VH1 Making Changes to Strike Chord With Boomers : Pop music: Rethinking and retooling are meant to create a niche for the decade-old cable channel.

John Sykes’ reign as president of cable channel VH1 has a certain fairy tale quality.

When he took control of the music-oriented outlet a year and a half ago after a stint at flashy, splashy MTV, the picture was pretty grim.

“VH1 over the years was always the ugly stepsister of MTV,” the outgoing, 40-year-old executive says.

Both channels are owned by Viacom, but MTV had not merely found a niche with its flashy, youth-oriented programming--it had defined a generation. VH1, ostensibly geared toward older viewers, wasn’t even registering a blip on the boomer culture radar.

MTV is a name-brand operation, with star personalities and programming: Kennedy, Kurt Loder, Tabitha Soren, “The Real World,” “Unplugged.” VH1 is . . . well, how many of its veejays or shows can you name, let alone watch regularly?

Now, though, Sykes says that VH1 has turned into cable’s Cinderella.

The proof?

It was instrumental in transforming Hootie from a “who?” to a hit. And Melissa Etheridge, after being designated one of VH1’s core artists, went from cult artist to belle of the ball.

Etheridge is a believer.

“My album before my last one sold 800,000 copies,” the singer says. “The last one [“Yes I Am”] sold 5 million. Some portion of that, getting VH1’s support was very key.”

Etheridge and Hootie & the Blowfish have been part of a mix of new and established artists--also including Sting, Madonna, Sheryl Crow and Counting Crows, among others--through which VH1 has tried in the last year to forge an identity for itself and a bond with music fans who either never had a place with MTV or have now outgrown it.

That audience, not coincidentally, just happens to be the Prince Charming of commercial media: affluent, educated and, thus, advertiser-coveted baby boomers and young professionals.

But that has only been a small part of a major rethinking, retooling and restaffing that started at the beginning of this year as the channel marked its 10th anniversary.

The most visible fruition of the changes so far premieres Wednesday: “Duets,” a performance show that Sykes hopes will be a signature for the channel as “Unplugged” is for MTV. The inaugural episode stars Etheridge doing--as the title implies--duets with Joan Osborne, Jewel, Sophie B. Hawkins and Paula Cole.

“Duets” joins a lineup of shows introduced in the past year that includes “4 on the Floor” (a critics round-table that is sort of a musical “McLaughlin Group”), the new artist performance showcase “Crossroads” and “Hot List,” spotlighting recommended new CD releases. For further appeal to MTV graduates, “The Big ‘80s” time warp of “classic” videos has been a staple feature as well.

Under Sykes’ watch, VH1 has also added a news division anchored by former Musician magazine editor Bill Flanagan and ex-Rolling Stone reviews editor Anthony DeCurtis (who doubles as “4 on the Floor” host-moderator), and has aggressively pushed such special events as the “VH1 Honors” and last month’s “Fairway to Heaven” celebrity golf tournament.

On Dec. 3 the channel will air live its second annual “VH1 Fashion & Music Awards” show, with designer honors interspersed with musical performances by, among others, Elton John, the Pretenders, k.d. lang and Tina Turner.

“The fact is, for years you can keep going to MTV,” says Linda Corradina, VH1’s senior vice president of programming and production, who was brought over from MTV by Sykes. “But eventually you want to find something else and, when you flip to VH1 now, it might strike a chord. VH1 is for me and it’s cool to be 31 and have a 5-year-old kid. It doesn’t mean I put away my CDs and my life is over.”

But, Sykes admits, it’s a tricky audience to snare.

“This is an audience that is extremely demanding,” he says. “They don’t want to be told how to walk or dress or talk. They know that. And they want their entertainment on demand. They watch CNN for news, ESPN for sports and we feel that when they want music they should be able to turn to VH1.”

And that, much to Sykes’ delight, means the final elimination of the stand-up comedy shows, which--much to the frustration of channel surfers looking for music clips--have occupied much of VH1’s prime hours. Among his first pledges when coming over from MTV was to eliminate that, but contractual obligations have kept some of it on the air.

At midnight on New Year’s Eve, though, comedy becomes a VH1 pumpkin, to be replaced at this point by recently acquired reruns of ‘70s and ‘80s episodes of Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand.” That kicks off with a 20-hour marathon on New Year’s Day.

“When the ball drops on ‘96, it will be all music,” Sykes says.

Still, VH1 has a long way to go to get into the cable elite. Its prime-time ratings for the spring quarter of 1995 were just .2, representing 104,000 households nationwide. MTV, by comparison, was about triple that with a .63 (384,000 households) and ESPN was a 1.3 (828,000).

Nevertheless, the record industry and advertising world are starting to take note of the changes.

“I’ve done more with the channel in the past year than I had in years,” says Linda Ferrando, Atlantic Records vice president of video promotion and media, who ties Hootie & the Blowfish’s phenomenal success--10 million albums sold--to VH1’s support.

Advertisers are a little more cautious about jumping in full force, but are encouraged.

“I personally am a fan of comedy, but it’s good for them to focus,” says Lisa Honea, media supervisor for the Apple computers account at Los Angeles ad agency BBDO. “It’s refreshing that they’re being a little more hip, but relative to the audience they’re talking to. They have a pretty good idea of who’s watching.”

Sykes, though, has no fairy tale delusions about what has been accomplished and how much is left to do. Among the plans for 1996 are establishing a separate telecast feed for the Pacific time zone so that shows on at prime time in the East will also be on at prime time in the West, and to get regular listings of the programming into more newspapers and TV magazines.

“I’m being careful not to say we’ve arrived,” he says. “But we’re on the way. We said we were going to do things last year and we delivered on the promise, gave the channel back to music. This year we want to spend a lot of time and money producing music-based shows that will get people watching longer. It’s going to be an interesting mix of videos and shows.”

* “Duets” premieres at 5 p.m. Wednesday on VH1.