The films recount three phases in the development of MTV Europe: incubation (the mavericks that built MTV, 1991); maturity (when the risk paid off and MTV became a force to reckon with, 1996); and peak in 1997 (when even the British media establishment, the most reluctant to accept MTV, recognised MTV's seminal contribution in the visual arena); 1997 was also the end of an era – that of a single channel for a pan-European audience - and a new beginning for MTV Networks Europe and by extension, the age of (corporate) cool marketing. The film MTV in Budapest (1994) exemplifies the stature of MTV in Eastern Europe following the collapse of communism.
