-speaking voice, but by speaking directly to the differences in pop culture between Germany and the anglophone MTV. Before launching the channel, the labels offered to fund MTV in a German-speaking version but were rejected by MTV management at the time, as it espoused a "one world, one language" programming philosophy (at least for Europe since the Latin American channels used Spanish and Portuguese). On 21 March 1995, a second channel, Viva Zwei ("VIVA Two"), was created, initially a channel for classic music videos which later focused on lesser known and more independently produced music, mostly

indie Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Gaming *Independent video game development, video games created without financial backing from large companies *Indie game, any game (board ...

and

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroa ...

and alternative hip hop. However, Viva Zwei was not financially successful, so on 7 January 2002, it was replaced by VIVA Plus, a channel dedicated purely to pop and mainstream music for a younger target audience. Some Viva Zwei formats managed to continue on Viva Plus for some time though, and ''Fast Forward'' even got included in the main channel's program. VIVA Plus itself was discontinued on 14 January 2007 and got replaced by Comedy Central Deutschland the next day.

Comet Awards

Since 1995, VIVA held an annual pop music award ceremony known as the

Comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ...

. During the 2003 award ceremonies, VIVA openly expressed an anti-

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view. The awards were last held in 2011. The 2012 awards ceremony was cancelled as Viacom wanted to focus more on the MTV Europe Music Awards instead. In 2013, it got cancelled again. Although the awards were never officially canceled altogether, they weren't held ever since.

MTV's response to VIVA

After MTV introduced a German-language version of itself in 1997, the competition between the two stations increased. VIVA was widely perceived as the more mainstream-oriented channel for younger viewers, while MTV Germany was directed at youths and young adults with some edgier programming. In 2003, VIVA got bad press after it was discovered that it had given

Universal Music Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

an unfair advantage in the placement of their music videos.

MTV owner acquires VIVA

In 2004, VIVA was acquired by Viacom International, which also owns MTV, thus ending the rivalry between VIVA and MTV and making them start to cooperate instead. After the acquisition of VIVA by Viacom, MTV Germany shifted to mostly broadcasting reality and comedy shows. VIVA became the music channel with chart shows and other similar programs which were mostly directed at a mainstream audience. Viacom introduced a programming scheme that allowed the station to be run by just 40 people, making many previous employees redundant. The studios and headquarters in Cologne were closed in March 2005, from then on VIVA broadcast from the same studios as MTV Germany in Berlin. From January 2011, under a major shakeup at MTV Networks Germany, VIVA continued to be part of MTV Networks Germany's

package and the channel became the main music and entertainment brand within Germany while complemented by its sister channels MTV Germany and MTV Brand New, which then became pay TV, although in late 2017 MTV Germany was put back into free TV. VIVA Germany received a new look and on-air branding on 1 January 2011. The new look of VIVA joined the four triangles of the new logo into one triangle, putting the angle of VIVA into one heart. Starting 22 March 2011, VIVA broadcast only in 16:9. Programs produced in 4:3 were cropped to 14:9 and black bars were added left and right. VIVA HD Germany, a simulcast in

1080i 1080i (also known as Full HD or BT.709) is a combination of frame resolution and scan type. 1080i is used in high-definition television (HDTV) and high-definition video. The number "1080" refers to the number of horizontal lines on the scre ...

high-definition, launched on 16 May 2011. It was available via IPTV from Deutsche Telekom.

Discontinuation

In June 2018, Viacom announced its decision to discontinue VIVA at the end of 2018. Viacom general manager Mark Specht said in an interview that the channel is profitable, but that Viacom wants to focus on its three core brands MTV, Comedy Central and

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its networks division's Kids and Family Group. It ...

as it sees bigger growth opportunities there. The slot will be filled by

, which had already shared its slot with VIVA since 2014 and after the end of VIVA will become a 24-hour channel after so far has been only broadcast in the evening and night hours while VIVA was broadcast at daytime. On 31 December 2018 at 14:00, the channel aired its final music video, " Viva Forever", by the Spice Girls, which had also been aired when sister channel in the UK and Ireland ceased broadcast earlier in the year. Shortly after, the channel aired a farewell bumper, featuring several music artists, former hosts and other celebrities (including DJ BoBo,

Loona Loona (commonly stylized in all caps or as LOOΠΔ; ; ja, 今月の少女, Kongetsu no Shōjo, Girl of the Month) is a South Korean girl group formed by Blockberry Creative. The group was introduced to the public through a pre-debut project t ...

, Alex Christensen,

Udo Lindenberg Udo Lindenberg (born 17 May 1946) is a German singer, drummer, and composer. Career Lindenberg started his musical career as a drummer. In 1969, he founded his first band Free Orbit, and also appeared as a studio and guest musician (with Micha ...

and Oliver Pocher) saying their goodbyes. After the bumper ended, the channel aired the music video of "Zu geil für diese Welt" by

Die Fantastischen Vier Die Fantastischen Vier (, "The Fantastic Four"), often shortened to Fanta 4, is a German hip hop band from Stuttgart. The members are Michael Schmidt (Smudo), Andreas Rieke, Thomas Dürr, ''janitor''), and Michi Beck. They were, together with ...

(which was also the first music video that was aired back in 1993) and then faded into a black screen featuring the old 2002-2004 VIVA logo with the words "Rest In Peace" and "1993-2018" below. Shortly after, the channel faded to dark, followed by the startup of Comedy Central, ending 25 years of broadcast. The broadcast was "extended", as in the first seconds of Comedy Central broadcast, the station failed to switch off the VIVA logo.

Programming

* #Facebookclips * #Tweetclips * 10 Dinge, die ich an dir hasse * 180° * Alle hassen Chris * American Dad! *

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* Awkward – Mein sogenanntes Leben * Beavis and Butt-head * Blue Mountain State * Britney and Kevin: Chaotic *

Bully Beatdown ''Bully Beatdown'' is an American reality television series created by Mark Burnett which aired on MTV. In each episode, show host Jason "Mayhem" Miller challenged bullies to fight against a professional mixed martial artist for a chance to win ...

* Catfish – Verliebte im Netz * Promi-Deathmatch *

Crash Canyon ''Crash Canyon'' is a Canadian adult animated sitcom which premiered on Teletoon at Night in Canada and was distributed globally by MTV. The show was first premiered on September 18, 2011 with the final episode aired on March 3, 2013. Plot It told ...

Criss Angel Mindfreak ''Criss Angel Mindfreak'' is an American reality television series that aired on A&E from July 20, 2005, to September 8, 2010. It centers on stunts and street magic acts by magician Criss Angel Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos ( el, Χρισ� ...

* Die Pinguine aus Madasgcar * Die Ren & Stimpy Show *

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Degrassi ''Degrassi'' is a Canadian television franchise created by Kit Hood and Linda Schuyler in 1979. It is centred on a multigenerational teen drama about an ensemble cast of teenagers attending the namesake Toronto school as they navigate their ...

* Deutschstunde * Unglücksdatum * Detektiv Conan *

Drawn Together ''Drawn Together'' is an American adult animated sitcom created by Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein and premiered on Comedy Central on October 27, 2004. The series is a parody of '' The Surreal Life'' and follows the misadventures of the housemat ...

* Eure VIVA Lieblingsklicks * Family Guy * Feat. * Faust des Zen * Flash Prank *

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* Futurama * Game One * Get the Clip * Riesig * Glee *

Geordie Shore ''Geordie Shore'' is a British reality television series that was broadcast on MTV between 24 May 2011 and 22 November 2022. Based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England it was the British offshoot of the American show ''Jersey Shore''. The programm ...

* Good Morning Saturday * Good Morning Sunday *

Guy Code ''Guy Code'' is an American reality comedy television series on MTV2. The series debuted on November 15, 2011, and features various pop culture entertainers, top comics, athletes, and specialized experts who tell the story of the special code o ...

* Jungs mit Kindern * Happy End *

Happy Tree Friends ''Happy Tree Friends'' is an American adult animated web series created by Aubrey Ankrum, Rhode Montijo, and Kenn Navarro, and developed by Montijo, Navarro, and Jeremy Viet Duong for Mondo Media. The show had achieved a cult following on Mo ...

* Hollys Welt * InuYasha: Ein feudales Märchen * Ich war mal dick * Jackass * Jersey Shore *

Keeping Up with the Kardashians ''Keeping Up with the Kardashians'' (often abbreviated ''KUWTK'') is an American reality television series which focused on the personal and professional lives of the Kardashian–Jenner blended family, airing between 2007 and 2021. Its prem ...

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* Kenny gegen Spenny * Ke$ha: Mein verrücktes schönes Leben * Killer-Karaoke * Liebe oder nicht * Love Test 3 in 1 * Loveline * Made * Melissa und Joey * Mixery Massive Music * Most Wanted 2000s * MTV at the Movies *

MTV Europe Music Awards The MTV Europe Music Awards (originally named MTV European Music Awards, commonly abbreviated as MTV EMA) are awards presented by Paramount International Networks to honour artists and music in pop culture. It was originally conceived as an a ...

* MTV Home *

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* MTV Top 100 ''(previously until December 2017 as VIVA Top 100)'' *

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MTV Video Music Award The MTV Video Music Awards (commonly abbreviated as the VMAs) is an award show presented by the cable channel MTV to honour the best in the music video medium. Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards (in the video categor ...

s * MTV World Stage * Music * My Kid is Gonna Be Famous * Meine super süße Weltklasse * Mein Leben als Liz *

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* Neu * Neu um 9 * Night Sounds * Night Sounds Party ''(at weekend instead of Night sounds)'' * Nitrozirkus * O.C., Kalifornien *

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* Party, Bruder! *

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* Plain Jane * Streichelte * Versuchsgelände * Punk'd * Echte Männer von Hollywood * Retro Charts * Ridiculousness * Robot Chicken * Unhöfliches Rohr * Sailor Moon * Savage U * Scandalicious * Narben * Skins * SMS Guru *

Snooki & JWoww ''Snooki & Jwoww'' (sometimes rendered ''Snooki & JWOWW'' in print and online sources) is an American reality television series on MTV starring Nicole " Snooki" Polizzi and Jennifer " JWoww" Farley. It is the second of three spin-offs of ''Jersey ...

* Special Charts * SpongeBob Schwammkopf * Style Star * Supercharts *

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* The Hasselhoffs * Then and Now * The Pauly D Project * The Short List * Todd und das Buch des Bösen * Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronik * Ugly Americans * Undateable * Underemployed * VIVA Charts … 1 Year Ago * VIVA Charts … 5 Years Ago * VIVA Club Rotation * VIVA Comet * VIVA Fahrstuhlmusik * VIVA Live! * VIVAs Most Played Charts * VIVAs Most Wanted Charts * VIVApedia * VIVA Quiz * VIVA Sounds * VIVA Spezial * VIVA Streaming Charts * VIVA Top 20 Singlecharts * VIVA Top 40 Singlecharts * VIVA Top 100 * VIVA Wecker * Your Choice * Supercharts * South Park * Archer * WakeBrothers * Young & Married *

Zoey 101 ''Zoey 101'' is an American comedy drama television series created by Dan Schneider for Nickelodeon. It aired from January 9, 2005, to May 2, 2008. It focuses on the lives of Zoey Brooks ( Jamie Lynn Spears), her brother Dustin ( Paul Butcher), ...

Presenters

Presenters from MTV

Logos

File:VIVA Logo 1993-1998.svg, First logo used from 1 December 1993 to 19 April 1998 File:Viva2l.jpg, Redesigned first logo used from 20 April 1998 to 31 December 2001 File:Viva.svg, Logo used from 1 January 2002 to 29 August 2004 File:VIVA Logo black.svg, Logo used from 30 August 2004 to 31 December 2010. From 5 November 2007 it was shown in orange, green and blue, before then it was white. Note that from 1 December 2018 to 31 December 2018 all logo designs of Viva were shown by changing every two minutes, as a tribute to Viva due to its shut down.

VIVA in other countries

Viacom also operated VIVA channels in Austria (

VIVA Austria VIVA was an Austrian free-to-air television channel launched 2012 as the localised feed of VIVA Germany Viva may refer to: Companies and organisations * Viva (network operator), a Dominican mobile network operator * Viva Air, a Spanish airl ...

), Hungary (

VIVA Hungary VIVA Hungary was a Hungarian pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually ...

), Poland (

VIVA Polska Paramount International Networks (PIN) is the international division of Paramount Global. The division oversees the production, broadcasting and promotion of key Paramount's brands outside of the United States. These brands include Paramount Net ...

), The United Kingdom and Ireland ( Viva UK and Ireland) and Switzerland (

VIVA Switzerland VIVA Schweiz was a TV channel which timeshared with Nickelodeon Switzerland and featured music videos and quizzes. It launched on 6 September 2000. The channel served German-speaking regions in Switzerland. It closed on 31 December 2018, along wi ...

References

External links

VIVA Website for Germany, Austria and Switzerland
*
website of Viacom International Media Networks Germany
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Viva (Tv Station) 1993 establishments in Germany 2018 disestablishments in Germany Television channels and stations established in 1993 Television channels and stations disestablished in 2018 Television stations in Berlin Defunct German television channels VIVA (TV station) Music organisations based in Germany