Viva Zwei was a German music channel aired and distributed throughout Europe and Germany. The channel was launched March 21, 1995, as a second incarnation of the main channel VIVA in Germany.
Viva Zwei ran on TV for eight years in Europe, even though it was not well known to the music world, it was a big music channel to Europe and other countries, and also to its fans. Viva Zwei clips can be found online on video websites. As for the main channel, VIVA, it still runs in Europe.
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Unlike VIVA, Viva Zwei was not as well known. Viva Zwei was devoted to music from lesser known bands that could use Viva Zwei to get their music heard. One of the first shows on Viva Zwei was Geschmackssache, a German TV show that featured singers from around the world. The singer would talk about himself or herself and would show some of their favorite music videos to the viewers. Viva Zwei's logo at the time was a logo similar to the VIVA logo with a 2 (II) sign beside it. In mid 1996, the logo was changed to a logo similar of a plus sign with the word "ZWEI" beside it.
The 1995-1996 original Viva Zwei channel (more known as Viva II at the time) aired mostly classic 80s music and current pop music and shows like Das War 1974 (That Was 1974) and Geschmackssache. At this time, VIVA TV was the mainstream channel for shows, it contained shows like Wah and others.
In 1997, more programming started to come to the channel such as 2Rock, 2Step, Fast Forward, Trendspotting, Wah² and Zwobot. The channel started becoming a place lesser known bands got their music heard by the world, the channel, as well as airing lesser known band's music, aired music from bigger name stars such as Depeche Mode.
By 2001, the channel became more popular, but its main company, Time Warner, was losing money; even with its popularity, Viva Zwei was not making enough money to stay on the air. So, in mid-summer 2001, it was announced Viva Zwei would be shut down.
The shutdown occurred on January 7, 2002. The final images seen on the network was a sendoff video, a special thanks to Viva Zwei's moderators, a music video from Zwobot, and Mr. Explosion from Zwobot. Then, Viva Zwei switched full time into Viva Plus, a channel dedicated to mainstream pop music. This was said to be a loss to the music world by fans of the old channel as well as music personalities, because it eliminated a medium for lesser known bands to be recognized.
Viva Plus was launched as a way to make money. The channel mostly aired music videos on the show called "Get The Clip" in alternative version such as Rock, HipHop, Party, Top List, and more. Programming from Viva Zwei was switched over to VIVA and Viva Plus.
Fast Forward, a German music talk show featuring Charlotte Roche as the host, aired on Viva Zwei from 1999–2001. It moved to VIVA in 2002, and lasted until January 2, 2005. On January 2, the farewell episode of Fast Forward aired without Charlotte Roche. It aired only music videos,and at the end broadcast a message saying "Fast Forward Say Thank You" and ended showing its usual closing sequence.
Overdrive came back on the channel Viva Plus. Overdrive ran on Viva Zwei from 1998–2002, it came back later in 2002 on Viva Plus, and it lasted there until 2007, when Viva Plus shut down. As For 2Step and E-Beats, they were slated to have come back on Viva Plus, but the idea was later canceled.
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