Save VH1 Soul: Updates and Additional Information.

Better right click and save as while you can.

Hey People.
I want to start by thanking you all for your time, your support, and for sticking with us while we get an ideal of whats really going on here.

Well, there’s good news, and bad news. So lets start with the good news first.

Good News:
VH1Soul will NOT be cut on March 1st. We have succeeded in getting an extension for VH1Soul to continue airing without any new date of cancellation.
Also, were 300 signatures into our petition. All we need is 200 more. Come on people. We can do it.
If you’re reading this, take some time to sign here for us.

Bad News (And I’ll try to keep this short as I can):
Regardless of the online uproar being caused, no matter how many Music Coordinators bring it up at meetings, essentially, no matter how much we break it down, explain or gently nag… It really looks like THEY are going to do what they want to do, regardless of their fans and viewers… and continue on with the cancellation of VH1Soul, with full merging into The Centric Channel.
Basically, the only reason its being extended is because there is still (legal) work to be done, and they have yet to figure out what their set programming will be for the channel. Its like, the 3rd extension at this point. At least there’s no date on this extension.  Also, since it is now known by the general public that they will be canceling VH1Soul, they don’t want to just up and take the channel from you without you knowing, which was the original plan (like they did with VH1Rock a few years back. Who remembers that?). Now we’re being told that there will be an official end date, as well as a press release on why this channel will be canceled.

When will we get this date or press release? We don’t know. The only people who would be able to find any info on that would be our press department… and they just made the VH1Soul’s PD info unavailable (hrrm.). However, if you are interested in getting more info for your own blog, if you have questions, or if you want to find out how you can speak to VH1 higher ups, you can also start here. If you do choose to contact our press offices, let me be clear. Please do not call these people with the intent to yell or scream or be generally unpleasant towards them. They can be a good resource of info for all of us, and really, press departments nothing to do with any of this, at all. It would be like shooting the messenger.

Now, before we all go apesh*t insane with anger, let me tell you this. Really, no one in the BET/VH1 offices are to blame for this. At all. We work with a great group of people at VH1, and partners at BET are also really, really great and understanding about the situation too. These are a wonderful bunch of people hard at work here… and we don’t want to burn any bridges, or play the blame game with each other. We’re going to need each other soon, is what it looks like.

While everyone… EVERYONE from the head programmers at BET back over to us at VH1 is in consensus about NOT terminating VH1Soul… it is the head programmers of ViaCom who are making this decision. And those programmers are FAR above us. Too far above us for comfort, frankly… as they have made themselves unavailable to us during this whole process. The only information we ever received was what I just told you, and that was sent via messenger… one of the heads of ViaCom Music. And he acted like he was angry that he had to do that.

And while we are all searching for angles or new avenues to take to appeal directly to ViaCom directors about this situation, we (as employees/interns in the middle of this crap) need to tread lightly… as people weren’t even supposted to know that this was happening… and they are slightly angered that people know.
(wtf these people have to be mad at, I have NO clue.) But basically, its hard to really get at this the way we’d like to without risking being fired, frankly. So understand what were working under right now. I… WE want to fight for it, but a part of me wants to just make sure Centric plays more than 2 hours of music a day at this point. :

They just honestly believe there is no value of having VH1Soul around with BET, Centric, and TVOne out there. As if any of these actually play comprehensive music for anyone above age 20. eeesh. I’ll stop here.

Thats basically everything I have for now. As I get more information, I’ll be happy to let you know. If you have any questions, please leave a comment. I’m happy to answer whatever you want to know (that’s reasonable and within the topic).

Again, thanks for your support.