The MTV Video Music Award for Viewer's Choice was first awarded at the first annual MTV Video Music Awards in 1984. The Viewer's Choice award nominees were the originally the same as the Video of the Year nominees, something which continued until 1994. In 1995 MTV created a separate set of nominees for Viewer's Choice and Video of the Year (although, ironically, TLC's "Waterfalls" won both that year). This continued for the rest of the award's history.
As the name indicated, the winner was decided by the audience, who could vote via phone calls, internet votes, and text messages (the latter two only being added later on) up until the very night of the show. This award was last given out in 2006, after which all general categories became fan-voted, basically rendering the award redundant. The following year, then, when MTV revamped the VMAs, the Viewer's Choice award was eliminated and its voting procedures were transferred over to the Best New Artist award.
Aerosmith is the biggest winner of this award, having won it three times. Also, only four acts—INXS, Aerosmith, TLC, and Green Day—have won both the Video of the Year and Viewer's Choice awards on the same year (though Green Day won each award with a different video in 2005).
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