VH1 is a European music television channel owned by ViacomCBS Networks EMEAA. It plays a wide variety of music programs on a daily or weekly basis, and various VH1 original series. VH1 was in 2013 the only major music channel in Western Europe still broadcasting in the 4:3 ratio while others broadcast in 16:9 widescreen. Since May 2014, VH1 is broadcasting in 16:9 widescreen.
History
It appeared for the first time in the UK and Germany in Spring 1995 and the version airing in the UK was subsequently distributed across the whole of Europe as VH1 Export from June 1999. However, its current pan-European feed was officially launched in 2001 by merging VH1 Export and VH1 Germany, hence becoming a separate service from the UK-aimed VH1 channel.
Programming
This European version of VH1 is very different from its American counterpart, since it has never ceased to be a proper music channel, playing a wide variety of music programs on a daily or weekly basis. VH1 Europe covers many styles of music through a comprehensive selection of music videos ranging from the 1970s to today, using MTV Networks Europe's London-based music video library. In 1995–1999 and since 2014, there was the 1984–1987 and 2011–present American VH-1 logo.
One Pan-European feed
Since 5 August 2010, most of the European feeds of VH1 are one common music channel which airs commercials. Starting this date, VH1 started to air the first commercial in some regions, thus following the trend of the regional resellers to air specific language and area commercials. The regional cover-up aspect of VH1 by this date has been less aggressive as it did not have commercial and shopping shows. The revenue came only from subscribers and since then the change in its politics means VH1 now allows third parties to overlap commercial clips with regional commercials. This increases the revenue by an additional percentage and it cannot increase the low audition percentage it has on the TV market.
Themed shows
Until early 2008, VH1 Europe's schedule was largely based upon music programming, although some shows imported from VH1 US or MTV US could be seen during primetime hours as well. In February 2008, the station received a major makeover in its timeslot programming, with further specialist shows being added to the already existing ones, featuring selections of music videos linked by common themes. In January 2010, the only daily hour of non-music related programming on VH1 Europe – formerly airing between noon and 1 p.m. – was replaced by music video-based programming. The channel's schedule now purely consists of music programming.
VH1 Jukebox
For 2 hours each day, between 18.00 and 20.00 CET, the channel played selections of videos submitted by viewers via the channel's website on a show called VH1 Jukebox. The show was cancelled in summer 2010.
VH1 broadcasts from MTV Networks Europe's premises in Camden Town to Europe, except San Marino, and covering also the Middle East and Africa. On 1 June 2010, it became officially available in Russia as well, replacing the former local version VH1 Russia. On 1 October 2012, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina got their regional version of VH1 called VH1 Adria, which replaced the pan-European feed until 1 February 2015 at 6 AM CET, when it was replaced again by VH1 Europe. On 1 February 2017, programming of VH1 Poland were replaced with VH1 Europe's programming, then on 3 march 2020 VH1 Poland was replaced by VH1 Europe. VH1 is available in almost every digital platform in the above-mentioned areas. VH1 covers countries from Europe, Middle East and Africa.
