Music Channels

KERRANG! TV

Average Daily Viewers - 100,000

Average Weekly Viewers - 518,000

Launched in 2001, KERRANG! TV plays predominantly British and American 'nu metal' and 'pop-punk', with exceptions of Rock, Grunge, Rap (rarely), and a few other genres. It has frequent set playlists and video countdowns, which are often guest hosted by famous rock musicians/bands; but most of its air-time is open scheduled: operated by text request. It is part of subscription packages on all platforms, which include Sky, Smallworld Cable and Virgin Media. Their devoted audience of rock fans is made up of 60% males and 40% females with Kerrang!’s demographic fall into social class D-C. The predominate ethnicity of the readership is white British with a target population of 16-24 year olds. The magazine’s psychographic is defined as ‘people who aspire to be respected among other people and people who wish to have a high paid job.’

MTV

Average Daily Viewers - 415,000

Average Weekly Viewers - 2,179,000

On of the first and foremost music channels, it began in 1981 and played nothing but music videos. Although it originally had no set genre, only playing whatever music videos they had for whatever music was deemed popular at the time. By 1991, Nirvana led a trend of alternative music hitting the charts meaning bands like Alice in Chains, Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden received a vast amount of air-time. Subsequently, grunge and alternative rock had a rise in mainstream tastes,  and was soon followed by Pop/Skate-Punk like Green Day, The Offspring and Blink-182. By the turn of the millennium, however, the demand for rock acts was on the decline and MTV began airing Electronica and Pop more and more frequently, alongside reality TV and youth-targeted comedy which has now taken over. MTV now has seperate channels for the playing of Music Videos. According to MTV's own research, 54% of its audience is in the 12 to 24 age group. This group watches MTV an average of a half an hour to two hours a day.

SMASH HITS

Average Daily Viewers - 139,000

Average Weekly Viewers - 756,000

SMASH HITS! is a commercial british channel owned by Box Television (who also own KERRANG! and 4Music). The channel plays generic pop in various shows - like Chartbusters, which plays current chart music; along with 'pop classics' in shows like POP DOMINATION; and the occasional countdown show (So and So's TOP 10!). It earns a large amount of money by taking requests given by viewers via a premium rate number. The target audience is the mainstream, as shown by its focus on Pop Music. However, unlike channels like MTV and Viva, this channel focusses on the younger regions of this audience - which can be seen by the bright, bold colours used in the logo and the focus on less sexually orientated pop music videos.

VIVA

Average Daily Viewers - 885,000

Average Weekly Viewers - 3,987,000

Initially started by an independent company based in Germany as a middle finger to the likes of MTV. Ironically, VIVA was later bought out by MTV and distributed across Europe, finally landing in the UK and Ireland in 2009, replacing TMF. VIVA (UK & Ireland) has its own unique logo and broadcasts not only the usual music channel staple of countdowns and charts shows, but teen-favourite TV shows like 16 and pregnant, South Park and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

GREATEST HITS TV

Average Daily Viewers - 70,000

Average Weekly Viewers - 361,000

The channel launched on 29 March 2010 on Sky channel 378 as Lava. Lava specialised in the Indie and rock music genres. Lava's remit was to provide a platform for young rock, pop punk and indie musicians, and features young unsigned music acts from around the United Kingdom. Lavas format allowed viewers to decide on the station's playlist through the use of a voting system which enables viewers to watch the videos they want to see. On 26 April 2011, Lava was rebranded as Greatest Hits TV.