VIVA (abbreviation for: translating to "Video Exploitation Facility") was a German free-to-air music television channel, first broadcast on 1 December 1993. The channel was intended to compete against MTV Europe 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 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. History Initial concept The concept behind VIVA originated in 1992, when major record labels were frustrated by MTV Europe'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, producers of music videos for notable acts such as Queen, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, 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 and Hannes Rossacher of DoRo Productions. 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