VIVA (German TV channel)

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VIVA

Country	Germany
Broadcast area	Germany
Headquarters	1993–2005 Cologne 2005–2018 Berlin, Germany
Programming
Language(s)	German
Picture format	1080i HDTV (downscaled to 16:9 576i for the SDTV feed)
Ownership
Owner	Viacom International Media Networks Europe
Sister channels	MTV MTV Brand New Comedy Central Nickelodeon Nicktoons Nick Jr.
History
Launched	1 December 1993; 30 years ago (1993-12-01)
Closed	31 December 2018; 5 years ago (2018-12-31)[1]
Replaced by	Comedy Central (Germany)
Links
Website	viva.tv (now redirected to mtv.de)

VIVA (abbreviation for: Videoverwertungsanstalt translating to "Video Exploitation Facility")^[2] was a German free-to-air music television channel, first broadcast on December 1, 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 primarily from North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia.

After years of competition for audience share, MTV Networks Europe eventually acquired VIVA on January 14, 2005, after it had exhausted its own efforts for superior 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 that year.

The channel ceased to broadcast at 14:00 on 31 December 2018, being replaced by Comedy Central.