Viva

Viva (stylised as VIVA) was a British free-to-air music television channel owned by Viacom International Media Networks Europe. The channel launched on 26 October 2009, replacing TMF, and ceased broadcasting on 31 January 2018. History The channel was officially launched on 26 October 2009 by Alexandra Burke, with an exclusive live performance of her single "Bad Boys". The first music video to be shown on Viva was Alphabeat's "The Spell" in The Official UK Chart Show Top 20 hosted by Sarah-Jane Crawford. It originally broadcast for 24 hours a day until Noggin was removed from the schedule and its hours were reduced to 6:00am – 9:00am. It was further reduced to 3:00am – 9:00am on 1 August 2011. On 19 September 2011 the channel started broadcasting in the 16:9 picture format but the DOG was still set to the 4:3 picture format and appeared stretched; this was later fixed so it appears within the 4:3 safe zone. As with other Viacom channels, most 4:3 content has been stretched to 14:9. Viva dropped its free-to-view encryption on satellite on 19 March 2013, before launching on the free-to-air platform, Freesat, on 2 April 2013.