MTV has announced record traffic and video streams for mtv.com since the beginning of the year. January and February were consecutive record-setting months for the site. The site delivered a record 84 million streams in January, only to beat that number in February with 85.1 million streams.Year-to-year comparisons are even more striking: January 2007 streams were up 258 percent over the previous January, while February streams were up 228 percent over the year prior.

The announcement adds fuel to the fire over the issue of Viacom’s YouTube takedown requests. While some argued that Viacom (parent company of MTV) was shooting itself in the foot by asking for its videos to be removed from YouTube, their numbers argue otherwise.

In January, mtv.com attracted 24.2 million unique visitors, an all- time-high and a 56 percent increase over January 2006. In February, the number of daily unique visitors grew another 10 percent to 1.1 million a day, up from 1 million a day in January. March also is roaring in like a lion. mtv.com earned 7.1 million unique visitors for the week ending March 4, second only to the week ending Aug. 28, 2006, which featured exclusive behind-the-scenes and show content from the Video Music Awards.

“Viewers are constantly telling us they want to dig deeper into the content they see on-air, and they are obsessive about following our programming from one platform to the other — and back,” said Christina Norman, President of MTV. “When the TV show ‘The Hills’ inspires a community of fans to connect with their favorite cast members and devour exclusive content online and on the handset, the payoff for viewers is a more immersive experience all the way around.”