ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the origins, concept and development of Music television (MTV). It assesses the extent to which cultural diversity has confronted and constrained MTV's global aspirations using the specific example of MTV-Europe. The chapter examines MTV's experiences, the concept of globalization. The basic original format of MTV was based on that of Top 40 radio programming, with planned song rotation. The main purpose of MTV is to deliver a particular audience segment to advertisers. MTV was rated most positively in terms of being 'cool', 'novel', 'exciting', and 'amusing'. However, there was less consensus with regard to the musical balance of MTV. MTV-Europe decided to concentrate on English as its main language because it was perceived to be the most widely spoken, especially among young people. MTV-Europe has admitted that the success of the national imitators, forced it to rethink its structure and programming strategy.
