Country Music Television, often abbreviated to CMT, is an American pay TV network that launched on March 5, 1983.

CMTV, an initialism for Country Music Television, was founded by Glenn D. Daniels, the owner of Video World Productions in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Daniels put together the ownership group of Telestar Corporation and the Blinder Robinson & Company investment bank in a three-way split.

[4] The following summer, MTV (which would be acquired by Viacom 16 years later) filed a trademark infringement lawsuit over the initials CMTV, and the network changed its name to simply CMT.

[6] The network was sold by a group led by radio station owner Robert Sillerman, record producer James Guercio and Nyhl L Henson.

[7] By 1998, Gaylord reported $10 million in losses from CMT Europe and decided to cease broadcasting the network on March 31, 1998.

[a] In-spite of the decrease in music programming, in part due to the rise of internet-based platforms in the 2000s, CMT would experience significant ratings gains in the years' since its acquisition.

[18][19] As part of its shift back to unscripted programming, CMT announced Music City in September 2017,[20] a reality series created by Adam DiVello of The Hills and Laguna Beach fame.

[citation needed] In addition, most of CMT's original programming is centered on, or related to, the Culture of Dallas or Nashville, Tennessee, where the network's studios are located.

It also carries simulcasts of MTV and Nickelodeon's own award specials as part of Paramount's common "road block" event programming strategy.

It exclusively carries country music videos in an 8-hour programming wheel schedule similar to several other video-exclusive networks owned by Paramount Global.