The MTV Video Music Awards (commonly abbreviated as the VMAs) is an award show presented by the cable channel MTV to honor the best in the music video medium. Originally conceived as an alternative to the Grammy Awards (in the video category), the annual MTV Video Music Awards ceremony has often been called the Super Bowl for youth, an acknowledgment of the VMA ceremony's ability to draw millions of youth from teens to 20-somethings each year.[1] By 2001, the VMA had become a coveted award.[2]
The annual VMA ceremony occurs before the end of summer and held either in late August or mid-September, and broadcast live on MTV, along with a "roadblock" simulcast across MTV's sister networks since 2014, which is utilized to maximize the ceremony's ratings. The first VMA ceremony was held in 1984 at New York City's Radio City Music Hall. The ceremonies are normally held in either New York City or Los Angeles. However, the ceremonies have also been hosted in Miami, Las Vegas, and Newark, New Jersey.[3]
The statue given to winners is an astronaut on the Moon, one of the earliest representations of MTV, and was colloquially called a "moonman", though it has been called a "moon person" by MTV since the 2017 ceremony. The statue was conceived by Manhattan Design, who were also designers of the original MTV logo, based on the 1981 Top of the Hour animation created by Fred Seibert and produced by Alan Goodman and Buzz Potamkin at Buzzco Associates. The statue is now made by Society Awards, a New York City-based firm.[4] Since the 2006 ceremony, viewers are able to vote for their favorite videos in all general categories by visiting MTV's website.[5]