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Sentimentally us:
VH1'S 'I Love the '90s'
Week-long series reliving what only recently was
By Marisa Hoheb
Any decade dynamic (and fickle) enough to boast M.C. Hammer,
Nirvana and Britney Spears as musical icons is worth an exhaustive TV retrospective, even
if that decade is still warm in our memories.
And so tonight at 9, VH1 kicks off its weeklong “I Love the ‘90s”
series
Despite the scoffing of critics who believe we’re still too wrapped up
in the ‘90s to fully appreciate it, the series is almost certain to match and likely
top the ratings of the network's earlier "I Love" retrospectives.
VH1 has learned a thing or two about what makes its viewers tick. In 2002,
executives desperate to understand why the cable network was losing viewers conducted
research and made an interesting discovery: When asked what came to their minds in
thinking about VH1, viewers mentioned music third, after nostalgia and storytelling.
And so began a repositioning of the network. It no longer saw itself as
primarily a channel for music but as one dedicated to telling stories about what it
knew best: pop culture.
Hence the birth of the “I Love” series, hugely entertaining
flashbacks to recent decades narrated by a host of B- and C-list celebrities obviously
thrilled to be in the spotlight. Viewers have eaten it up.
“I Love the ‘80s” arrived as a 10-episode special in 2002,
averaging 500,000 viewers in primetime – an increase of nearly 70 percent over the
same time period the previous year.
“I Love the ‘70s” followed last summer and did even better,
averaging 1.2 million households and a .9 rating in adults 18-49.
The 10-episode marathon boosted VH1’s regular 18-49 rating by 125
percent over the time slot’s previous four-week average, placing three episodes in
the week’s top 41 basic cable shows among 18-49s.
“I Love the '70s” was also good for a 200-percent increase in
primetime viewership among 18-49s over the previous year.
The network wasted no time in rushing out “I Love the ‘80s Strikes
Back” last fall, meeting with further success.
“Strikes Back” scored particularly well with the younger females,
boosting average primetime viewership among women 18-34 by 224 percent year to year.
Overall “Strikes Back” placed six episodes in the top 50 cable
shows among viewers 18-34 and bumped up VH1’s primetime viewership among 18-34s by
211 percent versus the previous fall.
So why stop at 1989? VH1 is clearly on to something good.
What “I Love the ‘90s” may bring to the table is a spate of
viewers who didn’t live through the ‘70s and who are too young to remember
Saturday morning cartoons, Menudo and New Coke.
Younger demographics are sure to recollect mid- to late-‘90s pop culture
fodder like “Beverly Hills, 90210,” the Teletubbies and Monica Lewinsky.
And slightly older viewers should enjoy reminiscing about the early part of
the decade. (Remember Right Said Fred’s infectiously catchy tune “I’m Too
Sexy,” Beavis and Butthead, and the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding saga?)
So, as “‘90s” is more likely than its predecessors to incite
nostalgia among the adolescent set in addition to the ever-important 18-49s, VH1 may very
well have its biggest hit yet.
That is, if anyone can stomach Vanilla Ice and the Spice Girls. |
July 12,
2004 © 2004 Media Life
- Marisa Hoheb is a staff writer for Media Life.
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