VMAs Bring Back Van Toffler — and Music Videos to MTV Channels — for 2025 and Beyond

A key figure in making the MTV Video Music Awards a part of the pop culture firmament is returning to his old home — and bringing a round-the-clock rotation of music videos with him.

Van Toffler, a former head of MTV (and other cable networks at the company then known as Viacom), and his company Gunpowder & Sky have signed a multi-year deal with MTV and CBS to, as the networks put it, “supercharge the show from a single night into a week-long, multi-platform celebration of music and music videos leading up to the main event.” Gunpowder & Sky, which Toffler co-founded with Floris Bauer, will produce the 2025 show alongside Den of Thieves.

As part of that week-long celebration, several of MTV’s secondary channels (MTV2, MTV Classic and MTV Live) will — for the first time in a very long time — revert to the original format of showing music videos 24/7 in the week leading up to the VMAs. The awards are set for Sept. 7 and will air on CBS for the first time (with a simulcast on MTV and live stream on Paramount+).

“The VMAs have always been where music and spectacle collide, and no one embodies that spirit more than Van Toffler,” said Paramount co-CEOs Chris McCarthy and George Cheeks, heads of, respectively, Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and CBS. “Bringing Van back to the VMAs, along with Gunpowder & Sky, is about reigniting the rebellious soul of the show with a week-long music immersion and delivering global moments that are impossible to ignore.”

Said Toffler, “We’re not just producing a show. We’re launching a celebration of music that spans one week, every screen and every generation. Music has always been the heartbeat of the VMAs, but the show’s soul comes from its willingness to break rules, embrace unpredictability and reflect the times. This is about honoring that spirit while blowing open what’s possible across every format.”

Toffler joined MTV in 1987 as a business development executive and rose through the ranks, serving as head of Viacom’s Music and Logo Group from 2008-15, when he departed. He and Bauer founded Gunpowder & Sky a year later. During his time at MTV, Toffler helped expand the VMAs (which began in 1984) to a major pop-culture event and shepherded defining MTV shows like Unplugged, Beavis and Butt-head and Jackass, among others.

Gunpowder & Sky’s recent productions include the CBS special Ringo & Friends at the Ryman, Paramount+’s documentary Larger Than Life: Reign of the Boybands and Showtime’s Sheryl, about Sheryl Crow.