VH-1 (German TV channel)

VH-1 Deutschland (VH-1 Germany) was a localised German version of the

In contrast to the other language versions, VH-1 Deutschland had to use the January 1985 – 1987 US logo rather than the then-current logo of the US incarnation and consequently a different spelling, as the ARD saw too many parallels to its own logo in the original logo.^[1]

History

VH-1 Deutschland started at 8.00 p.m. on Friday, 10 March 1995 for twelve hours a day. VH-1 used the downtime of the British version of

The focus was on pop and rock video clips from the 1960s throughout the 1990s for an audience of 25 to 49 years old. In the initial phase, the programme included imported VH-1 formats such as Storytellers, Pop-Up Video and Behind the Music, concerts and recordings from the archive and telecasts of live events such as the VH-1 Big In Award, as well as numerous self-produced formats with a relatively high standard of music journalism, such as the Musikalische Quintett. The host was Alan Bangs, further critics were Götz Alsmann and Heinz-Rudolf Kunze.

The VH-1DERLAND website (www.vh1.de) went online in 1995 when the programme was launched, but removed a few years later. It was the first website of a German television station. Curiously, the website went online a few days until the station.

In 1996, as a reaction to the start-up losses of around 60 million Deutsche Mark, a conversion to a younger-oriented programme titled MTV2 was openly considered for the first time.^[3]

The then-competitor

A budget cut in October 1997 meant that almost all live-presented programmes had to be cancelled; a large part of its workforce was laid off.

Ronny's Pop Show made a comeback on VH-1 in the same year. In 1998, the teletext, called VH-1 Text, was introduced.

On 7 August 2000, Bauer Media Group announced its intentions to take over 50% of the shares in VH-1 and the design of the programme from 08.00 to 20.00 hours. A separate channel was to be dedicated to the Bravo TV programme for this purpose.^[7] However, these plans were rejected on 11 December of the same year.^[8]

On 1 May 2001, VH-1 was converted into the much younger-oriented mainstream MTV2 Pop channel as the "debut project" of the then new MTV managing director Catherine Mühlemann.^[9][10] The final video on 30 April 2001 was Money for Nothing by the Dire Straits. MTV2 Pop took over all cable frequencies from VH-1 at midnight with One More Time by Daft Punk.

Me, Myself & Eye Entertainment GmbH also took over editorial tasks in the early years of MTV2 Pop. In contrast to its predecessor, however, the programme was played out by the MTV servers in London, United Kingdom.

Distribution

The programme was usually received unencrypted only on cable networks. On analogue, the channel was aired only temporarily via

For satellite viewers, it was temporarily only possible to receive the programme in the then new digital standard. Digitally, VH-1 was only offered in encrypted form via the DF1 platform. After the merger of DF1 and

The reason for this limited reception situation via satellite was an exclusive contract with the then cable network operator Deutsche Telekom, which wanted to create a customer incentive with an unencrypted transmission of VH-1.^[13] Despite everything, VH-1 could also only be received on an hourly basis in many cable networks. A similar agreement between the parent company Viacom Inc. and the DF1 operator, the Kirch Group, for all Viacom programmes was rejected by Viacom.^[14]

References