The history of MTV News

MTV’s first news broadcast, the Ten O’Clock News, was transmitted on 1 September 1981, following years of struggle to obtain the right to broadcast news. Even with rights secured, MTV’s news and current affairs operations were regulated in many ways, including permission to broadcast current affairs programming containing information from the past 24 hours being withheld until 1988 and election programming forbidden until 1991.

In a little over 25 years a strong foundation has been created for MTV News, with the department having grown from producers of one news broadcast a night to a multiple-media department providing news 24/7.