VIVA (abbreviation for: Videoverwertungsanstalt translating to "Video Recycling Facility") was a German free-to-air music television channel, first broadcast on 1 December 1993. The channel was intended to compete against MTV Europe and was the first German-language music TV channel, while MTV was only broadcast in English until the introduction of MTV Germany in 1997. It was also supposed to focus more on German music and pop culture while MTV only broadcast anglophone music by artists mostly from North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia.