Welcome to the Reuters live blog of the MTV Europe Music Awards in Berlin - hosted by U.S. pop singer Katy Perry (photo). 

A dozen Reuters reporters, photographers and television crew will be covering the event, one of the pop world’s biggest nights. From the news conference on Wednesday to the after-show party on Thursday we’ll bring you the highlights and low-lights. We’re using the #mtv as the hashtag if you want to follow us on Twitter:

Music royalty will gather in Los Angeles on Sunday for the 51st annual Grammys but despite a dazzling star line-up, few big labels are throwing the glitzy after-parties of yesteryear given the recession and industry’s years-long malaise.

Some industry watchers even think the Grammys, which have seen viewership slide, need a facelift to revamp several award categories and change the show’s format to stay current with a generation of fans who have long bypassed mainstream music events.

“The Grammys are looking pretty long in the tooth when you consider the fragmentation of the music culture” said Robert Thompson, professor of culture at Syracuse University.

As usual, the broadcast will be performance-heavy, featuring best album nominees; best new artist nominees Adele and the Jonas Brothers; and veterans such as Paul McCartney and U2.
The night’s top contenders are rapper Lil Wayne with eight nominations and British rock band Coldplay with seven.

The economic crisis is just the latest insult to the music business which has lost its groove and 33 percent in U.S. album sales since 2000 amid a faster-than-predicted shift to digital distribution. But despite all the gloom and doom, the beat goes on. “A lot of people have in the industry have been beaten up in the past few years although the art form is vibrant,” said Mike McGuire, analyst with Gartner.

“We have to find a solution to the economic woes, but this is still a celebration of the artistic product, whether people are buying it or not,” said entertainment attorney Jay Cooper.

 Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends,” is vying in the best album category against “In Rainbows” by fellow British rockers, Radiohead, which bypassed major labels to distribute the album on its own Web site at a price to be determined by consumers. It later released the album through a small label owned by rocker Dave Matthews.

Another indie release is considered the favorite: “Raising Sand,” an acclaimed collaboration between former Led Zeppelin rocker Robert Plant and American bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, while two rappers are also vying for the prize: Lil Wayne with “Tha Carter III” and Ne-Yo with “Year of the Gentleman.”

The album of the year is just one of 110 categories, with prizes to be given out in such genres as country, pop, reggae, bluegrass, polka, blues and spoken word. All but a dozen awards are hurriedly handed out before the main event kicks off at 8 p.m. EST (1 a.m. GMT Monday)

Maybe they should change the name of the MTV Video Music Awards to the Britneys.

For the second year in a row, Britney Spears took center stage at Sunday’s event, winning all three categories in which she was nominated, including the coveted video of the year.

Unfortunately, her triumph could be overshadowed by the failure of MTV’s hype machine.

After weeks of speculation, the cable channel confirmed a few days ago that Spears would open the show. No, she would not sing, but the network promised something fun and unexpected.

What viewers got was a drawn-out prerecorded skit in which the ungainly actor Jonah Hill used mind-control techniques to try to kiss her. Then we were treated to her brief, real-time trek from the dressing room to the stage, surrounded by flustered handlers.  Once in the spotlight, she awkwardly held her microphone over much of her face, and delivered four groundbreaking sentences.

“Thank you so much. Thank you for all the love. I’m here tonight to celebrate a very important birthday, the 25th anniverary of the VMAs. This is the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards and it starts right now.”

And that’s what evidently passes for fun at MTV these days.    

She went on to win the first three “Moonman” statuettes of her career, but her acceptance speeches were pretty bland. It’s hard to imagine that she showed up without a guarantee that she would win some hardware. How much more humiliation can the cable channel dish out to her following her disastrous lip-synch at last year’s show?

To be fair, no one really cares who wins at MTV’s flagship kudocast. It’s all about the performances and the drama and the fashion. Even with “real” awards shows like the Oscars and the Grammys, the key winners are usually erased from the public consciousness within a day or so.

Rihanna, Christina Aguilera, Pink and Kid Rock delivered memorable performances. (Disclaimer: Kid Rock’s performance of “All Summer Long,” a mashup of Sweet Home Alabama and Werewolves of London, was the only song I knew.)

On-stage fireworks were limited to a rather silly controversy initiated by host Russell Brand about the Jonas Brothers’ chastity vows. Jordin Sparks, Ashley Tisdale and Paris Hilton quickly came to the boys’ defence.

Ashley and Paris came back to the chilly, distant soundstage where the humble reporters were uncomfortably sequestered next to the photographers. They deigned to talk to us. People like Britney and LL Cool J ignored us as they made a bee line for the photo area.
 

A dance troupe called Fanny Pack executed a series of wacky poses for photograpers, but no one took their photos. No reporters were interested in talking to them.

The Pussycat Dolls posed with their Moonman statuette for best dancing in a video (a somewhat dubious accolade). Nicole Scherzinger, who had custody of the statuette, stayed on the podium posing long after her bandmates had left.

- Reporting by Dean Goodman

Eleven months after her disastrous performance on the MTV Video Music Awards, pop star Britney Spears is back to promote this year’s show, appearing in a series of upcoming promotional ads shot with a real-life, 9,000-pound elephant literally in the room with her.

The 10- to 30-second promos were recorded earlier this week on the Paramount studio lot in Hollywood, site of this year’s show, featuring Spears giving tongue-in-cheek hosting advice to the new emcee, British comedian Russell Brand from the recent film “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” An MTV spokeswoman says the mostly ad-libbed spots, in which the elephant poses in the background, will begin airing this coming weekend.

The 25th annual edition of the Video Music Awards, long considered a looser, hipper version of the Grammys, will be broadcast live on MTV on Sept. 7, returning to Los Angeles for the first time in a decade.

Spears, coming off two marriages, two children and two stints in rehab, sought to launch a comeback on last year’s show with a performance of the song “Gimme More.” Instead, she drew a torrent of ridicule for lumbering around on stage in an ill-fitting black bikini as she awkwardly lip-synced her way through the dance number. The incident proved a publicity bomb for Spears but a ratings boon for MTV.

With Spears said to be back in the recording studio this summer working on her next album, and her personal life more or less back in order, the big question is whether she would dare venture a return engagement on the Video Music Awards. Hence, the presence of the 9,000-pound pachyderm in the commercials she filmed this week.

MTV is making the most of the suspense for now, refusing to say whether Spears, 26, might appear as either a presenter or performer on next month’s show. She’s nominated for two awards — best female video and best pop video, both for the song “Piece of Me.”