Farewell Video Hits
The world's second longest-running music show is no more as Faustina "Fuzzy" Agolley and Dylan Lewis bid farewell to a generation of music videos.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Video Hits is no more.
After 24 years the weekend clip show took its final bow on TEN today in three hour retrospective special.
“Thankyou to Channel TEN for letting us be on air for 24 years, thankyou to all the bands and record companies and artists who have appeared on the show, thank you for watching,” said co-host Dylan Lewis.
Premiering in 1987, the show preceded rage by just two months and became the world’s second longest running music show after the Eurovision Song Contest.
But after 24 years it finally fell victim to cost-cuts under interim CEO Lachlan Murdoch.
Today Lewis and co-host Faustina “Fuzzy” Agolley looked back on the songs that have helped define its two and a half decades. Several of the previous hosts, Kelly Cavuoto, Axle Whitehead, Hayden Guppy, and Nathan Sapsford, were also acknowledged.
Across its three hour finale it featured interviews and shout outs from many artists including ABBA, Adele, Mariah Carey, Boy George, Muse, Green Day, Lady Gaga, Sinead O’Connor, Pharell Williams, Silverchair, La Roux, Faithless, The Script, Emma Bunton, Rhianna, The Pussycat Dolls, Coldplay, Duran Duran, Alicia Keys, plus highlights from Big Day Out, Park Life and live concerts in Martin Place.
In its final hosting segment, Lewis and Agolley toasted champagne with with the four production staff who have worked on the show.
“Here’s to Video Hits you will be sorely missed until something hopefully comes and fills the void soon,” said Lewis.
Final Playlist:
Karma Chameleon -Culture Club
Mmm Bop -Hanson
Poker Face -Lady Gaga
Time of Your Life -Green Day
Waterloo -ABBA
The Resistance -Muse
Hero -Mariah Carey
My Happiness -Powerfinger
Barbie Girl -Aqua
Torn -Natalie Imbruglia
Fall At Your Feet (Live) -Neil Finn
Angel -Robbie Williams
Livin La Vida Loca -Ricky Martin
Pure Shores -All Saints
Tellin’ Everybody -Human Nature
Better Than (Live) -John Butler Trio
Straight Lines -Silverchair
Killing Me Softly -The Fugees
Rehab -Amy Winehouse
You’ve Got the Love -Florence and the Machine
Wannabe -The Spice Girls
Runaway -Kanye West
Only Girl (In the World) -Rhianna
Superwoman (Live) -Alicia Keys
Every Teardrop is Waterfall – Coldplay
On Twitter fans left affectionate farewells:
jesscampbell:Last #VideoHits ever! A childhood Saturday tradition all over, I remember when I use to record my fav videos and watch them over & over!
madeitobvious: “And then a hero comes along with the strength to carry on & you cast your fears aside & you know you can survive…” #videohits
felicityward: Farewell #VideoHits you’ve got me through so many hangovers & panicked moments when Rage had already finished.
KristinDevitt: Raise your glass to all the crew who have brought us #videohits, a soundtrack for Saturday mornings. @channelten
chrispytweets: 24 years of music history comes to an end. Long live #videohits.
paulcochrane10: the #videohits farewell brings back heaps of memories working here in the @sportstonight1 newsroom on Saturday & Sunday mornings!
themacboy: Still cant work out why Channel 10 is cancelling #videohits . I mean how much would the show cost to make? The videos are free!!
CampbellTwitTim: Mariah Carey on #VideoHits!!! Quick, everyone grab the remote and sing it loud!! 🙂
blahblahellis: Farewell #VideoHits! If only they’d had cooking or renovating in with the music, it might have stood a chance.
james_tobin: @Faustinathefuzz and @_Dylan_Lewis_ congratulations on a stella run! The end of an era #videohits
_Dylan_Lewis_: It started to hail in Melbourne as the credits rolled and Coldplay was playing. So perfect and magic. #lasteverVideoHits
Faustinathefuzz: Our Executive Producer is crying at home. I’m going outside to play in the sun now. Will return to all of your beautiful messages soon. LOVE
Thankyou for the music, guys….
Share
- Tagged with Eurovision Song Contest, rage, Video Hits
35 Responses
The BBC’s Top of the Pops ran for 42 years – 1964 – 2006 and still comes back for Christmas specials, so Video Hits can never be the worlds second longest running music show…!
Top of the Pops was no longer running, but have no issue with a different take on interpretation.
Finishing on Coldplay?!?!? That’s like p***ing on the mud being shovelled onto yourself at your funeral. Shoulda been an Aussie finish.
On Lachlan Murdoch! You really lack vision, talent and style! Video HIts was an amazing show and I am sure it was a cheap show to make. Music is a good healthy way to speak to the people. You have proved how boring and conservative u really are!
I suppose it was the second longest running music show on air now, but of course Top Of The Pops in the UK ran for over 30 years although it was cancelled a few years ago.
It was hardly a show we could be proud of. It was full of provided content(music Videos) therefore should have been so cheap show to produce. So does anyone know why it was axed due to cost cutting. What were the high costs? Would love to know. Clearly the only reason it was axed, was it was seen as a threat to the Murdoch owned Foxtel and it’s music channels. His control of Ten should never be allowed. Would love to know what his strategy is for Ten apart from his own interests and totally destroying it! Come on Lachlan, Let us know your strategy!!!
Second longest? Did not know that, it kind of makes it sadder.
I caught a bit of the show today – to be I wasn’t impressed with the playlist at all.
A few gems but a lot of it I would have left out (Muse, Florence & the Machine, Kanye West etc)
Where was Kylie, Madonna & Michael Jackson?
I was talking to a friend this afternoon & what they should have done is 3 different shows for the last 3 weeks on air (80s, 90s & 2000s) – there was no 80s (Culture Club was the only one & that was before they were on air)
The major problem with the final show was the playlist – clearly it wasn’t put together by people that know their music & what songs have impacted since the show started.
I will miss Video Hits though – here’s hoping another great music show gets on air soon!
I believe there was an executive producer who was summarily dismissed for influencing what videos were and weren’t seen on the show. If memory serves, he’d been shopping this influence to various record companies. This is in the region of ten odd years ago, now.
Ten Canberra played their normal weekend local music show guff in it’s place! Morons!!
It was the only music video show (on commercial FTA at least) with some integrity, unlike shows on other networks that are just ads with a bit music in between (So Fresh, Eclipse, etc.).
Ummm why did we only get 2 hours in WA?
Quite surprised that many legends were not included (such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, Janet, Whitney etc).. I’m glad Mariah Carey was there though 🙂
No Kylie!
Youtube Killed the Video Hits Star.
oh well. ’twas a Saturday/Sunday Morning Tradition, will be missed.
where will I get my annoying Crazy Frog ringtones from now? They were only $5 a pop
Good riddens, as it should’ve been canned years ago, especially since they never even played videos in full and you can see music vids on YouTube through Vevo.
I watched this a lot as a kid and It is sad that Lachlan Murdoch killed it after 24 years.They spend a lot of money on things such as Masterchef and going back even further than that Australian Idol,Big Brother and the various Musical Chairs of shows that made up the 7pm Time Slot after Hinch and Alan Jones Live got the axe around 1993/94 till the 7pm Project came along recently in 2010 at the expense of a Music Video Show.
Who knows what they will replace it with but not another cooking show please!!!!There are too many on as it is.
Sad to see it go, remember watching since I was a kid…
Surprised with some of the play list exclusions, artists like Madonna, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and Eminem have had much more influence over video music pop culture over the video hits generation then any other artists.
The host “Fuzz” actually said it was the world’s longest running music show, not acknowledging the Eurovision Song Contest which is a little bit different. Ten has done a big disservice in canceling it, it would have been cheap to make, it astounds me why they would get rid of it. The final show was also a bit of a disappointment, would have thought it would have had more 80’s/early 90’s tracks and interview clips.
Are the new management at Ten sure they even know what they are doing? They now seem to have 3 very youth skewing stations with similar style and content. With Nine and Seven they have one old, one middle ground and one young skewing station. Channel Ten is a joke.
Great playlist, hope they release it as a dvd or double cd.
TEN hires Andrew Bolt and axes Video Hits. What a shit station.
So sad to see Video Hits go. ): At least I have memories and some taped episodes to look back on. I wish all the presenters and crew the best for the future.
Why finish with Coldplay’s Every Teardrop is Waterfall? Where was Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince?
So no MJ in the final playlist???
Devastated 🙁 Video Hits was an institution. It’s sad to see it go, especially as a casualty of the turbulence at Ten.
Always preferred rage personally, but certainly would have tuned in this morning if I could.
Unfortunately since Southern Cross Ten play their own music shows in the Video Hits timeslot and pass it off as local content, I couldn’t!
Sad to see that, after 24 years, Lachlan Murdoch can just kill this.
Sure, the internet has made it an obsolete show, but it was still good to watch on occasion.