Videomusic was an Italian music channel and one of the first music channels in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. It was launched in early 1984 and was owned by Marialina Marcucci and Pier Luigi Stefani (VM's Managing Director). It used to air from a location called "Il Ciocco", near Castelvecchio Pascoli, a ''

frazione A ''frazione'' (plural: ) is a type of subdivision of a ''comune'' (municipality) in Italy, often a small village or hamlet outside the main town. Most ''frazioni'' were created during the Fascist era (1922–1943) as a way to consolidate territ ...

'' of Barga in the

province of Lucca The province of Lucca ( it, provincia di Lucca) is a province in the Tuscany region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Lucca. It has an area of and a total population of about 390,000. There are 33 '' comuni'' (singular: ''comune'') in the pr ...

(

Tuscany it, Toscano (man) it, Toscana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Citizenship , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = Italian , demogra ...

). A second studio was later opened in Corso Monforte in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

with the scope of spreading its terrestrial signal to most of the Italian regions. The first music video transmitted was Lionel Richie's " All Night Long". During the first four years of its existence, the Videomusic brand became very popular among young people. The first four VJs were Rick Hutton, Clive Griffiths, Johnny Parker and Tiziana Cappetti. In 1985 they were joined by Claudio De Tommasi. In 1988, Videomusic's owners bought 90% of pan-European TV channel Super Channel, while the remaining 10% was taken over by

Virgin Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...

. Between 1989 and 1990, Videomusic also produced some

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

music shows for Super Channel. Most of these shows were produced in Italy and were considered amateurish by European viewers who were used to watching high-quality music shows from

Music Box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or ''lamellae'' ...

, a separate company which also broadcast on Super Channel until the end of 1989. In September 1993, the Marcucci family sold Super Channel to the US's

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

, which rebranded it as NBC Super Channel. At the same time, logo and graphic set of Videomusic were changed to a new one due to its similarities with the MTV logo. In 1994 Videomusic was sold to Film producer

Vittorio Cecchi Gori Vittorio Cecchi Gori (; born 27 April 1942) is an Italian film producer and politician. He pleaded guilty to bankruptcy and was sentenced in February 2020 to 8 years and 5 months of imprisonment. Born in Florence, Italy he is the son of Mar ...

, who at the time owned another TV station,

Telemontecarlo La7 is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned by Cairo Communication. Until 2013 it was a pay-per-view channel owned by Telecom Italia Media and operated by Telecom Italia. Signal overspill means that parts of Albania, Croatia, Swit ...

. In 1996 Videomusic was rebranded as TMC2 (Tele Monte Carlo 2) and its schedules changed to include broader subjects such as sport, news and films. However, the channel also retained music as its most important content as well as the use of the Videomusic logo during music programmes. In 1997, the Videomusic logo disappeared, but music programmes were increased more. The intention of rebranding the channel again as Videomusic failed when Cecchi Gori sold it to

Telecom Italia Media Telecom may refer to: * Telecommunications ** A telephone company (or ''telecommunications service provider'') ** The telecommunications industry * Telecom Animation Film, a Japanese studio See also * Telcom (disambiguation) * Telekom (disambi ...

, a

Telecom Italia Gruppo TIM, legally TIM S.p.A. (formerly Telecom Italia S.p.A.), also known as the TIM Group in English, is an Italian telecommunications company with headquarters in Rome, Milan, and Naples, (with the Telecom Italia Tower) which provides fixed ...

affiliate. The station was later permanently closed down and the Italian speaking MTV purchased its assets and frequencies.

References

External links

Comprehensive Videomusic fansite
{{Italian television stations Defunct music video networks Defunct television channels in Italy Italian-language television stations Television channels and stations established in 1984 Television channels and stations disestablished in 1996 Italian companies established in 1984 1996 disestablishments in Italy Music organisations based in Italy