MTV Dance is a pay-tv music channel coming from MTV Networks UK in London (UK). It became a standalone channel on the 20th of April 2001, but its story started some time earlier.
When MTV Networks UK launched the first spin-off channels in the UK, on the 1st of July 1999, dance videos were played along R&B and HipHop videos on a channel called MTV Base, although the two genres were given separate timeslots.
In mid-December the UK spinoff channels started transmissions on the Astra satellite located at 19°.2 East, which is commonly known as one of Europe's most popular satellites. Transmissions were in the clear until the early days of February 2000, enabling the whole of Europe to watch those channels for a while, including MTV Base.
On the 1st of May 2000, MTV Base became a channel fully devoted to R&B and HipHop, while dance videos were shown overnight on MTV Extra, displaying an 'MTV Dance' logo instead of the usual MTV Extra logo. Dance music was played from 1 'til 7 in the morning (CET) on weekdays and from 23 'til 7 on saturdays and sundays.
On the 20th of April 2001 dance videos were removed from the overnight schedule on MTV Extra and a new channel, MTV Dance, was created. MTV Extra expanded its schedule back to 24 hours a day. MTV Dance was available from 7pm to 6am (GMT), sharing the same transponder space with Nick Jr. The new channel was available in the UK & Ireland only, or rather, only to Sky Digital subscribers, thus leaving out viewers in mainland Europe.
The launch night included a special 'A to Z of clubbing' hosted by Judge Jules and DJ Paulette. Globally, MTV Dance is the 30th channel launched by MTV Networks.
New logo and graphics came about on the 29th of June 2001.
On the 25th of April 2002 a technical fault led to MTV Dance not starting at 7pm, while dance music videos were played on Nick Jr.
MTV Dance expanded its programming to 24 hours daily on the 13th of August 2002, with a new logo and on-screen graphics.
A further new graphic set and logo appeared on the 3rd of August 2005.
On the 7th of March 2008, all of the MTV Base feeds across mainland Europe were replaced by MTV Dance, which became officially available for the first time in most European countries.