MTV

MTV (Murr TV) was founded in 1991 by Gabriel Murr, a Lebanese businessman and politician. He is the brother of current MP and former Deputy Prime Minister Michel Elias Murr. MTV’s current CEO and chairman is Michel Gabriel Murr, Gabriel's son. The TV station was shut down in 2002 as a result of Syrian pressure and intimidation. However, the legal argument raised was that it violated article 68 of the electoral law of 1999. This article bans propaganda during the election process, which the station had been found guilty of in favor of Murr who ran for Parliament in June 2002 against his niece, Mirna Murr (daughter of former Deputy Prime Minister Michel Elias Murr and sister of then Interior Minister Elias Murr) and won. The Lebanese security forces stormed the offices, roughed up the staff and ordered them to leave the offices. The station finally reopened its doors seven years later, on April 7, 2009, two months before the 2009 parliamentary elections. It is important to note that, back in 2005, the Lebanese parliament decided to amend article 68 and reopen the station after the Syrian troupes withdrew from Lebanon and the anti-Syrian opposition coalition won a majority in Lebanon’s parliament, but the station remained closed.

In March 1995, MTV got its license under the Audiovisual Media Law and launched its local news broadcasts along with a number of political and socio-economic shows. The TV station supports the views of the March 14 Alliance (a coalition of political parties and movements that was formed after Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination or the so-called Cedar Revolution). This Alliance was named after a huge protest that gathered more than a million people in the streets of Beirut on March 14, 2005. MTV’s news director is Walid Abboud.