VIVA (Flarland)

VIVA was a Flarlandian youth entertainment channel owned by Viacom Media Networks Flarland. It launched in 2002 as The Music Factory and rebranded to its second-turned-last name in 2008, where it used until its shutdown.

Broadcasts ceased on December 31, 2018.

History

TMF

TMF launched on October 31, 2002 on the Freeview platform as well as on cable and satellite due to its must-carry status mandated by the Flarlandian government. In the run-up, MTV Networks Flarland was granted a terrestrial television license as a result of the auction of the former encrypted IBC Digital multiplexes and network to Freeview.

Upon launch, TMF's description was "TMF is designed to be a new, unique terrestrial television network that replicates the musical tastes of Flarlandians, especially the 18-35 demographic". At launch, TMF broadcast music videos, including music videos that weren't part of the MTV Flarland playlist, and it focused primarily on Flarlandian artists as well.

Nonetheless, the old TMF format failed in 2005 and decided to add programming from MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, its main brands in the country. This led to the reconversion of TMF into a terrestrial version of MTV, with a predominantly international schedule dominating the channel.

TMF rebranded in October 2007, to match some Eurectipherian MTVs by adopting animated characters as their new VJs and were used in IDs until VIVA's first stages.

VIVA

When the new look was adopted, Viacom was announcing TMF's rebrand to the VIVA brand. Initially there were speculations that VIVA was going to use the Hartungian brand, however, Viacom decided to change to a brand new logo featuring an entirely-uppercase VIVA wordmark. This was later going to be used in Nashland where it also replaced TMF and the Michillies where it launched from scratch. Programming-wise, emphasis was going to be put on more programming from its two main entertainment channels, MTV and Comedy Central.

VIVA adopted the new branding on October 25, 2008. The previous look was kept, except that the logo was changed and the character too. The character was dropped on March 1, 2010 for a look similar to the Nashlandian and Michillian feeds (VIVA replaced TMF in Nashland and VIVA launched from scratch in the Michillies).

In 2011, VIVA upgraded to 16:9. An HD feed followed on pay-TV operators.

Crisis and closure

In 2017, Viacom announced that it would divest from Freeview completely. The company said that the channel was "struggling in both finance and ratings" and that such a channel would be hard to sustain. Another reason why is due to the dropping of many MTV and Comedy Central programs from the channel not due to their cost, but due to the "changing tastes of terrestrial viewers", and that they were "blaming the Channel 14 generation", owing to Channel 14's influence on Flarlandian television. VIVA had been broadcasting a high amount of music videos, in a format similar to TMF when it launched.

In June 2018, when Viacom announced the termination of the VIVA brand, a date was yet to be selected for Flarland. It was later settled upon the international closing date, December 31, and that VIVA would shut down at noon. The last music video broadcast on VIVA was, fittingly enough, Viva Forever by the Spice Girls, played without any graphics. The VIVA on-screen bug continued past noon and was replaced by an information card from Viacom saying that "VIVA has shut down. Some of the programming formerly seen on VIVA can be found on MTV and Comedy Central", alluding to the fact that VIVA was still broadcasting programs from both channels, yet, by then, they were no longer on the schedule months before its closure.

Programming

Nick (Jr.) programming

In 2007 it started airing Nick Jr. programming that had not been cleared out by the FBC.

Starting in 2004, TMF experimented airing SpongeBob SquarePants from season 1. After MTV Flarland stopped airing reruns in April 2011, the network (already as VIVA) carried seasons 1 through 4, unlike MTV who carried season 1 and the first half of season 2.