Katy Perry, Eminem triumph as MTV rises to Google challenge By Thomas Escritt and Mike Davidson AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Katy Perry won the award for best female singer at the 2013 MTV EMA music awards on Sunday, pipping Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus to the post in MTV's first award ceremony since the launch a week ago of the upstart YouTube Music Awards. But Cyrus stole the show by lighting what could have been a joint, in a nod to the host city's famously tolerant attitude towards soft drugs. She had earlier been photographed in one of Amsterdam's best-known coffeeshops where soft drugs are on the menu. Claiming her third EMA award, U.S. singer Perry gave a dramatic rendition of her song "Unconditionally," suspended like a sequin-covered glitter ball 9 meters (30 feet) above a gigantic outer-space-themed set. "It's my goal to get (my music) to as many ears as possible," she said on the red carpet before the show. If that's happening, I'm happy. When Cyrus picked up her best video award for "Wrecking Ball," she made a show of not finding the space for the bauble in her handbag. "You know I couldn't fit this award in my bag but I did find this," she said, pulling out a hand-rolled cigarette which she lit as she walked off the stage. Earlier, the former Disney star, who caused a sensation with her raunchy "twerking" performance with actor Robin Thicke at the U.S.-based Video Music Awards in August, took to the red carpet in a bold mini dress on which the words "Please Stop Violence" were wrapped tightly around her hip. The call went largely unheeded. "It's hard to hear in there ... but the message is what's important, to send some love and support across the world," he said backstage afterwards. U.S. rapper Eminem was given a "Global Icon" prize for lifetime achievement along with best hip-hop, just a week after being declared artist of the year at the inaugural YouTube Music Awards, run by emerging music industry rival Google. In the face of the new competition, the MTV EMA awards are being seen as a test of the ability of MTV, one of the most prominent brands of the 1980s and 1990s, to flourish in the internet era. Robert Bakish, head of Viacom's broadcast division, said he was confident the company would rise to the challenge. While MTV has dominated the field with its annual pop music awards since 1984, when the Video Music Awards were launched, video-sharing site YouTube, with its one billion viewers a month, has utterly remade the popular music business. "There's always competition, traditional competition and new competition," Bakish told Reuters on the red carpet before the show. "The EMA is the ultimate multiplatform expression, we combine live television with digital and on Web and on mobile," he said. Additional reporting by Sara Webb; Editing by Mohammad Zargham