Video Killed The Radio Star. Review on VH1

You turn on the television and wait for the cable signals to settle down and the audio visuals to come through. You flick through the channels and land on your favourite music channel.

A commercial break is going on. You scratch your legs, shift your weight on the couch and wish you had a tall coke (all that pesticide thing is just a farce... Aamir Khan just certified that coke is safe) and some popcorn. Fortunately, there's a whole bottle of coke in the fridge.Finally, a music video cometh. Its from the latest flick - DON. You watch the gyrating actors and say to yourself "man... I wish I was Shah Rukh... look at all those gyrating chicks"... the song is supposed to be five minutes long but 2 minutes later, the VJ cuts in and tells you a tale about how she lost her ear ring while paragliding in Goa. Ten minutes of her sob stories later, another song comes through. This time its from a new Tushar Kapoor movie that you wouldn't watch even if they gave you the theatre free with the ticket. That song plays full length and then you get to watch the same 15 commercials that have been aired without fail for the last 18 months.

After 3 hours of sitting in front of the tube, you've seen 11 songs, 237 commercials and learnt how to take care of zits... thanks to your friendly neighbourhood VJ.

The channel that didn't sell out

MTV was a revolution that created a whole new sub species of mankind. Hard hitting music, cool VJs with some brain cells that related to music and great programming worked well. It was Entertainment with a capital E. But MTV sold out.... partly cos the masses preferred regional music and partly because cash is such a sweet thing. If you pored through all that yarn I wrote three paragraphs above, you'll get the drift. That's what most music channels do. Commercials are priority. Music isn't.

MTV did a smart thing though. It spawned a new channel... VH1.

VH1

MTV took all its great content from the past, reformatted most of it, added plenty of fresh content, threw in a few reality shows and created a brand, a channel, that provided non-stop entertainment that was seldom marred by commercials. By doing so, they got the best of both worlds - Commercials and Content.

The Programmes

VH1 programming included a series of genre or time based music programmes including SOUL, Now and Then and the best music video show ever - CLASSIC. Full runs of concerts by bands like U2, Coldplay, INXS etc provide some real good entertainment.

The channel also added a slew of reality shows that includes:

Supergroup: 5 veteran rockers join together to slap a band together in 12 days and put on a show. The band includes ex-Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach and the legend, Ted Nugent.

Hogan Knows Best:

Follow the lives of WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan and his family.

Motor Mouth: A show where hidden cameras in cars reveal the crazy antics of motorists.

Summing up

VH1 balances out the equation in every possible way. Music and content are given priority here. Commercials are mostly promos of VH1 content. The programs have plenty of variety and VH1 keeps adding new content to keep you interested.

So if you are serious about your music and what you watch, peck at the buttons on your remote and zoom straight to VH1. If you want to watch the same commercial 25 times a day, you have a world of choice.

~finis~