The 2006 MTV Video Music Awards aired live on August 31, 2006, honoring the best music videos from June 11, 2005, to June 26, 2006. The show was hosted by Jack Black at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
The 2006 Video Music Awards marked the first time viewers were able to vote for all performers' categories (Best Video; Best Male, Female, and Group Videos; and genre categories). Like previous years, the artistic categories (Best Direction, Best Cinematography, etc.) are still chosen by music industry professionals. The 2006 Awards also discontinued the major category Breakthrough Video.
The show was criticized by fans and viewers as being uninteresting or lacking substance. The award ceremony's ratings were down 28% from the 8 million viewers it averaged in 2005 and down 45% from the 10.3 million viewers it averaged in 2004.
Shakira and Red Hot Chili Peppers received the most nominations, with seven each. Avenged Sevenfold won Best New Artist and "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", by Panic! at the Disco, became the first video to win Video of the Year without winning a single other award since "This Note's for You" by Neil Young in 1989.
Famous quotes containing the words video and/or music:
“These people figured video was the Lord’s preferred means of communicating, the screen itself a kind of perpetually burning bush. “He’s in the de-tails,” Sublett had said once. “You gotta watch for Him close.””
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“In benevolent natures the impulse to pity is so sudden, that like instruments of music which obey the touch ... you would think the will was scarce concerned, and that the mind was altogether passive in the sympathy which her own goodness has excited. The truth is,—the soul is [so] ... wholly engrossed by the object of pity, that she does not ... take leisure to examine the principles upon which she acts.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)