MTV was a 24-hour American cable music video channel officially launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a division of Paramount Global. The channel originally aired music videos and related programming as guided by television personalities known as video jockeys, or VJs. In the years since its inception, it significantly toned down its focus on music in favor of original reality programming for teenagers and young adults. MTV has spawned numerous sister channels in the United States and affiliated channels internationally, some of which have since gone independent. Approximately 90.6 million households in the US received MTV as of January 2017.