MTV Icon

MTV Icon was a series of annual television specials produced by MTV between 2001 and 2004, each paying homage to a musical artist or band selected as a cultural icon, in a format similar to the network's annual Video Music Awards and Movie Awards events. A live audience of musicians, celebrities, and fans would view a biographical film depicting the career of that year's chosen icon, interspersed by celebrity introductions and live performances of popular artists playing cover versions of the icon's songs. The iconic artist would then accept an award and perform a live set of their own at the close of the show. The series celebrated Janet Jackson in 2001, Aerosmith in 2002, Metallica in 2003, and The Cure in 2004.

2001: Janet Jackson

Pop artist Janet Jackson was selected as MTV's inaugural Icon, in an event held in Los Angeles. Performers at the ceremony included 'N Sync, Pink, Usher, Outkast, Destiny's Child, Macy Gray, Mýa, and Buckcherry. Celebrity presenters included Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Lopez, Aaliyah, Christina Aguilera, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, and record producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Jackson herself concluded the event with a performance of her hit single "All for You". The event was the highest rated television show of the night, ahead of all broadcast and cable programs among the youth demographic.
MTV decided to develop the special as an annual franchise for other artists following the event's success.

MTV Plus

MTV Plus was a digital entertainment television channel available in Greece and an Italian version also aired until it was replaced with MTV Music on March 1, 2011.

MTV Plus in Greece

The channel was launched in Greece on October 18, 2009. The launch party was held in "Vogue" Club in Thessaloniki 17 December 2009, with a guest appearance from British dance band Freemasons, as well as Greek band as C Real, Stavento and other Greek acts. MTV+ is available in Thessaloniki, in northern Greece. Its programming is similar to its sister channel MTV Greece. MTV+ utilizes MTV's current global branding. The Greek version has closed on December 12, 2011, replaced by Nickelodeon Plus.

MTV+ in Italy

The channel launched Free-to-air in Italian DTT in May 2010 and on Sky Italia on October 18, 2010. The Italian version has closed on March 1, 2011, replaced by MTV Music.

Former logos

This version was used in Greece.

This version was used in Greece.

This version was used in Italy.

This version was used in Italy.

MTV Tres

MTV Tres (stylized as tr3́s, and taken from the Spanish word for the number three, tres) is an American broadcast, digital cable and satellite television network that is owned by Viacom Music and Entertainment Group, a division of the Viacom Media Networks subsidiary of Viacom. Programming on Tr3s includes lifestyle series, customized music video playlists, news documentaries that celebrate Latino culture, music and artists, and English-subtitled programming in Spanish imported from the MTV España and MTV Latin America channels as well as Spanish-subtitled programming from MTV. The channel is targeted toward bilingual Latinos and non-Latino Americans aged 12 to 34.

The channel is headed by executive vice president and general manager Jose Tillan. As of August 2013, Tr3s is available to approximately 36 million pay television households (totaling 32% of households with television) in the United States.

History

MTV en Español

On August 1, 1998, MTV Networks launched a 24-hour digital cable channel, MTV S (the "S" standing for "Spanish"). On October 1, 2001, the channel was relaunched as MTV en Español, focusing on music videos by Latin rock and pop artists. The rebranded network mainly utilized the eight-hour automated music video playlist wheel used by sister networks MTV2, MTV Hits and MTVX (later MTV Jams) without any original programming, except for repurposed content from MTV's Latin America networks.

MTV3

MTV3 (Finnish: MTV Kolme; Swedish: MTV Tre) is a Finnish commercial television station owned by Bonnier. It had the biggest audience share of all Finnish TV channels until Finnish Broadcasting Company’s Yle TV1 took the lead. The letters MTV stand for Mainos-TV (advertisement television), due to the channel getting its revenue from running commercials. Number 3 was added later, when the channel was allocated the third nationwide television channel and it generally became known as "Channel Three" – Finnish Broadcasting Company’s Yle TV1 and Yle TV2 being the first two – and also to distinguishing it from the later MTV Finland. The channel's logo was a stylized owl, changed to an owl's eye after an image renewal in 2003. MTV3 currently has about 500 employees. It is also known as Maikkari (a slang of word "Mainos-TV").

History

MTV3 started on 13 August 1957, the first commercial television network in Finland, and one of the earliest nationwide commercial TV stations in Europe. In Finland it was preceded by the regional TES-TV commercial channel. It was originally known as MTV with programmes broadcast on the two channels of Yle. MTV was allocated its own channel after 1986, when Kolmoskanava (TV3) was born as a joint venture between Yle, MTV, and Nokia. MTV3 was born in 1993 when MTV took over the shares of TV3 from Yle and Nokia and MTV programming switched from the Yle frequencies to the TV3 transmitters. The same year MTV Oy was admitted as a full active member of the European Broadcasting Union.

Icon (Vince Gill album)

Icon is a greatest hits album by American country musician Vince Gill. It was released on August 31, 2010 by MCA Nashville, and contains select highlight songs from his career.

Track listing

Critical reception

Stephen Thomas Erlewine, in his review for Allmusic, says the album is "a very good sampler of Vince Gill's biggest hits for MCA Nashville".

Chart performance

References

Icon (Ice Cube album)

Track listing

Icon (Wetton and Downes album)

Icon is a studio album recorded and released by Asia band members John Wetton and Geoffrey Downes in 2005. It is the first in the Icon franchise (though they previously recorded in 2002 the album Wetton Downes, a precursor to the Icon series).

See also Icon II: Rubicon(2006). The third Icon album is Icon 3 (2009).

Track listing

An Icon EP was also released (on Frontiers Records), featuring selected tracks from the album, with some being remixes with orchestrations by Mike Stobbie (indicated by * below) EP Tracklist: