Launched on January 1, 1985, VH1 (Video Hits One) focusing originally on music for older audiences that its sister channel MTV, probably may not have the same vivid memories of it that you do of the day MTV debuted.
If MTV was the ultimate gateway to new music, new stars, and new pop culture trends and lifestyle. VH1 never quite developed into that kind of massive cultural appeal but over the last 4 decades, the channel has carved out its own major cultural profile, as a place where softer rock songs could become hits, and older artists could remake their careers and reach new audiences.
The Channel was launched because they wanting to capture an older audience than MTV was pulling, so for the occasion, they assembled an all-star cast of longtime radio favorites to serve as their VJ's, including Don Imus, Scott Shannon, Frankie Crocker, and Jon “Bowzer” Bauman and Rita Coolidge.Later VJ's included Bobby Rivers, Tim Byrd, Roger Rose, Alison Steele and even Rosie O'Donnell,
During VH1’s premiere broadcast,
Imus promised viewers "music from the past, from the present, that you
want to hear all day every day." Indeed, the channel’s initial strategy
over the next few years would be to focus on Adult Contemporary and Pop
hits that 15-year-old MTV fans might ignored, so practically VH1 was setting the standard of the nowadays radio formats thay play classic and today's tunes.
VH1's aim was to focus on the lighter, softer side of pop music, including American and foreign musicians such as Olivia Newton-John, Kenny Rogers, Carly Simon, Tina Turner, Elton John, Billy Joel, Eric Clapton, Sting, Donna Summer, Rod Stewart, Kenny G, Michael Bolton, Anita Baker, Chicago, and Fleetwood Mac, appealing to people aged 18 to 35, and possibly older. Also frequently featured in the network's early years were "videos" for Motown and other '60s oldies consisting of newsreel and concert footage.
The first video to play was the video performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Marvin Gaye, who died a year before the network launched, setting the standar the channel will follow in the years to come until 1994, which it was programmed to fit many of the radio formats popular with adults at the time including soft rock, smooth jazz, oldies and adult contemporary.
The typical of VH1's very early programming was New Visions, a series which featured videos and in-studio performances by smooth jazz and classical and new-age bands and performers, including Spyro Gyra, Andy Narell, Mark Isham, Philip Glass, and Yanni, the New Age music videos continued to play on the channel into the 1990s. They would be seen on the Sunday morning two-hour music video block titled Sunday Brunch.
Once VH1 established itself a few years later, they catered to Top 40, adult contemporary, classic rock, and 1980s mainstream pop. For a time, even country music videos aired in a one-hour block during the afternoons. They started out using MTV's famous Kabel-based credits for their music video credit tags. It was later replaced in 1991 by a larger, vertically oriented font, with the year the video was made added to the lower column that identified the label on which the album was released. In 1993, the name of the videos' director was included at the bottom of the credits.
The channel's playlist was gradually expanding, and, by 1994, included contemporary musicians such as Ace of Base, Sheryl Crow, Lisa Loeb, Amy Grant, Seal, and other slightly heavier, or more alternative rock-influenced music than what it had originally played, although favorites such as Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Rod Stewart, Cher, Elton John, Madonna, Phil Collins, and Janet Jackson.
On October 17, 1994, VH1 re-branded itself as VH1: Music First, following a slight ratings decline in the early 1990s. By 1996, VH1 was heading down the same path as its sister channel, MTV, choosing to focus more on music-related shows rather than just music videos. Additionally, the network began to expand its playlist of music videos to include more rock music.During this time, the channel launched several new shows such as the VH1 Top 10 Countdown, Pop-Up Video, Storytellers, Behind The Music, Legends, VH1 Divas and Movies Tha Rock.
In the late 1990s, the channel diversified and became more teen-oriented and created two spinoff channels VH1 Smooth which later became VH1 Classic and MTV Classic, and VH1 Country which later become CMT Pure Country and CMT Music, by 2003-2013 the channel used their box logo, airing their music video blocks back then, it was during this era when the channel arrived to Latinamerica for their latin version playing videos of Latin American artists combined with their International counterparts, also it was the time when the channel began their "I Love" series, focusing on several decades, and "The Greatest" which was one of the most fantastic shows ever produced by the channel, following a countdown lists like "100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll", "The 50 Sexiest Video Moments", "100 Greatest Songs of Rock 'N' Roll", "100 Greatest Songs from the Past 25 Years", "100 Greatest One-hit Wonders", "100 Greatest Kid Stars", and "100 Greatest Teen Stars".
Their logo changed again between 2013-2022 which was an updated version of its original logo from 1985. Unfortunately this changed shifting towards shows focused around African-American personalities, similar to BET and its sister networks eight years until its acquistion, in Latin America, the channel keep playing non-stop videos 24 hours a day, until its demise in 2020 when the network cease their operations, while in the United States, the channel would move to theb BET Media Group, finish an era in pop culture.
