MTV (originally an initialism of Music Television) is a 24-hour American cable music video channel officially launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a division of Paramount Global.

The channel originally aired music videos and related programming as guided by television personalities known as video jockeys, or VJs. In the years since its inception, it significantly toned down its focus on music in favor of original reality programming for teenagers and young adults.

Since early 2020, MTV has devoted most of its programming schedule to select programs, primarily Ridiculousness, which in June 2020 aired "for 113 hours out of the network's entire 168-hour lineup".MTV has spawned numerous sister channels in the United States and affiliated channels internationally, some of which have since gone independent. Approximately 90.6 million households in the US received MTV as of January 2017.