Miami Ink is an American reality television series that aired on TLC from 2005 to 2008 and follows the events that took place at a tattoo shop in Miami Beach, Florida. The show led to several spin-offs, including the shows LA Ink, London Ink, NY Ink, and Madrid Ink, most of which were also broadcast on TLC.

History

The shop, which opened in 2004, was called 305 Ink (referencing a Miami area code) before the show started. Later changed to Love Hate Tattoo, it is co-owned by tattoo artists Ami James and Chris Núñez, and at the time of the show, also featured artists Chris Garver, Darren Brass, Luke Wessman, Morgan Pennypacker, Tim Hendricks and Yoji Harada. Kat Von D joined the shop during the show's first season while Brass had an injured arm. She then returned as a full-time crew member for three seasons, after which she moved to Los Angeles and landed her own Miami Ink spin-off, LA Ink, which premiered in August 2007. The first 6 episodes of Miami Ink were directed by David Roma, an influential member of creating the format. Each episode featured multiple customers and detailed their backstories and motivations for choosing their tattoos. In addition, there was some focus on the personal lives of the artists. Most of the episodes are narrated by James, with Núñez occasionally filling in. The main musical theme for the show is "Funky Kingston" by Toots & the Maytals. The show has on occasion featured such guests as Paul Teutul Sr. from American Chopper.

NY Ink

Since Miami Ink went off air, James moved to New York City in 2011 and opened a tattoo studio there, named the Wooster St. Social Club. He teamed up with David Roma and Charlie Corwin to detail the proceedings in the shop on NY Ink, which premiered June 2, 2011 on TLC.

Celebrity customers

Episode list

Season 1 (10 episodes) Season 2 (11 episodes) Season 3 (13 episodes) Season 4 (20 episodes) Season 5 (13 episodes) Season 6 (13 episodes)

International screenings

Miami Ink has been shown mainly on channels of the Discovery Network, including Discovery Real Time (UK, Ireland, France, Italy), the Discovery Channel (Norway, Poland, Denmark, Romania, Finland, The Netherlands, South Africa, Namibia, Belgium, Turkey, Portugal, Czech, Spain), DMAX (UK, Italy, Ireland and Germany), Discovery Travel and Living (Croatia, India, Italy, Russia, Serbia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Macedonia, Denmark, Singapore, Portugal, Hong Kong) and TLC (Latin America, Spain and Brazil). It has also been broadcast by Viasat 4 (Norway), TV6 (Sweden), TV3+ (Denmark), Numéro 23 (France) and Jim (Finland).