Music TV for Adults Grows Up : How VH-1 changed its look and why MTV’s sister channel is now getting better reviews

“Music television is a medium that has to constantly reinvent itself.”

This recent declaration of instant creative metamorphosis comes not from a brazen young executive at that arbiter-of-youth-culture channel, MTV, but rather from Ed Bennett, president of VH-1, the other, more conservative music channel owned by MTV Networks. “Our feeling is we’re going to reinvent music television for adults.”

Music videos for adults? An oxymoron, you say?

It once seemed as contradictory as it sounds, an idea doomed to failure. VH-1 as originally conceived and unveiled five years ago was stodgy beyond belief, consistently programming video clips by Julio Iglesias, Kenny Rogers and Barry Manilow, the sort of artists who prove that it’s still unhip to be square. As a closed-circuit channel for nursing homes, it might have been soothing, but the lucid yuppies it was ostensibly aimed at could scarcely have cared less.

By the time Bennett was brought in early last year to help strengthen the channel’s advertising and marketing operations, changes in image and programming were already under way. Network executives had begun to realize from research findings and record industry comments that their target demographic (the 25-45 age group) was not as conservative as originally suspected. By offering more adventurous programming, the channel hoped to both broaden its viewer appeal and attract more advertising.

Subtle at first, the changes have become so pervasive in recent months that many fans and industry observers feel VH-1 offers a hipper music mix than MTV.

“What we’re trying to do is mirror the musical taste of our (target) generation,” says Bennett, 43, who keeps an electric guitar in his Manhattan office to noodle on between meetings.

“So we’ve become more upbeat, contemporary and innovative. Because so much of our programming is new and fresh, people see us as being more out on the cutting edge. I think we are going to lose a lot of those viewers who want VH-1 to be soft, easy listening, because we have moved away from that, but the trade-off is going to be well worth it.”

VH-1’s new look is a hit on many levels. The channel can now be seen in 36 million homes, up 6 million from a year ago. Advertising revenue is up a whopping 112% for the first half of 1990 from the same period in 1988. The music business too is finally enthusiastic about what once was virtually an industry joke. More than half of today’s record purchases come from the over-25 crowd.

While the channel devotes much attention to such veteran artists as Elton John and Rod Stewart, it has also demonstrated the ability in recent months to help launch the career of new acts. The latter success actively contradicts the old record industry stereotype that grown-ups collectively resist the shock of the new.

The network’s biggest platinum success stories include 10,000 Maniacs, Basia, Bonnie Raitt and Sinead O’Connor. Currently being championed for future success by VH-1 are such mature--and critically respected--developing acts as Julia Fordham, Michael Penn, Lyle Lovett, the Cowboy Junkies, Everything but the Girl, k.d. lang, Tanita Tikaram and the Roches.

Says Barbara Bolan, vice president of marketing at I.R.S. Records, the fiercely independent label that once would have been considered strictly MTV territory, “Eight years ago, it seemed like every time you turned around, all retailers talked about was, ‘If a video’s on MTV, then you’re gonna sell records.’

“That talk has died down; I haven’t felt that nearly with the intensity that it used to happen. I have noticed that there’s been an increase of retailers who are asking that question, if an artist is going to have a video on the air, but this time it’s VH-1 that they have in mind.”

Richard Palmese, marketing VP and general manager at MCA Records, asserts that it is “an artists’ channel, and they give their viewers a chance not just to know songs, but also to know artists.”

As a case in point, he cites a half-hour special VH-1 did on hard-to-classify country/folk stylist Nanci Griffith, who has received almost no commercial radio play. Besides the special, “they gave us incredible support on her videos, which took us easily 100,000 units over her original sales base. . . . It sure as hell wasn’t radio.”

Capitol Records marketing VP Ron McCarroll concurs that Raitt’s double-platinum “Nick of Time” album “until very recently has not been radio-driven. She got a lot of consistent exposure on VH-1 which, beyond the shadow of a doubt, caused really strong sales for us and kept the project going.”

Going all the way to Raitt’s recent Grammy win for best album and an acceptance speech in which she thanked the network. McCarroll says, “For the audience that VH-1 is trying to reach, which is older and a little less hard rock-oriented than MTV, Bonnie Raitt was a perfect artist, right in the pocket.”

“The people we created MTV for, a good amount of them have already outgrown MTV,” says Tom Freston, chairman and CEO of MTV Networks (which also includes the Nickelodeon and HA! channels). “These are people who are musically active at a much later stage in their life than we’ve seen before.”

To show just how much later in life the VH-1 audience is, Spy magazine printed a chart in its April issue satirically underscoring some of the differences between the commercials seen on the two channels. MTV, the magazine notes, advertises chewing gum; VH-1 pitches antacid. MTV sells Levis 501 jeans; VH-1 sells the Spiegel Catalog.

Don’t look for pop’s radical edges--heavy metal or rap--on VH-1. No teen idols, either--sorry, Milli Vanilli and New Kids on the Block fans. Dance-pop and “alternative” music are represented, but to a far lesser extent than MTV. The focus, as I.R.S. exec Bolan puts it, remains on “vocal-intensive groups and singer/songwriter-style artists.”

Still, VH-1’s current cross-section of music is miles wider than it was just two short years ago when, amazingly, the network still had not added Bruce Springsteen--among many other obvious adult appeal artists--to its mellow playlist. The reason for such strict counterprogramming was simply a parent corporation, MTV Networks, with a deep fear of letting its younger child move in on its older star prodigy’s successful territory.

“Before, we weren’t allowed to duplicate any of MTV’s music videos,” Bennett laments. “They got the first pick and VH-1 got what was left over. That denied VH-1 the opportunity to pick the music that was universal by creating this mutual exclusivity.

“Now we have duplication between the two networks--though it’s only about 12 or 13% duplication, which leaves VH-1 with about 87% its own videos. But that 12% that you do duplicate is very important to us, because these tend to be very big artists that span the demos. The Rolling Stones will play from 12 to 50, and Janet Jackson has a very broad appeal.”

Last year, VH-1 was granted complete autonomy to staff run its operation separate from MTV. Now the heads of both networks report directly to Freston, who gets to mediate any disputes and make sure that his two music video networks don’t overlap too much.

“The overall effect of making them autonomous and taking MTV’s foot off VH-1’s head has been very good for VH-1 and its self-esteem,” Freston says. “Before, it was like ‘What is MTV not playing? That’s what we get’ and ‘Don’t try running a promotion that weekend, because MTV’s doing something.’ There’s none of that any more. They can beat each other to death. VH-1 spends half their time trying to figure out great creative stuff before MTV can figure it out, and vice versa. They’re actually quite competitive.

“The only concern I’ve really voiced to the two of them is that they should make some effort not to be overly duplicative in the music that they’re playing. One month we had about 40% of the videos the same on VH-1 and MTV. There’s no question that there are a lot of crossover artists that belong on both, but the cable operators and viewers say ‘Aw, they got the same stuff on both networks,’ like they used to say about HBO and Showtime--’They have the same movies, what’s the difference?’ ”

One of the major differentiation moves at VH-1 was to dump or reassign the channel’s creaky crew of on-screen video jocks--”It seems to work better for a younger audience than an older audience; a veejay is a different experience for a 15-year-old than for a 30-year-old,” notes Bennett--for a more formatted, less random regimen.

Replacing the video jocks to a large extent have been the award-winning half-hour artist specials, focusing on such diverse artists as Rickie Lee Jones, Soul II Soul, Brian Eno, Anita Baker, John Hiatt, Melissa Etheridge, Harry Connick Jr., Lou Reed, Fine Young Cannibals, Dave Edmunds, Poco and Syd Straw.

Besides the plethora of one-shot specials, called “VH-1-to-Ones,” the network also has introduced a new crop of weekly or nightly shows, hosted mostly by stand-up comics or past or present pop performers.

Former rocker and TV and film actress Ellen Foley perkily presents the Top 21 each week. Ex-Herman’s Hermit Peter Noone hosts the requisite nostalgia fest, “My Generation.” Nouveau country and jazz both get prominent weekly time slots. There are even non-musical shows, like Rosie O’Donnell’s “Stand Up Spotlight.” (The recurring emphasis on laughs may have something to do with the fact that Bennett was also recently named president of HA!, MTV’s all-comedy network.)

Most impressively of all, the channel hired on self-admittedly “camera-shy” producer/artist Nile Rodgers to host “New Visions,” a show full of live performances and interviews that spotlights a different musical genre each night--rock on Mondays, folk on Tuesdays, “world beat” on Wednesdays, soul on Thursdays and jazz on Sundays.

“I honestly feel that (the producers) are sincere” about spotlighting the new and/or unusual, says Rodgers, laughing. “I don’t think they’re saying it for my benefit because I’m an artist. “

With all of these eccentricities, amid all this cool, critically correct programming, it should be pointed out that VH-1 still programs heavy doses of the middle-of-the-road videos that gave the channel its old, stick-in-the-mud image.

For every John Lee Hooker blues clip, there are several ballads from Gloria Estefan; for every David Byrne Brazilian stomp, a heap o’ Bee Gees; for every Daniel Lanois head trip, several Cher posteriors.

Will an audience that tunes in for the Rock Lite sounds of Elton John, Phil Collins and Kenny G stick around for the affected moodiness of Chris Isaak or Love & Rockets--or vice versa? Can VH-1 afford to be square and hip? Are set-in-their-ways grown-ups really half as open to the unfamiliar as their younger, MTV-weaned counterparts in couch potatodom?

Nile Rodgers isn’t convinced himself. “I think that, given the nature of adults, they’re not traditionally that receptive to new things.

“VH-1 has been called ‘the yuppie network,’ and so-called yuppies are people who can pick and choose, and if they decide they want to have a network that isn’t very exciting or aggressive, then they won’t watch. But the people at VH-1 think it’s intelligent to offer alternative programming, and if it’s not, only time will tell.”

Whether VH-1 finally goes the adventurous road or the safe route--and it will almost certainly survive to traverse some road, given advertisers’ love for those upper demos--at least viewers can feel assured that Julio, Kenny and Barry won’t ever be back.

Unless . . . Unless . . .

“Maybe,” Bennett muses, “we introduce another night of Nile Rodgers’ show where it’s ‘New Visions--Easy Listening.’ ”