Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 29, 1995 TAG: 9501310019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KENNETH R. CLARK CHICAGO TRIBUNE
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
VH1, the acronym at its birth 10 years ago this month for ``No. 1 in Video Hits,'' had forgotten both its mission and its name. The homely wallflower sister channel of perennial prom queen MTV had not been No. 1 in anything for years.
Sykes, 39, a member of the team that created MTV 14 years ago, was sent in by Viacom - the multimedia colossus that owns both VH1 and MTV, as well as Nickelodeon and Nick at Night - to fix it. And he did, with a vengeance.
Out went the stand-up comedy routines and the aging off-network sitcoms and dramas that had invaded the music format like a virus. In came music, music and more music, the kinds fans love to watch as well as listen to: dreamscape videos, classical rockers like Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, the Eagles and the Rolling Stones, and such contemporary pop stars as Whitney Houston, Bonnie Raitt and Mariah Carey.
In, too, came ``Four on the Floor,'' a panel of argumentative music critics who regularly take apart the music scene the way ``The McLaughlin Group'' takes apart Washington. Sykes also added ``Naked Cafe,'' an eclectic showcase for a wide range of acts and personality interviews, and added three hip new hosts: Moon Zappa, Michelle Austin and ex-rocker Corey Glover, to give the channel ``a human face, a personality and an attitude for the first time in years.''
Suddenly, Sykes' new target audience, aged 25-44, had its franchise back, and advertisers had a shot at their bank accounts.
``Somewhere along the way, some of the people involved in VH1 bought into the theory that people in their 20s and 30s no longer care about music - that teen-agers drive the business,'' says Sykes.
``Our parents got married at 22, had five kids and threw out their Frank Sinatra records immediately. But this is a different generation. It's getting married later, having fewer kids. Both people in the household are working and all of a sudden, there is all this time and income available to really spend on themselves.''
``We're for the MTV graduates,'' says Sykes. ``They're educated; they tend to be more affluent and they're doing well, but they've been overlooked and underestimated by marketers for years because it was always assumed that the minute you hit your mid-20s, you no longer cared about music.''
So successful has Sykes' overhaul of the channel been that VH1 launched a British version in the United Kingdom in September. Sykes says the channel will invade Germany next year, setting up a beachhead from which to take all of Europe by storm.
But Larry Gerbrandt, senior analyst for the Carmel, Calif., media consultant Paul Kagan Associates, says it is too soon to tell how well the ``new'' VH1 ultimately will do on the home front.
``This network has been through more re-launches than just about any other out there,'' he says. ``It's historically been an under-performer, but MTV is enormously successful without being the highest-rated service on cable by far. So the key is, can VH1 identify and reach its target demographic?''
Nielsen ratings for cable are so minuscule as to have little bearing as a yardstick by which that question can be answered, but Steve Leeds, vice president of video promotion for Island Records, offers evidence that VH1 is right on the track suggested by Gerbrandt.
``The VH1 viewer is one halfway in between giving up on MTV and becoming an avid viewer of the Weather Channel,'' Leeds says. ``VH1 right now is the only television outlet for the exposure of contemporary music. Thanks to VH1, Melissa Etheridge's latest video has gone double platinum. I won't say VH1 is the sole contributor to that - radio is very important, too - but it played a major role.''
With that in mind, Sykes is very specific as to what viewers will not find on VH1.
``What you will not find is rap, heavy metal and hip-hop,'' he says. ``Our viewers have outgrown that. What they want is something that reminds them of the music they grew up with.''
That, and instant gratification - a bonus now-aging Baby Boomers take as a birthright.
``You have to give the viewer what he or she wants when they want it, not when it's convenient to you,'' Sykes says. ``In 1962, when there were three television networks and maybe one big independent in a big city, you would sit through Kate Smith in order to see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Today, that show wouldn't work because the viewers would be gone - off to find something that would satisfy their needs at that point in time.''
That is what Sykes calls ``super-serving the viewer'' by targeting a specific music video-loving segment of the audience and giving them nothing else.
``As a result, we're giving up the people who want comedy; we're giving up the people who want drama. But you know something? The networks do that better anyway,'' says Sykes. ``We don't need a lot of people - just our corner of the world.''
by CNB