Top Of The Pops

Top Of The Pops was a British institution back in the day, and should never have been taken off the air unceremoniously, in the fashion that it was. In The Sun newspaper yesterday, there was a double page article about TOTP, and how it is going to be back on TV screens as of tonight (1/4). However, it is not the revamp and relaunch that the music world needs, and it is not really the return of the household name in the slightest. On BBC Four over the next few weeks (and/or months), old episodes of TOTP will be played every week, apparently for as long as people still want to see them. Due to the mass of episodes in archive at the BBC, it could take up to 2041 before they have all been played. Let’s face it, that is not going to happen is it, and I am sure that this comeback of sorts won’t last for a particularly long time.

Apparently a lot of the earlier shows have also been wiped from the archives, and therefore they will start the re-runs from 1976, even though the show was already 8 years old by that point.

I was a bit disappointed to read the story behind the teasing headline, as what the music world really needs is the return of TOTP for good. It should never have been taken off our screens, and all it ever really needed was a massive revamp of its formula. TOTP used to air every Friday and have performances from some of the biggest names in the game, as well as the revealing of the singles charts for viewers. The problem was always that by the time Friday came along, the chart was nigh on 7 days out of date, having been officially released the previous Sunday on Radio 1. That was the death of the show, and that was the real reason why people didn’t tune in as much as they used to in its heyday towards the end of its tenure on our screens. Some much maligned performances where artists mimed, rather than sung live, also did nothing to further its credibility.

The music world was evolving, and rather than rolling with the punches, and weathering the storm, the BBC bosses just chose to pull the plug on a show that had been in circulation and production since 1964, finally cutting it off for good in 2006. It was a big shame when it finally went, but it has remained a fixture of Christmas Day, as they run down the charts for the Xmas number one (once more a number of days after that information is readily available) and have some of the biggest acts of the year perform their hits.

What it needs is a complete makeover, and a relaunch. Pop music is bigger now than it has been in a long time, and there is a ready made audience just waiting for it. What it needs to do is attract the biggest acts in the game to improve its credibility, and it would need be aired on a Sunday (in parallel to the Radio One announcement of the weeks number one) and it would be a big success. Its biggest flaw was always that its information was out of date by the time the show aired, so do it live, do it justice, and release the information before anyone else, and people would watch it in their droves.

There is nothing out there anymore where people can watch singers and bands perform on TV, other than the results show of The X Factor, so if the BBC put a programme together, got some performances by big name acts (preferably live, rather than mimed like back in the day), and made a go of it once again, it would be a big success.

Although it will be good to watch the old episodes again, (personally, I can’t wait to see some of the later ones from the late 90’s/early 00’s), but it is a redundant exercise if the BBC don’t see sense and plan on a full scale relaunch of one of the finest British institutions ever.