VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown - History

History

As part of VH-1's rebranding as "VH1: Music First" in 1994, the channel launched a new series, the VH1 Top 10 Countdown, that counted down the top ten music videos played on VH1 each week. A combination of record sales, radio airplay, video spins, message board posts, and conventional mail would decide the order of the countdown. A rotating cast of VJs picked up hosting duties for the show over the years. The series expanded from ten to twenty music videos, becoming the VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown, in October 2000.

Each week, the show would broadcast from a different location around New York City, often at the Virgin Records store in Union Square. Following a decline in the show's relevance, popular Survivor contestant Jenna Lewis was hired to host the show in 2001. After her departure from the show, from 2002 to 2006, the show was usually hosted by either Rachel Perry, Bradford How, or Aamer Haleem, but occasionally another VJ would fill in.

The series became known as the VSPOT Top 20 Video Countdown on April 7, 2006, at which time it received a new on-air look, a new studio at the MTV headquarters in Times Square, and a new host, Matt Pinfield, the venerable VJ from MTV and MTV2 in the 1990s and former host of MTV's 120 Minutes. In a fundamental change from the show's classic format of compiling the top twenty videos of the week, Internet votes determined the entire order of the countdown. Fan participation was introduced via VSPOT, VH1's online music video outlet. Also as part of the change, VH1 temporarily moved the show's first airing of the week to Friday evenings instead of Saturday mornings. On the week of July 15, 2006, the show stopped airing on Friday evenings.

On the September 16, 2006, episode, host Matt Pinfield announced that after being on the countdown for 20 weeks, a video would be retired. Before this time, videos could remain on the countdown for as long as seemed appropriate, though almost all were gone by the 24th week. One notable exception, however, was Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know", which remained in the countdown for 28 non-consecutive weeks in two countdown runs. The video did not reach the top ten and its second wind was caused by the popularity of the VH1.com live version of the video.

After host Matt Pinfield did not show up for a few recordings of the show on October 7, 2006, former host Aamer Haleem returned to host the show once again. Beginning the week of February 17, 2007, after a mass layoff of music producers at MTV Networks, the show left the MTV studios and became broadcast from a different location every week, as it was in the late 1990s and early 2000s (decade), starting at New York's Grand Central Terminal. Haleem continued to host VH1 Top 20 every week from a different location until August 4, 2007, when he hosted his final episode.

Alison Becker became the new host on August 11, 2007. Around this time, the VSPOT online video center was renamed to "Video.VH1.com," so the series regained its classic title, VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown. Since then, each episode has usually featured one or two interviews with a celebrity or celebrities of current notoriety who either have a video, movie, or television show of interest at the time. The countdown sometimes has videos high in its countdown despite virtually no radio airplay for the song. One example is Bret Michaels Go That Far which was directed by Shane Stanley. This video spent twelve weeks on the countdown and bowed out at number seven. The video supported Michaels' show Rock of Love which is shown on the network.

David Cook and David Archuleta, the winner and runner-up of American Idol season 7 were the first guest stars to introduce their own music video at the #1 spot. David Archuleta introduced his video "Crush" on November 15, 2008. The following Countdown on November 22, 2008, David Cook made a guest appearance to introduce his Music video "Light On" which was making its Countdown Debut at #1. Shinedown joined the group to introduce a song at #1 when their video for "Second Chance" was #1 on May 16, 2009. Introducing "Come Back To Me" at #1 on May 30, 2009 made David Cook the first to introduce two music videos on two different occasions. Later in 2009 Daughtry introduced their music video for "No Surprise" at #1 on July 18, 2009 and Jay Sean introduced his music video for "Down" at #1 on October 17, 2009. After four months of no one introducing their own video at #1, Adam Lambert would also join the group as he introduced his video, "Whataya Want from Me," at #1 on February 20, 2010. At VH1's Winter Wonderland Countdown Special, The Script introduced their video, Breakeven at #1 on March 6, 2010. For five months, no one had introduced their song at number one until August 21, 2010 where B.o.B introduced Airplanes at #1. Two months later, on October 9, Bruno Mars introduced his #1 single, "Just the Way You Are," at #1. Following a four-to-five month absence of an artist introduction at #1, on February 26, 2011, Adele introduced "Rolling in the Deep" at #1. On November 5, 2011, Kelly Clarkson introduced "Mr. Know It All" at #1 after a nine month absence. On March 24, 2012, Neon Hitch introduced "Ass Back Home" at #1. Since then there has been no one else to introduce their own videos at #1 but it's likely there will be more by looking at past Countdowns where this has occurred.

Alison Becker announced at the end of the January 3, 2009, broadcast that it would be her last show as host. The new host, Jim Shearer, taped his first show on January 5, 2009, at the Virgin Megastore at Union Square in New York, for broadcast on January 10. In 2009, VH1 has taken tighter control of the songs played on the show, with the number of videos available to be voted onto the Top 20 Countdown reduced to less than 30, and several videos removed from the voting list while they were still in the top half of the Countdown. There are also less rivalries regarding songs that try to earn a #1 spot due to the lack of a majority of song rivalries in 2009 and 4 consecutive brand new #1 videos in January 2010.

As of September 18, 2010, VH1 Top 20 Countdown has expanded from 2 hours to 2.5 hours, but returned to the previous two hour format on February 11, 2012. On May 14, 2011, the show celebrated its 800th episode. This makes the countdown the longest-running music-related program on any channel, ever, in TV history. The countdown's 800th #1 video was "Rolling in the Deep" from Adele.