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VH1

VH1 (which stands for Video Hits 1) is an American cable television channel that was created in 1985. With then four-year-old MTV's popularity rising drastically among teens, VH1 began with the intention to capitalize off of the success of the music video. However, VH1's aim was to focus on the lighter, softer side of popular music, including such musicians as Elton John, Sting, Diana Ross, Billy Joel, Kenny G, and Anita Baker, in hopes of appealing to people between the ages of 18 and 35, and possibly even older.

Contents

Overview

VH-1's popularity never really took off until it was bought out by Viacom, the company which now owns CBS as well as MTV, MTV2, BET, Spike TV, Comedy Central, CMT, Showtime, and several other cable channels. In 1994, in a bid to make itself more noticeable, VH-1 started to market itself as the "new VH1: Music First", and dropping the hyphen from its official name. It altered its format slightly from adult contemporary to adult top 40, now including musicians such as Ace of Base, Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, and other slightly more rock-oriented, popular music than what it had originally played, though lite favorites such as Des'ree, Elton John, Madonna, Céline Dion, and Mariah Carey still received heavy video play in 1994, as well.

By 1996, VH1 was heading down the same path as its sister station, MTV, choosing to focus more on music-related shows than on actual videos. Old episodes of American Bandstand could regularly be seen on the channel and the channel was reportedly in major risk of going bankrupt because of very poor ratings.

Things changed drastically for VH1 in the fall of 1996, with the premiere of Pop-Up Video, a very successful and popular show which offered tidbits of information as music videos were being played. "Pop-Up" television has gone on to become something of a cultural phenomenon, appearing on episodes of Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Brady Bunch reruns and even a special episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

In September of 1997, VH1 again hit it big with the premiere of the first of the network's flagship shows, Behind the Music. The show features interviews and biographies of some of popular music's biggest stars qualified to be profiled on the series. The premiere episode featured Milli Vanilli. To date, there are episodes on everyone from Queen Latifah to MC Hammer to Fleetwood Mac to TLC to Weird Al Yankovic, and more episodes are being produced constantly.

Shortly after, VH1 created a companion series, Legends (originally sponsored by AT&T), profiling artists who have made a more significant contribution to music history to qualify as "Legends" (that is, those artists who do not fit in the category of Behind the Music biographies). The artists profiled so far have included Marvin Gaye, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Doors, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, Queen, Pink Floyd, The Bee Gees, and U2.

Oddly enough, there have been rare instances where artists have been profiled on both Behind The Music and Legends. These artists have been Elton John, Tina Turner, and John Lennon.

In 1998, VH1 debuted the first annual "VH1 Divas " concert. The original was live, and featured the "divas" Céline Dion, Shania Twain, Mariah Carey, Gloria Estefan, and Aretha Franklin, and the "special guest" Carole King. The concert was a huge success and others followed featuring "divas" including Whitney Houston, Cher, Donna Summer, LeAnn Rimes, Mary J. Blige, Diana Ross, and Faith Hill. Elton John was also featured as a "diva" in one concert.

In the late 1990s VH1 continued to get more diverse and teen-based with its music selection. Various late-night rock shows have been shown on VH1, featuring alternative rock and metal videos from the 1980s and 1990s. VH1 eventually warmed up to harder rock acts such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Foo Fighters, and Metallica, and their new videos are generally added into VH1's playlist right away.

Most recently, VH1 has even begun to play mainstream rap musicians. The latest videos by Eminem, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, and Missy Elliott are currently in VH1's rotation and have even started to crop up on VH1's top 20 countdown, as of early 2003.

From time to time, VH1 airs its own "movie of the week" series, Movies That Rock (aka VH1 Rock-And-Roll Picture Show), showcasing rock-and-roll and rock-and-roll related movies. In fact, one of those films, the 1992 telefilm The Jacksons: An American Dream, has aired more times on VH1 than any other film ever broadcast on the network.

Presently, VH1 is most known for Behind the Music, its news documentaries, its celebrity-driven reality shows and its Movies That Rock, and for its music-related specials, more so than for actual music videos. The top 20 countdown still airs a few times a week, however, and gives viewers the chance to see some of the most popular videos in the nation.

Recently, VH1 has had success with its short I Love the 80s series and spinoffs covering the 70s and 90s, based on a BBC series with the same name [1]. The format, various comedians giving their takes or opinions on popular culture, has been repeated for the weekly program Best Week Ever.

Sister Channels

VH1 has four sister channels, VH1 Classic, VH1 Country, VH1 Mega Hits and VH1 Soul which feature music videos and concert footage from Classic Rock, Country music, Soul music and hits of the 1990s and 2000s respectively.

International Channels

VH1 UK

Targeting 25-44 year olds, VH1 UK is mature, sophisticated and totally stylish for viewers who still feel young and want to keep in-touch with what's happening on the music scene today. The music they play consists of music from the 70's right through to today. Most of their proogramming is taken from VH1 USA, and the channel has many 'Top 20' and 'Top 40' countdowns. VH2 is its sister channel playing the very best in rock and guitar-based music. VH1 Classic plays all time greats from the 60s to the 90s.

VH1 Export is a version of VH1 UK available in the Middle East, Africa and Thailand.

VH1 Latin America

In 2004, VH1 Latin America joined MTV and Nickelodeon Latin America targeting 25-49 year olds. The Spanish-language channel is tailored for the market and feature a mix of music and entertainment with local and international-recording artists, as well as original programming.

VH1 Latin America was launched in the 2nd quarter of 2004 with its initial distribution in Mexico via pay TV. The network is also to be made available throughout Latin America with additional distribution to be announced.

VH1 Australia

Since March (April for OPTUS customers) 2004 VH1 has been available in Australia on Foxtel, OptusVision and Austar.

VH1 Brazil

Since 2004, VH1 Soul also became avaiable for Brazilians with digital cable system. Currently, it's the only VH1 channel, but there are also plans to include the main VH1.

External links

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