Video Concert Hall

Overview

Video Concert Hall was an early U.S. television network launched on November 1, 1979, on the USA Network and on Showtime, featuring an unhosted rotation of music videos. Often credited as being the precursor to MTV,Video Concert Hall was reportedly the most popular programming on QUBE, a cable television unit of Warner Communications. VCH, as it was often called, was created by radio and cable television executive Lloyd G. Crowe and Charles W. Henderson, a pioneering journalist who would later work for TriStar Pictures. Video Concert Hall was produced by Henderson-Crowe Productions and the company Video Concert Hall, Ltd. at studios in Atlanta, Georgia. Crowe and Henderson served as executive producers of Video Concert Hall, as well as other top-rated syndicated musical variety TV specials. Billboard, the American magazine covering the music industry, said in a cover story that Video Concert Hall was the first-ever nationwide video music programming on cable television predating MTV by almost three years. Video Concert Hall creators Charles Henderson and Jerry Crowe are considered the "fathers" of television's music video programming.