Here's Where To Watch The 2019 MTV VMAs If You Don't Have Cable
It's about that time, folks: MTV's Video Music Awards are upon us. If you're itching for another award show fix before the summer is up, the VMAs are exactly what you need. Let's be real about us millennials, though. We don't pay for cable. So figuring out where to watch the 2019 MTV VMAs without it proves to be a little tricky every year. Luckily, we've got you covered on that front.
Hosted by comedian Sebastian Maniscalco, the VMAs are going down on Monday, Aug. 26, on MTV (duh), and will be broadcast live from Newark's Prudential Center arena. Maniscalco hosted the show once before in 2002, and fits in with the long list of comedians who have hosted the show in the past. (If you have no idea who he is, you can check out his Netflix special Stay Hungry.) The cool thing about this year's show is that MTV is actually putting a lot of focus on helping its viewers watch the show easily. I guess they heard about the whole millennials refusing to pay for cable thing.
For the first time ever, the VMAs will be featuring a Twitter fan-voted live camera feed, so if you don't have cable, Twitter is one way you can catch part of the show! It's called The MTV VMA Stan Cam, and it's been set up as a partnership between the VMAs and Twitter.
During a select few moments throughout the show, fans will be asked to pick between three celebs in the audience for the camera to focus on. Whichever celeb gets the most votes will have the camera turned to them so viewers can see their live reactions to whatever's going down during the show at that time. (I imagine the BTS ARMY would have had this part of the show on lock if BTS attended the show... which they won't be due to their recently-announced break). The Stan Cam, according to Variety, will also provide viewers the chance of catching some behind-the-scenes moments during the show.
To clarify on how the Stan Cam will work, since this is its first year in action, it is a good way to catch the show in real-time, but you won't be able to see the entire show through it. Watching via the Stan Cam will allow you to watch from the perspective of certain celebrities, so you'll get a good glimpse of the show, but it's not necessarily the best way to see the full show in its entirety. It is a great option if you have no cable logins to use, though.
The simplest way to watch the show is through www.mtv.com/live-tv. There, you can log in with cable provider info and watch the live steam. Since we've already established most of us don't pay for cable, find a friend or family member who does and mooch off of their login info for the night.
But if you don't have any friends with cable (like, who has cable?) your best bet for a streaming option would be Philo TV. At only $20 a month, the streaming site provides most Viacom channels: MTV, Comedy Central, MTV2, BET, CMT, VH1, and TV Land. Plus, it offers a seven-day free trial, so if you time things right, you may be able to watch the VMAs for free.
As is the case for most award shows nowadays, Twitter will most likely have a live stream of the VMAs red carpet leading up to the show's broadcast. So if you can't catch the actual show in real-time because of a lack of a cable login, you can at least catch all of the celebrity entrances leading up to the show. Twitter is also amazing because the real-time reactions to various performances during award shows tend to be even better than the real thing, so keep an eye on Twitter during the show to catch any highlights.
The 2019 MTV VMAs air at 8 p.m. on MTV on Monday, Aug. 26.
