Top of the Pops
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Top of the Pops is a long-running British music chart television programme shown each week on BBC ONE and now on BBC Kids in Canada. Each programme consists of half an hour of performances of some of that week's best-selling popular music.
It began on New Years Day 1964 in a studio set in an old disused church in Manchester. The first show was presented by DJ Jimmy Savile. It featured (in order) The Rolling Stones with "I Wanna Be Your Man'", Dusty Springfield with "I Only Want to be With You", the Dave Clark Five with "Glad All Over", The Hollies with "Stay", The Swinging Blue Jeans with "The Hippy Hippy Shake" and The Beatles with "I Want to Hold Your Hand", that week's number one.
It was originally intended to have only a few programmes but has been going for over forty years. It was traditionally shown on a Thursday night, but was later moved to a Friday, a change which caused some controversy. In November 2004, the BBC announced that the show was going to move again to Sunday evenings on BBC TWO, thus losing its prime-time slot on BBC ONE [1]. This move has been widely reported as a final "sidelining" of the show, and perhaps a move towards cancelling it altogether.
This chart show has seen many changes through the decades: in style, design, fashion and taste. It celebrated its 2000th show in 2002. The show has historically been closely associated with the BBC radio station Radio 1, usually being presented by DJs from the station (although from October 1991 to January 1994 no Radio 1 DJs presented the show, and the association has never again become as close as it once was). In its heyday during the glam rock era of the early 1970s, the show featured the tightly choreographed dance troupe Pan's People (later succeeded by Legs & Co.), something which has been widely imitated on similar shows ever since.
In November 2003, the show was radically overhauled in what has been widely reported as a make-or-break attempt to revitalise the long-running series. In a break with the previous format, the show is to play more up and coming tracks ahead of any chart success, and also to feature interviews with artistes. The new show was hosted by MTV presenter Tim Kash until his contract expired in August 2004. It was not renewed due to his apparent lack of popularity with TV viewers. The show is currently co-hosted by Reggie Yates and Fearne Cotton and averages around 3.5 million viewers every Friday night.
The BBC have also had a show called TOTP2 which shows archive footage from as early as the 60's of musicians on earlier Top of the Pops shows. It has been shown on BBC2 since September 1994, although the network's new controller Roly Keating announced in the summer of 2004 that it was being "rested" (repeats, however, continue on the digital channel UKTV G2). A more recent spinoff is Top of the Pops Saturday, showing on Saturday mornings on BBC 1. This is aimed at a younger audience as is part of the CBBC Saturday Morning lineup.
Top of the Pops had short lived fame in the United States. In 1987, the CBS televison network decided to try a American version of the show. It was hosted by Nia Peeples and even showed performances from the BBC version of the program. The show was presented on late Friday nights and lasted almost a year.
In 2002, BBC America presented the BBC version of Top of the Pops as part of their weekend schedule. The network would get the episodes one week after they were transmitted in England. BBC America then tinkered with the show by cutting a few minutes out of each show and moving it to a weekday time slot. Viewer interest was gone and the show was taken off BBC America's schedule.
