Music Play

Music Play is a music television channel owned by Universal Music Group (50%) and NBC Universal (50%). It was started on January 9, 1989, three months after Gingo's launch, and it was closed on July 1, 2007, when it was replaced by ArobaCentral.

History
On February 13, 1988, it was announced that Multimedia would launch a 24-hour music television channel, shortly after Multimedia Records was established. It was announced that in June that the network was called Music Box, but it was changed to Music Play to prevent confusion from the British TV channel.

The channel was first launched on January 9, 1989 with Tommy Davidson's music video "Hill Beat" and it drew higher ratings, compared to MTV's launch and even the launch of Gingo. It was an instant success, becoming the number one music channel of the 1990s, until MTV took back the record in 2002.

On January 31, 1996, it was announced that Multimedia was sold to MCA and decide to increase the strength by launching a Saturday late night program "Music Play on USA" (later "USA Music"), which will conclude on December 30, 2004. Sarah Silverman's music video "Zina Supermoon Theme" became Music Play's best selling broadcast by 2001.

On July 27, 2005, it was announced that a new kids network ArobaCentral would replace Music Play by 2007. Music Play quietly went off the air on July 1, 2007 at 6:56 p.m. EDT. No acknowledgement of the channel end was given; in fact, there was no promotion of the network's closedown; rather, the network faded to black at the end of Matt Lide's cover of "The Star-Spangled Banner". After the network's official closure, Music Play's website was redirected to ArobaCentral's website.