MTV Announces Host, Nominees, and Performers for the 2005 Video Music Awards

MIAMI, July 25 /PRNewswire/ -- MTV: Music Television today announced the nominees for the "2005 MTV Video Music Awards." Green Day topped the list with eight nominations, six nods for "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and two for "American Idiot." Gwen Stefani and Missy Elliott follow with six nods each and U2 nabbed five nominations. The 2005 VMAs will broadcast live from American Airlines Arena in Miami, FL on Sunday, August 28, 2005 at 8:00PM (LIVE ET/Tape Delayed PT).

It was also announced that multifaceted entertainment powerhouse Diddy will host the 22nd annual awards show. In addition, Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, and Green Day have been announced to perform. Hip-hop master West will debut a single from his highly anticipated sophomore album, "Late Registration." Pop superstar Clarkson will perform a song from her multi-platinum album, "Breakaway." Top nominee Green Day will perform a single from their multi-platinum album, "American Idiot." This is the first in a rapidly growing list of performers and celebrity guests to be announced for the star-studded event. Also, for first-time, the VMAs will be scored with original music composed by hip-hop superstar producer Lil Jon and producer Mike Shinoda, of 3x VMA winner Linkin Park, whose side project "Fort Minor" is being released this winter. Viewers will get a chance to download the original music as ringtones exclusively on *MTV on their Virgin Mobile phones.

Some key elements of the show were also teased today. With water as an underlying theme, the most massive and elaborate water effects ever produced in an awards show will be engineered in the arena by the same production company that erected the fountain in front of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. Also, there will be live performances staged at remote locations to showcase key locales around Miami. In the center of the arena, five performance stages will be built and will be surrounded by over 1000 audience members made up of South Floridians. A limited number of tickets to the VMAs will go on sale to the public sometime in August. Comcast Cable will be promoting the one-day only ticket sales opportunity. More information will be available on Comcast Cable for more details or by visiting VMAINFO.MTV.COM.

Similar to last year, celebrities will arrive in their extravagant yachts, and will also pull up in their personally owned tricked out cars staging the first ever car show extravaganza on the red carpet. As the celebrities arrive, viewers will get tours of these cars from the talent themselves. The pre-show has been extended to two hours to fit in all the anticipated action. Moreover, the VMAs will be presented on multiple MTV platforms this year giving viewers new ways to experience the show. Exclusively through MTV Overdrive, the network's hybrid broadband channel, MTV viewers will have unprecedented access to the VMAs, beyond the TV screen. More details on all of the above will be announced in the coming weeks.

"Every year we have to out do ourselves and this year is no exception - the VMAs will be experienced in more places and on more platforms than ever before in our history," said Christina Norman, President of MTV. "Between Diddy, who is the ultimate showman & entertainer, and the diverse roster of performers already locked in, this show is already shaping up to be an unforgettable end of summer bash."

Ballots for "2005 MTV Video Music Awards" were sent out to an exclusive industry group and viewers who determined the nominees for the telecast. Approximately 500 viewers and individuals including record labels, music journalists and video producers selected the nominees for awards categories encompassing wide-ranging contemporary music forms rap, dance, R&B and rock.

MTV.com will be the ultimate online stop for the latest VMA news and exclusive content. Viewers get to choose nominees in the "Viewer's Choice Videodome" daily head-to-head matchups. Each week, viewers via MTV.com will keep artists in play via head-to-head video battles until one video is named official nominee at the end of the week. Green Day's "American Idiot" and Snoop Dogg's (featuring Pharrell) "Drop It Like It's Hot" are the first two official Viewer's Choice nominees. An official nominee is named at the end of which week until August 15th, when the final five Viewer's Choice nominee spots will be filled. Viewers will then be able to cast votes amongst those five final music videos right up until moments before the winner will be announced. In addition, MTV2 viewers get to flex their fan power by determining the winner of the MTV2 Award exclusively at mtv.com. Voting for MTV2 Award will begin on July 25th. Voting for the final five nominees for Viewer's Choice will start on August 15th. New this year, MTV.com will be offering a turbo mode of voting through online game play for both Viewer's Choice and MTV2 Awards. Game play voting for both awards will start on August 15th.

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP is the official business advisor of the "2005 MTV Video Music Awards."

Salli Frattini and Dave Sirulnick are the Executive Producers for the "2005 MTV Video Music Awards." Michael Dempsey is Producer and Summer Strauch is Co-Producer. Beth McCarthy-Miller is Director. Kathy Flynn is Event Producer.

  Following are the nominees for the "2005 MTV Video Music Awards":

                            GENERAL CATEGORIES

VIDEO OF THE YEAR - The Nominee for this category is the Artist and Producer.

The "2005 MTV Video Music Awards" will be available to a potential viewing audience of over 1 billion people via MTV's 45 channels reaching 429.1 million households around the world as well as through syndication, and its convergent and original online programming will reach the entire online nation, via MTV's 38 Web sites around the world.

The "2005 MTV Video Music Awards" will be seen locally in South Florida on Comcast Cable on channel 69. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Comcast Cable is a division of Comcast Corporation, a developer, manager and operator of broadband cable networks and provider of programming content. With a presence in 22 of the top 25 United States markets, Comcast is one of the leading communications, media and entertainment companies in the world. Providing basic cable, Digital Cable, high-speed Internet and telephone services, Comcast is the company to look to first for the communications products and services that connect people to what's important in their lives. The company's 59,000 employees serve more than 21 million customers.

The official sponsors of the "2005 MTV Video Music Awards" are Gap, Jeep, Pantene, Pepsi, Revlon, Saturn, Taco Bell, and Virgin Mobile.

MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc. , owns and operates the following television programming services -- MTV: MUSIC TELEVISION, MTV2, mtvU, VHI, NICKELODEON, NICK at NITE, COMEDY CENTRAL, TV LAND, SPIKE TV, CMT, NOGGIN, MTV INTERNATIONAL and THE DIGITAL SUITE FROM MTV NETWORKS, a package of 12 digital services, all of which are trademarks of MTV Networks. MTV Networks also has licensing agreements, joint ventures, and syndication deals whereby all of its programming services can be seen worldwide.