The Italian channel officially launched in London in September 1997, when its transmissions also entered into the television programming of Rete A.

On 5 July 2013, Telecom Italia Media announced it would be selling its 51% stake in MTV Italy to Viacom for €13.4 million.

Some of the most popular shows on the channel were the Italian version of Total Request Live, LoveLine, Brand New, other are original ones like Very Victoria, Italo-Francese, Avere Ventanni and Hitlist Italia.

Main Italian hosts for MTV Italy were Victoria Cabello, Alessandro Cattelan, Carlo Pastore, and Elena Santarelli.

Some of the former hosts of the channel are Andrea Pezzi, Camila Raznovich and Enrico Silvestrin (who are both also former MTV Europe VJs), Kris Grove, Kris Reichert, Giorgia Surina, Marco Maccarini, Paola Maugeri, Benedetta Zonca and Daniele Bossari.

On 30 November, the Italian version of Flux, was rebranded into QOOB and on April an international website was launched.