"Bring Back Top of the Pops" says Culture Secretary...

How old do you want to feel?

[quote]
TV 'is failing new music stars'
By Ian Youngs
Music reporter, BBC News at In The City, Manchester

Britain is missing out on tomorrow's music stars because TV stations have stopped putting new acts on in prime time, the culture secretary has warned.

Andy Burnham said: "We need a programme like Top of the Pops again.

"This was a great thing that was always putting a great mix of new music before the public."

Mr Burnham, speaking at music industry conference In the City in Manchester, said great acts that emerged 20 years ago may not get the same chance today.

Broadcasters must "promote and champion new music in this country, rather than having just very safe options on prime-time TV", he told executives.

Talent shows like The X Factor were great, he said, but "not quite the same" as promoting artists that write their own songs.

Top of the Pops, on the other hand, was "really important for stimulating the wider interest in the wider population" when exciting new acts came along.

'Difficult place'

"I just worry a little that the relationship between prime time TV and radio and the music industry has at times become a little cosy," he told BBC News.

"It's relying on safe formats and not sufficiently putting out those new names that can then all of a sudden go from the margins right into national prominence.

"That was what was great about the past - The Smiths did become a national name, even though I can remember my dad moaning about them on Top of the Pops."

[/quote]

It won't happen. Or if it does the Cool Police will ruin it and it will be lucky to last six weeks.

No, it won't.

(I wish they'd fix them damn apostrophe's!)

the "cool police"??

TS: moaning about The Smiths vs. moaning about The X Factor

yeah you know, like Andi Peters (xp)

The only way this could work is if they stick to the original rules. "If you're in the Top 20, and going up the chart, then you can be on". But that's incredibly unlikely to happen, given the amount of messing around with the format they did in it's last few years.

The thing is, the best thing they could do is go out of their way to make it deliberately UNCOOL and square and naff and really old Auntie BBC because that would make 1) the program seem far more subversive and 2) the artists look odd and wonderful by comparison.

Go for retro production values - none of this OH! look how HIP and DOWN WITH TEH KIDS we are by having shouting and bright lights and BOUNCEY HIP presenters.

What really shines about watching old archive footage of TOTP is how understated it is - which makes both bands and audience look the more amazing for it.

Don't worry, The Cool Police are just the regular Police except wearing shades. They won't last.

kate otm.

Bring back Dance Energy

the "cool police"??

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 6 October 2008 14:33 (40 minutes ago) Bookmark

The suede-denim secret police--they have come for yr uncool niece.

You know that thing Frank Zappa said about how in the early days the eguys in charge would be "Heck, I don't understand it, but the kids seem to go for it, who knows lets try it" whereas now it's like "Hey, I understand the kids, and I know what grabs their attention, and this isn't it"

He never spoke a truer word. True it was all about hippies on the board, but the 'hip' dudes have taken over. With a high turnover factor, but ...

Extra E's on beginning of words, classic or dud!

Hippies vs Hipsters

never trust a middle aged hipster blogger!

(I do that too, Mark - the e's on the beginning of words - it's because i'm typing too fast and hitting the spacebar with my right thumb before my left hand has made it to the e)

You know that thing Frank Zappa said about how in the early days the eguys in charge would be "Heck, I don't understand it, but the kids seem to go for it, who knows lets try it" whereas now it's like "Hey, I understand the kids, and I know what grabs their attention, and this isn't it"

Today, the record industry may as well give up the kids. They are on Pirate Bay and they will stay there. Consentrate on older album oriented buyers in their 30s and 40s instead and let the kids' taste become increasingly irrelevant. That will also make music better because music doesn't need to change or rebel against older music all the time. If you have something that works for one generation, no point changing it for the next one as it will work for the next one too.

Yeah, that'll keep things fresh...

Geir reminds me that bringing back public executions wouldn't be so bad an idea...

http://www.swans.pair.com/IMG_PRODUCTS/public.jpg

http://www.skatenigs.com/albums/stup.jpg

I like kate's idea, coupled with the reinstatement of The Rule.

The Rule is U&K.

And also late TOTP forgot the number one thing, which is - TOTP is about the POPs. It's not about the presenters, crappy jokes, contests, blah blah blah - it's about giving random pop stars three minutes and twenty seconds to get on the telly and do what they do best - BE POP STARS.

Everything else is just distracting and pointless at best. Don't try to compete.

Andy Burnham is right to be worried, the hundreds of teenagers I see every day seem to find it really difficult to find out about new music. I'm so sick of listening to endless Beatles and Rolling Stones mp3s coming out of tinny mobile phone speakers oh wait

This argument is much, much more about the BBC and UK Plc than it is about music. "The kids" don't need TOTP now any more than they need a cassette head cleaner, but TOTP was such a huge, globally legendary brand that it's hardly surprising it's being talked up again.

A fuckwit MP who doesn't appear to grasp basic points about the portfolio he's supposed to be dealing with don't equal "talking up".

when i read this story this morning, my first thought was: "what a cunt."

now i've had a chance to think about it a bit.

what a feeble-minded, arse-headed, doss cunt.

Oh for the days of 95-year-old Culture Secretaries who would bellow "What are these Beatles?" from their comfy chair in the Carlton Club, you knew where you were, etc.

Also I am really sick of the fucking Smiths being dragged up as some kind of totem of whatever when "This Charming Man" climbed a massive two places in the chart (from 32 to 30) after that "iconic" performance on TOTP. Billy Joel had two singles in the top ten, the kids wanted the Thompson Twins, Paul Young and the Flying Pickets, stop trying to rewrite history I was there and thusly forth.

I don't understand why anyone is a cunt for suggesting that TOTP should come back. Lots of people liked it, presumably he did, he wants to see it come back. Big deal, we've all got crazy ideas I want to see the return of Floyd on Food.

We don't elect politicians to like TOTP.

If "This Charming Man" on TOTP had such an impact on all these people how come it only got to #25?

Burnham's idea of "new music": music that sounds like the music he liked in 1983.

xpost to NTR: because he's the sodding culture secretary, not a half-cut uncle at a kids' party; this is a pathetic attempt at raising his own profile; it's pointless, brainless and embarrassing; seriously, if he thinks the biggest problem facing young musicians right now is the lack of sodding top of the pops, he's an imbecile.

i've a very, very low tolerance for ministers who make ridiculous "populist" pronouncements. just as well nobody's paying any attention, i guess.

What a great socialist you are, judging the worth of a cultural event by its chart movements based on how many more bits of consumer plastic it sold!

Events can have cultural relevance and cache that do not translate into purely economic terms.

It's be nice if we had a "culture secretary" who pointed out things like that. But hey.

it'd be nice if we had a culture secretary who looked forward, not back.

True, dat.

If the Culture Secretary wants to be of some use for the first time in his life he would do better to address the chronic underfuding of any theatre, classical music and ballet work undertaken outside London, since lottery funds seem only to want to fund things that the Daily Mail will like.

"This Charming Man" on TOTP was not a "cultural event." I know. I sat in the Senior Common Room watching it and 99% of the students in there were falling about in hysterics when they weren't burping "give us some proper fucking music - when's Simple Minds coming on?"

It is always tempting to reinterpret history at a safe distance.

But the fact is that if everyone who claims that their life was changed by watching that performance had gone out and bought the record it would have gone to number one. It didn't. So bang goes that shaky theory.

Just because it wasn't a cultural event in your common room doesn;t mean it wasn't a cultural event. I don't want to make too much of this (as I 'm sure Andy Burnham was thinking) but it certainly was for me because it was a rare event when bands moved from Peel to totp and it always seemed like A Good Thing.

How many people claim it changed thier life? How many copies do it sell? I think the figure could easily be similar plus they might not have bought them all that week.

My tyoing has gone to shit because I cannot beleive how riled you're all getting by this.

David Cameron says it changed his life.

So really they oughtn't to have bothered.

Personally I think Cameron hated the Smiths and was listening to the Alarm and Then Jerico when he was a student.

David Cameron says it changed his life.

He was a Labour supporter before it

I just want people to be honest.

It's easy to say The Smiths Changed My Life ten or twenty years after the event.

Harder to admit that really you were listening to Under A Blood Red Sky and Let's Dance and Into The Gap like everyone else.

Obviously The Smiths' part is being overplayed. Surely it didn't take more than a little over than half a year until "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" did actually go Top 10, but indie didn't get commercially massive until the 1995 Britpop Blur/Oasis chart war.

And it spent precisely two weeks at number ten, underneath things like "Pearl In The Shell," "Farewell My Summer Love" and "I Won't Let The Sun Go Down On Me."

New Order sold more than the Smiths anyway

Singles-wise, New Order sold more than anyone in 1983 except Culture Club. "Blue Monday" was the real "cultural event."

XP Yep. But, even though most of them liked it, "Blue Monday" didn't seem like such a cultural landmark for 80s indie fans. After all, it had synths, and even a drum machine.

Well, you're wrong there, pretty much everybody liked New Order

The Smiths were the Smiths but I am suspicious how everyone's falling over themselves now to canonise them rather than at the time, when the group actually could have benefited from it. It smacks of ambulance chasing. And politicians shouldn't be liking TOTP on our taxes.

I didn't like the Smiths!

Hey, it's allowed!

In a way, "Blue Monday" had "crossover" written all over it. I was not at all into "indie" or whatever it was called at the time, at 12-13 years old. But I liked "Blue Monday" because it had cool synths and a cool drum theme. To me, New Order sounded first and foremost like the synthpop that I loved.

The Smiths, which I heard about next spring, gave me nothing at all. They were just a boring band using guitars (and, I have learned afterwards, the songs were at times annoyingly "cyclic" anc monotonous too)

Alan McGee was so affected by "This Charming Man" on TOTP that he got rid of his perm, unrolled his leather jacket sleeves, quit 1983 hitmakers H20 and created Jesus and the Many Chains.

Just because it wasn't a cultural event in your common room doesn;t mean it wasn't a cultural event

what exactly is a "cultural event"? surely, by any half-objective criterion, it's got to engage more than a handful of already-vaguely-clued-in 80s indie kids, no? i mean, i could argue -- and probably did, in my youth -- that having the mondays and the roses on TotP was also a "cultural event", but you know what? it wasn't. it really wasn't.

from a cultural point of view, the effect the smiths had on pretty much every guitar band that followed; morrissey's redefining of the pop-singer/frontman's role ... all this mattered much more than, er, the day they played top of the pops. marcello's right: if it really had been such a momentous event, people would have rushed out and bought the record. whereas i imagine what happened was that a few sensitive lads in jumpers went: "ooh", quietly.

If the Culture Secretary wants to be of some use for the first time in his life he would do better to address the chronic underfuding of pretty much everything in the wake of the forthcoming Olympics farrago. Can something forthcoming have a wake? We'll find out I guess.

GF: Precisely.

Matt you missed out "so called."

The Human League were so affected by "This Charming Man" on TOTP that they threw away their synths, learned the guitar and created a stirring topical rock anthem where there used to be some shops.

from a cultural point of view, the effect the smiths had on pretty much every guitar band that followed; morrissey's redefining of the pop-singer/frontman's role ...

Sorry, I don't get this at all

Most pop fans' notion of isolationist angst at the end of '83 was Howard Jones rhyming "anyway" with "anyway."

I think, TOTP has had their share of cultural events. But indie bands on TOTP hardly was. Why? Simply because the indie audiences wouldn't watch TOTP to search for the kind of music they were into. Getting on the frontpage of NME was probably a much more important cultural moment for The Smiths than appearing on a programme that was mostly viewed by tweens who, as rightfully said, were into Thompson Twins, Paul Young and Howard Jones at the time and felt no need to look for something else then.

I would suggest that a far more significant "cultural event" in December '83 was the premiere of the video for MIchael Jackson's "Thriller."

i mean, i could argue -- and probably did, in my youth -- that having the mondays and the roses on TotP was also a "cultural event", but you know what? it wasn't. it really wasn't.

Except it bloody well WAS.

If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound? If a performance on TOTP changes the life of a few hundred indie kids (regardless of whether that's Bowie licking Ronson's guitar or Morrissey shoving gladioli down his arse or the Mondays and the Roses or WHAT) it's still a cultural event.

Of course history gets reinterpreted - look at the way more people claim to have been at Sex Pistols gigs than could ever have fit in the borough of Islington let alone the venue. That's part of what makes it a cultural event - that it does take on a legendary, perhaps apocraphal quality.

You don't have to go down to the shops and physically buy a record to have your life changed by it. Imagery, performance - all these things are crucial parts of the building of myth and legend that fuels this thing that is pop culture and pop music.

I think I would be more inclined to trust my own, first-hand experience of such things than the highly unreliable memory of a 13-year-old who wasn't even in this country at the time.

The Roses and the Mondays on the same TOTP at the end of the eighties was a great thing but neither group exactly followed it through.

what we have learned today, #1: "cultural event" is pretty much entirely subjective.

Sorry, I don't get this at all

what don't you get? the point i was making, ie that (as geir says), in terms of the smiths' cultural significance, appearing on TotP was very small beer?

or are you saying you don't think the smiths/morrissey had any effect on subsequent bands/frontmen? because -- regardless of what you think of them as a band -- i think that might be a little difficult to argue.

Why would that be difficult to argue?

I think saying the Smiths had an effect on "pretty much every guitar band that followed" is difficult to argue. And I'm not sure how Morrissey redefined the pop-singer/frontman's role.

Think Bez probly followed through a few times. I blame the drugs.

Also the original point I was making was that claiming a lack of ToTP is detrimental to kids' access to new music is like claiming a lack of Flash Gordon serials on a Saturday morning at the pictures is detrimental to kids' access to new movies.

I.E. TIME IS PASSING YOU BY MISTER and that's fine, it's passing us all by, but maybe you should try and keep up a bit if that's your job and all.

I'd actually like some decent examples of prominent guitar groups who followed as a direct result of the Smiths. Maybe in part the Wedding Present (in a good way) and a whole lot of bad C86 copyists who missed the point entirely (in a bad way) but after that the trail gets pretty cold.

I have to say that I much preferred having Flash Gordon serials on Saturday morning TV before Swapshop came and spoiled everything.

Dude, we were allowed to watch Tiswas in our house.

Oasis and the Stone Roses have some connection with the Smiths

This was before Tiswas which thankfully obviated any obligation to watch Swapshop.

I used to like The Flashing Blade too, but time makes fools of us all if we're government ministers.

Oasis and the Roses but more from the Marr side of things as in Rock's Rich Tapestry History Of The Guitar context. I can't think of anyone who's succeeded from the Morrissey point of influence unless we're counting such deathless icons as Raymonde.

Gene?

Oh, "succeeded"!

Burnham's latest comment on bringing back TOTP: "You've got to fight for what you want..."

So what it boils down to, as usual, is "*MY* VIEWPOINT/DISTORTED MEMORIES IS THE ONLY VALID AND RIGHT ONE AND ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS A TORY CUNT."

Unable to move from the specific to the general and vice versa. Locked in utter subjectivity. No other viewpoints exist. You're like Geir with a political agenda.

Now now, kids

Great thread

Yes, Gene were about as "Olympian" as the dry ski slope in Uxbridge.

Actually the answer to this might be James.

(though really they were parallel with the Smiths rather than influenced by them as such)

I love how Marcello is all over this thread going "yeah the Smiths only got to #25 it wasn't a cultural event no one cared" when a month ago he was banging on about the R1 playlist or something going "no one will remember any of this shit they'll remember A Milli and grime". Lol contrarianism.

The difference is that I'm confident that they will remember A Milli and grime in 25 years' time.

Just as I was right 25 years ago about people remembering "Looking For The Perfect Beat," "Song To The Siren," Double Dee and Steinski's "Lesson One" and "Blue Monday" in 25 years' time.

What people? I don't remember most of those things.

I doubt that this politician really gets the Smiths. I wish these opportunistic sods would leave them alone.

It is possible to like Smiths records and other records from 1983. They need not be entirely mutually exclusive.

I think Mr Carlin is right, though, that the Culture Secretary should really be pushing for other things like classical music which, unlike pop which will sustain (or eat) itself, will go to the wall without support.

i remember songs i liked 25 years ago

I couldn't care less about The Smiths but the idea that any of those records save Blue Monday is remembered better than This Charming Man is very silly.

Actually fwiw the first time I ever heard of the Smiths was at the age of 10, watching some sort of 1989 review of the decade, where they were included in some mainstream TV round-up of Best Act of the Decade alongside Michael Jackson, Prince, U2 and Madonna so if any revisionism has occurred it's hardly a new thing.

they nudged out Level 42, the bastads

(Every record Marcello lists is better than This Charming Man, incidentally. This Charming Man is an abomination).

I doubt that this politician really gets the Smiths

I actually thought you were having a dig at Marcello there!

At the time nobody would play the Smiths on daytime Radio 1 and nearly all the DJs took the piss out of them, especially Steve Shite In The Afternoon, just as they did with anyone who wasn't a mulleted, jacket sleeves rolled up, Thatcher-worshipping, migraine-inducing fully paid-up member of the eighties pop elite, or at the very least Lionel Richie.

decent examples of prominent guitar groups

woah, hang on. did i say "decent"? or "prominent"? no. but they certainly inspired "a whole lot of bad C86 copyists"; ie they had an immediate effect on what followed. and, y'know, people are still wittering on about the smiths today/the NME makes a big deal out of a new compilation/etc etc.

Oasis and the Stone Roses have some connection with the Smiths

exactly. a certain type of guitarist has, since the mid-1980s, gone: "ooh, yeh, i love johnny marr, me." just as a certain type of singer has gone: "ooh, morrissey!"

is there any cultural cachet in doing that now? i'd argue that there isn't; that it's all a bit old-hat. mr burnham would obviously disagree. but, really, i'd love to know what else is on his fucking iPod.

I would suggest that a far more significant "cultural event" in December '83 was the premiere of the video for MIchael Jackson's "Thriller."

But exactly how much impact did that video have, other than leading other people to spend more money on expensive music videos? I would say the impact of "Billie Jean" was much more important because it was a breakthrough for black acts on the previously all-white MTV, plus that, and not "Thriller" (although the latter is a better song IMO), was what turned Michael Jackson into the phenomenon he would stay at least for the rest of the 80s.

I think Mr Carlin is right, though, that the Culture Secretary should really be pushing for other things like classical music which, unlike pop which will sustain (or eat) itself, will go to the wall without support.

But now, remember this guy is a member of the British cabinet. For the British cabinet it is obviously important with musical trends that causes British music to sell more in, and outside of Britan - if needed at the cost of American music - because that gives the British cabinet more money to spend. :)

(a) there were a hell of a lot more people talking about it than talking about the Smiths on TV;
(b) "Thriller" the single shot straight back up the charts thereafter, ditto the album.

I think Geir is right about the economic subtext behind Burnham's special pleading, but if we have to depend on our pop music for economic sustenance then the UN food parcels must surely be coming soon.

At the time nobody would play the Smiths on daytime Radio 1 and nearly all the DJs took the piss out of them, especially Steve Shite In The Afternoon, just as they did with anyone who wasn't a mulleted, jacket sleeves rolled up, Thatcher-worshipping, migraine-inducing fully paid-up member of the eighties pop elite, or at the very least Lionel Richie.

Exactly how many outspoken Tory supporters were there in the 80s pop elite? Surely, I'll give you Tony Hadley and Phil Collins, although the latter didn't really become one until later. But who else?

who fucking cares

Well said, that fellow

For the British cabinet it is obviously important with musical trends that causes British music to sell more in, and outside of Britan - if needed at the cost of American music - because that gives the British cabinet more money to spend. :)

I think Geir is right about the economic subtext behind Burnham's special pleading

really? i just thought he was doing a piss-poor job of trying to "impress" people at In the City.

do you know of any other comments he made at In The City?

You can read it online but it's a bit icky.

Incidentally Phil Collins said he wasn't a conservative on Room 101. I didn't believe him though.

xpost: nope. does anyone? does anyone care?

which is best: to be "noticed" by a few bored dudes on a message board for sounding like an arse, or to STFU, press the flesh and fuck off back to london again? :)

Not conservative, only voting Tory to bring down his own taxes. :)

At least Brian Wilson is a mentalist, so he can be forgiven for being a McCain supporter. :)

Actually, scrub that, it was his speech to the RTS a couple of weeks ago (when he said almost exactly the same thing) which is is online...
http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/minister_speeches/5483.aspx

This will only give grist to the mill though...

xpost to self: best of all would have been to engage with some of the more pressing issues affecting pop music today, eg discussing a new mode of delivery that embraces the technology available but doesn't stiff the artists. but why should a culture secretary bother with that when he can go: "i like the smiths, me!"

Maybe he doesn't really. I mean, there's no reason to doubt David Cameron's love of The Smiths (although Morrissey obviously doesn't love his party back), but for those who don't, it is probably a wiser move not to pretend. Wasn't it McCain who pretended to love some "hip" pop group and still couldn't name a single song?

but why should the media bother reporting that when they can publish him saying he likes the smiths
and why should mark g start a thread about that etc.
xpost

although Morrissey obviously doesn't love his party back

He's more of a UKIP man

but why should the media bother reporting that when they can publish him saying he likes the smiths

in fairness: i think they would. online publishing = potentially infinite amount of space to fill = any old shite is worth printing.

sadly, "top of the pops" is a trigger phrase for lazy hacks in exactly the same way it seems to be for daft culture secretaries.

So anyway should TOTP be brought back? Is he right? Have Your Say.

Thing is, Burnham is actually right and it dovetails almost exactly with what Marcello and Lex and everyone have been saying about conservatism and segmentation in mainstream TV and radio but because he's a) a cabinet minister and b) going "I remember when it were all fields round here" people are like "you fucking soft-headed twat".

Whether a one-size-fits-all TOTP revamp is the way to go is highly debatable but I don't have much of an issue with the basic gist of his argument.

Also Burnham doesn't seem to understand how digital TV or YouTube work.

er, yes, that's the key problem here, no?

It has to be one size fits all, within the admittedly narrower parameters of today's charts.

TOTP was perfectly fine when it was the Starship Enterprise of music programmes, i.e. observing history rather than trying to change it.

And it was egalitarian - if your record went in the chart, you went on the show, regardless of whether you were Des O'Connor, Black Sabbath or the Temptations.

Then the Cool Police ruined it by trying to make it "hip" and "relevant" because they were scared of the competition.

Look at the seventies sequences that everyone remembers from TOTP - ridiculous clothes, even more ridiculous attitudes.

But it was great and unmissable television.

To go from that to only allowing presenters to wear black and mumble was cutting the programme's throat.

No more "relevance." No more timewasting "interviews" or "competitions" or "interactivity." No more trying to be Down With Ver Kids. Just play what's in the chart and that is IT.

for all the talk and youtube's massive reach tho it can't really be attributed as cause or generator of stardom for any new British artists can it? it's just another means

Burnham's idea of TOTP would make it identical to Later With Jools Holland - a hushed, reverent, respectful audience and the general life-sucking aura of school assembly.

i've a very, very low tolerance for ministers who make ridiculous "populist" pronouncements

― toast kid (grimly fiendish), Tuesday, 7 October 2008 10:09 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Ye'll no be a fan of Scotland's First then?
:P

Oh Christ, has Salmond been going on about Runrig again?

Do you think that increased choice of media is actually helping artists gain mainstream exposure or the opposite? Depends on the artist but in a huge number of cases I'd say the answer is no because they now get ghettoised where once they'd have a smaller slice of centre stage. I'd say that's a problem.

If he'd been talking about, say, The Orb on TOTP and not the Smiths would anyone have flown off the handle to quite this extent? The problem is thinking you can base this centre stage on a singles market that doesn't exist any more.

(xxxpost to grimly)

ie The Smiths didn't get in the charts because they were on TOTP, they were on TOTP because they got in the charts, and that would be the first many people heard of it. Now any single gets leaked and played to death 8 weeks before its release date that's never going to work.

Ye'll no be a fan of Scotland's First then?

increasingly, no.

Do you think that increased choice of media is actually helping artists gain mainstream exposure or the opposite?

no. i'd agree with you: the more diffuse the coverage, the less mainstream the appeal. it's certainly a "problem" if you want to stick with the traditional chart/mainstream success model. but, to be blunt, i don't think that's an option for most bands now -- and, i wonder, is it even an ambition?

Try telling the current singles chart that the singles market doesn't exist any more.

It's in rude health but I suppose those who nail themselves into a corner with Fleet Foxes, Alphabeat and the "new" Verve album wouldn't necessarily know that.

In the case of things like 1Xtra it's proved an excuse for legalised public radio apartheid.

When all the money's in touring these days I'm not sure it matters either.

(xpost)

(xxp obv)

If David Cameron crafts a few Amy Winehouse jokes, dude can become Lord Protector.

People who think that singles don't matter fundamentally don't like pop.

All those pathetic slavering cockroaches who moan about the singles chart being "dead" because TOTP stopped - conveniently ignoring the fact that the singles chart thrived in perfect health for eleven years before TOTP started - or because you can't buy singles in a fluffy, smelly little sleeve and put it on your wind-up gramophone really need to be taken out of their misery.

I think the singles chart is dead because the same records sit in the lower reaches of the Top 40 for months at a time.

The single is alive and well, the singles chart in the old-fashioned Top 40 way is pretty fucking dull, even if there are brilliant singles in it.

As they have done for most of the history of the singles chart except for a fifteen year kink which was more to do with marketing than quality.

To me longevity demonstrates quality rather than stagnation, and a truer marker of what music people in Britain like.

If people whine about their favourite not getting in, or not getting higher, then there's not much to be done except that more people should be buying/downloading it.

I mean, that's how it works, it's up to The People, etc.

the top 40 as it is now is more marketing>quality than it has ever been

From what's in it at the moment, I don't see exactly what problem people here have with the Top 40.

Personally I would be happy with a lot more R&B/hip hop/grime in there, and I acknowledge that that the programming policy of BBC Radio Apartheid has something to do with that, but it's hardly a wreck.

Haven't read the whole thread as it seemed to go off on a random tangent about the Smiths for some reason, but all I'm saying is that without TOTP there's a very significant chance I might not have gotten into music in the way that I did.

I would never have seen that Maria McKee song from Days of Thunder and been amazed when my Dad told me it was "THE biggest selling song in the UK".
I therefore wouldn't have been influenced to tape the chartshow off Chiltern Radio every Sunday.
Nor would I have "discovered" punk rock music when Green Day performed "Welcome To Paradise" with their guitars halfway round their ankles.
Nor learnt all the words to "Birdhouse In Your Soul".
I wouldn't have been too fussed when Beats International got knocked off the top spot by Snap.

All these things... yeah TOTP might be a bit crap but it is kind of important too as it's one of the only ways the nation's (as opposed to Simon Cowell's) tastes and attitudes are let into their homes for half an hour.

The Smiths may only have sold a few more hundred singles from appearing on TOTP but the fact we all remember Morrisey dancing around with daffodils growing out his arse (and I'm too young to have seen the original broadcast), the fact it's been parodied by Viz and countless TV shows, and the fact my 21y/o brother's favourite CD is the Smiths singles collection means that perhaps it was a cultural event. How many people would remember Morissey were it not for TOTP? Just a handful of musos and ageing indie kids, that's who.

So I'm inclined to agree with the minister- I think TOTP was important, to me at least, and X-Factor etc reflects something very very different musically. There's room for both.

Also bring back something like the ITV Chart Show (which was amazing rad) and something like the Old Grey Whistle Test for more leftfield music. Anything where I don't have to see Jo Whiley's fucking feet would be a boon.

xpost i've got no problem with the current content of the charts. my point was simple: a lot of bands these days aren't going to be so worried about the traditional "get a deal, make a record, get it in the charts" model because there's a wealth of other ways to get your music out there (even if "out there" isn't necessarily into the "mainstream", whatever that might now be). yet burnham seems to be coming at this argument as if that's the be-all and end-all, and i'm not sure it is.

then again: i'm not sure it isn't, either.

dog latin, it's pretty straightforward: the days of having three channels and the whole family crowded round the TV set are long gone. that's what pisses me off about burnham's argument: the fact he doesn't quite seem to realise that, if you bring back TotP, it's not going to have anything like the same viewing figures or, therefore, importance.

I think I would be more inclined to trust my own, first-hand experience of such things than the highly unreliable memory of a 13-year-old who wasn't even in this country at the time.

I wouldn't trust someone who said they watched TOTPs in their 6th form common room since it was after 7pm at night, and no way did you have a tv and video in a common room in Uddy Grammar

dog latin, it's pretty straightforward: the days of having three channels and the whole family crowded round the TV set are long gone. that's what pisses me off about burnham's argument: the fact he doesn't quite seem to realise that, if you bring back TotP, it's not going to have anything like the same viewing figures or, therefore, importance.

What if Russell T Davies writes it?

I wouldn't trust someone who said they watched TOTPs in their 6th form common room since it was after 7pm at night, and no way did you have a tv and video in a common room in Uddy Grammar

Senior Common Room = university, dude.

I wonder though if there isn't an argument for a simplifying of things. There's so much stuff out there and so many ways to hear it I wonder if something that was damn straight and stuck to the rules as per Marcello posts wouldn't find quite an audience. Not 16 million obviously but enough to make it worthwhile.

Oh what onimo said.

ahh ok

chart content: same as it ever was quality-wise. some issues with representation of genres, cultures and nations and how calculated a lot of it seems (in ways i don't like, i mean). actually kings of leon's success seems more 'honest' than most so not much value in that either then.
chart format: downloads has had mixed results - climber concept re-introduced is good in theory but feels too contrived due to delayed physical releases (is the song finished? yes? then just fucking release it). it seems more songs are taking longer to drop out which increases tedium and stagnation (not convinced it demonstrates a mark of quality from the public at all). the top 40 i grew up listening to wasn't necessarily faster but it may have been a bit more varied (demographically? genre wise? idea wise?) if only thru feeling less calculated so more unusual stuff sneaks in there.

naturally i agree with any Chart Show revival proposal - digital channels are too nichey and a more general and varied weekly pop guide would only work on Channel 4

the fact he doesn't quite seem to realise that, if you bring back TotP, it's not going to have anything like the same viewing figures or, therefore, importance

why would it have to have the same viewing figures? does Later get better ratings now than it did 10 years ago? why is it assumed that a poppier (if not chart-orientated) version of Later would not perform as well?

xposts

grimly, by your argument you're saying that people don't sit round watching X-Factor or Big Brother or Britain Has Very Much Talent.

What is the difference between a weekly look showcase of the charts and these? Is it just that people really really couldn't care less about the pop climate and would much prefer watching talentless spods making twats of themselves onscreen (oh wait... etc)?

I agree with Kate towards the beginning of the thread where she argued one of the reasons TOTP failed was that they tried too hard to glitz it up and spoilt the broth with wacky presenters and games and stuff.

I miss the charts.. I couldn't even tell you a single track in the top ten if I tried. Maybe it's all nostalgia, but I used to know the top 5 every week at the beginning of the nineties, and now no one gives a shit. Much of this is down to the way people consume music, but I think that TOTP used to be a real gateway into pop music apprecation for many many people.

Senior Common Room = university - really? I assumed he was talking about 6th form (or what used to be called 6th form back in my day).

Which reminds me - I actually saw The Smiths on TOTP doing what difference does it make. You can see shaking my thing in the left hand corner from 0:16 to about 0:24. They made me stand at that back because I was geeky and a terrible dancer.

if you miss the charts why don't you go and listen to them? it's really easy! if you can't be bothered to do that you prob don't miss the charts that much really, it's just the vaguest of nostalgia.

as for me i don't care whether they bring back totp or not. done right it could be good but i still wouldn't watch it and it wouldn't be all that important in terms of how people consume or find out about music. i think most consumers are ~over it~ now.

xpost - ok imbedding doesn;t work for that one - you'll have to google it if you really want to see the full glory of arm swinging.

I don't understand the claim that TOTP tried to be 'cool' with presenters dressing in blacjk and mumbling. That sounds more like Network 7 to me. TOTP wound up with Fearne Cotton and Reggie from Sunday kids' show Smile, didn't it? That's not very cool.

Maybe Marcello meant when Clarkson did it?

Kelly or Jeremy?

Jeremy.

Some singles stats so you can judge for yourselves how "dead" the format is:

Top 5 singles sales this week (i.e. just Monday)

LW RANK TOTAL TITLE ARTIST
1 1 7,242 SO WHAT PINK
2 2 5,220 SEX ON FIRE KINGS OF LEON
4 3 3,799 GIRLS SUGABABES
3 4 3,239 THE SHOCK OF THE LIGHTNING OASIS
NEW 5 3,139 THAT KISS COURTEENERS

So that's 22,639 singles sold in one day to make up the top 5. Is that dead? I'm sure it's a lot lower than it was 20 years ago, but... so?

A further breakdown, this time downloads only:

LW RANK TOTAL TITLE ARTIST
1 1 6,349 SO WHAT PINK
2 2 4,876 SEX ON FIRE KINGS OF LEON
4 3 3,030 DISTURBIA RIHANNA
8 4 2,884 MISS INDEPENDENT NE-YO
3 5 2,851 GIRLS SUGABABES

So that's 19,990 downloads in 24 hours, or 88% of "singles" bought. So the formatting has changed almost entirely from a physical producct to a packet of data, but they're still selling.

The Smiths may only have sold a few more hundred singles from appearing on TOTP but the fact we all remember Morrisey dancing around with daffodils growing out his arse (and I'm too young to have seen the original broadcast),

So it's not factual to state that we "all" remember it, is it, since clearly people who were too young to watch it only know it from repeats and YouTube and therefore don't remember it as such.

Most of the people my age with whom I work have no recollection of it at all.

the fact it's been parodied by Viz and countless TV shows

I've never seen it parodied on even one TV show; care you give an example?

, and the fact my 21y/o brother's favourite CD is the Smiths singles collection means that perhaps it was a cultural event.

Just because something is somebody's favourite record doesn't make it a cultural event since "cultural event" implies plurality.

How many people would remember Morissey were it not for TOTP? Just a handful of musos and ageing indie kids, that's who.

You see my feeling is that is precisely who remembers Morrissey - and, with the exception of a few Mexicans, no one else.

self-correction: care TO give an example?

charlie are those really actual sales figures? if they're that low then the chart has barely any credibility

yes, that's pulled from today's figures.

I wouldn't trust someone who said they watched TOTPs in their 6th form common room since it was after 7pm at night, and no way did you have a tv and video in a common room in Uddy Grammar

I didn't say "6th form common room" and I didn't say "Uddy Grammar" but I think you're just being deliberately stupid here so I'm not taking it any further.

ha ha wait never mind, forgot that was just for one day xp

but the fact we all remember Morrisey dancing around with daffodils growing out his arse

We don't. Like I don't expect that everybody remembers Bowie doing "Starman" or The Faces kicking a football around the studio.

you can still kick a ball in the studio

Given the success of Doctor Who and Strictly Come Dancing there's no reason why TOTP shouldn't be revamped purposely (i.e. not involving the Cool Police) and enjoy similar success on peaktime TV.

What are the ratings like for the current X-Factor series? I certainly haven't watched it but from what I've heard both here and elsewhere the format's tired, the weeping is >>>>>> any musical content and the root thing is that it's not actually very much fun; boring "soul" songs (another rewrite of history since Britain in the sixties was buying Val Doonican and Ken Dodd not "Piece Of My Heart"), stultifying worthiness and no custard pies.

xps
Calm down Marcello, Matt has already got you off the hook on that one...

Yes, I really should have read the rest of that section before commenting *smack on head*...

It was only a joke, marcello.

I still don't know who the Cool Police are and when they infiltrated TOTP to insert Clarkson and Cotton.

Maybe Magenta DeVine is involved.

Bill Cotton presented TOTP too??!?!

Damn all cultural events. You could say that the release of David Gray's "Babylon" coinciding with the hey day of Cold Feet was a major cultural event. Doesn't make it good.

(a billion x-posts)

In the prefects' room in UGS in 1983 I suspect they would have played:

The Crossing by Big Country.

1983 we moved to Prestwick from East Kilbride. I was in Primary 7. I cant remember what people listened to at St Kenneths,West mains but at St Ninians, Prestwick it was people into Wham and Madness(well I was into Madness) and Duran Duran. Primary 6 in Blackwood (nr Hamilton) all the boys were into Madness and who knows what the girls were into but I do remember they all read Look-In.

1984 Queen Margaret Academy,Ayr in 1st year Duran Duran was the group loads seemed to be into. In later years U2, Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, Simple Minds, INXS, Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi and probably Big Country were the big bands.

I always felt Ayrshire was about a year behind Lanarkshire/Glasgow

Hopefully Tom d will be along in a minute to say Renfrewshire was cosmopolitan compared to Ayrshire

Of course

Kabul is cosmopolitan compared to Ayrshire, mind you

Question:

Isn't (wasn't) the point of having a music based prog like TOTP on, was to entertain the viewing public, not just to act as a 'stock market for your hi-fi'?

Only North Ayrshire
x-post

xpost

Yeah, and TV stations have this weird policy of dropping programmes if they don't appear to be entertaining very much of the public any more.

So, in short: Pack the videos.

Have acts in the studio, 'performing' live.

Whether that's miming with dance routines, actually performing live, playing chess, etc...

and DON'T get overawed by 'exclusives' like the BAD video, where most of it was plain acting, etc.

No point in showing vids when they're available elsewhere.
Also dont have sophie b hawkins in the studio 3 weeks in a row when her single was at no25 for those 3 weeks.

In short: how much of BBC1's regular audience falls into the TotP demographic nowadays? What public service remit does TotP serve in a world where kids have many more ways to hear and find out about new music than they did even 10 years ago? (Secondary note, why do we have a Culture Minister?)

show the high new entries and biggest climbers, and if they're not willing to show up in the studio to perform, ignore them. Make it a show again where everyone actually wants to appear on it.

Also a lot of what "the kids" seem to be listening to isn't in the Charts particularly - don't suppose it ever was. How would a chart-based show serve their interests?

It wouldn't!

It's a show reflecting the chart to the general public. Who may or may not buy stuff.

Surely it's only kids buying singles.

Maybe Jim is suggesting a revamped Top Of The Pops would be TOTP in name only and shouldn't just cater to hit singles as the general public don't give a fuck about the charts.

If those sales figures are correct up there then you're talking about an audience that doesn't justify an evening slot on BBC1. I might be being naive here but I think if enough people truly cared then the Beeb or even ITV wd run it. They don't, so they won't.

I'm not sure the Top 40 has anywhere near the kind of significance it used to have, beyond media commentators and pro-pop listeners of a certain age. Do teenagers care what's in the Top 10 these days?

i'd be surprised if many teenagers care about the concept of "top 40 pop", the broad umbrella overriding genre that a lot of older consumers valorise - seems they're all more likely to define themselves by genre (which can include "pop", however they define it), and in that case why would you care what's in the top 10?

So if no one cares about the top 40 charts, what should a Dr Who style revamped TOTPs show then? A show with whoever is touring at that time that would appear on Jonathon Ross or Parky? Whoever is in the album charts?
Or should the BBC just not bother?

i suspect "not bother" is exactly what the bbc will do!

I think you are probably right.

30 minutes of someone pistol-whipping George Lamb

Yeah, and TV stations have this weird policy of dropping programmes if they don't appear to be entertaining very much of the public any more.

Yes, the BBC went out of their way to make sure TOTP entertained the public by rescheduling it on Fridays opposite Coronation Street.

The main people who don't care about the Top 40 these days are lazy, dead-headed "poptimists" who can't get their feeble heads around the fact that they got it wrong and their horses didn't come in.

add "middle aged" in the midst of "lazy" and "dead-headed"

Maybe I'm siding with Burnham after all. It's preferable to I Love Apathy.

What horses did they expect to come in?

http://77.120.101.166/i/ea/e2/86b379c3b0ebd77b4e368580b15c.jpeg

^^^first act on new TOTP

The idea of the BBC or any other broadcaster self-sabotaging a successful and popular show because Andi Peters didn't like it feels a bit conspiracy-esque?

Yep. Makes it true in my book.

Would Status Quo and Cliff Richard get on the new TOTP?

If TOTP was showing this Thursday and sticking to the classic rules (Top 40 climbers/new entries plus the Number One) then there would only be nine candidates for inclusion: Pink, Oasis, Sugababes, Boyzone, Basshunter, Platnum, Keane, N-Dubz, MGMT.

But you'd have to drop the Sugababes, as they would have been on last week as a new entry.

You'd probably be able to get Oasis, Boyzone, Platnum, Keane and N-Dubz in the studio for this week. Maybe Basshunter would fly in, if you paid. Pink and MGMT would have to be videos, pre-records or "special performances" in a rigged-up studio elsewhere.

It would be a pretty decent line-up, though. I'd watch it.

Sounds OK.

and (xpost) if they had the hits, sure.

Damn shame "What Car" never got a showing.

the question remains: why is Later With Jools supposedly safer to make than a poppier equivalent? you CAN get Kings Of Leon, Goldfrapp and Katy Perry on Later (and they're all well supported by digital channels at the same time)...but probably not Alphabeat, Sugababes or Gym Class Heroes, DEFINITELY not Girls Aloud, Annie (yeah yeah she doesn't chart but would still be nice to see her on TV), Rihanna, Flo Rida and a lot of UK and US pop surely. it seems clear some middle ground has been lost.

Flo Rida performing with Jools would probably redeem both men's career

I concur with everything posted on this thread.

Mind you, to lex pretend saying that kids define themselves by genre - wasn't it ever thus? There was still a thrill in seeing Microdisney finally make it onto the show.

I'm still not convinced that actual young people care in sufficient numbers about the singles chart, can anyone prove otherwise?

Otherwise I'm going to continue in my belief that the Top 40 (as opposed to the records in it) has a totemic value to a certain type of ageing pop critic and little significance to anyone under the age of 18.

Hold on, Microdisney were never on TOTP

Otherwise I'm going to continue in my belief that the Top 40 (as opposed to the records in it) has a totemic value to a certain type of ageing pop critic and little significance to anyone under the age of 18.

New meme: trolling but true.

i'm not convinced too many kids DON'T pay attention to the charts, put it that way

Nah, kids pay attention to what radio stations are playing, maybe, but not really to the chart as a chart, which was Matt's point.

Hold on, Microdisney were never on TOTP

Gah. Rumbled.

Ok, It Bites then.

TOTP was not 'meant' for the kids, it was representin' to the adults on behalf of the kids, at times.

Take the glory years, for every smiths, there was a nolans, etc.

Applying the same selection criteria to last week's fantasy TOTP, you'd have had Kings of Leon plus a pool of 13: Rihanna, Iglu & Hartly, James Morrison, Sugababes, Faith Hill, Flobots, Kanye West, MIA, Alicia Keys/Jack White, Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato/Joe Jonas, Ironik, Pink.

Again, a potentially decent show with a potentially broad appeal.

Nah, kids pay attention to what radio stations are playing, maybe, but not really to the chart as a chart, which was Matt's point.

you mean you think there are significantly less kids talking about "what's number 1" and similar now than before?

it's not as if there were loads of kids paying attention to the chart before! in my year i think there were maybe 4 or 5 of us who cared?

you think there are significantly less kids talking about "what's number 1" and similar now than before?

I'd say yes, but guess what? This is wildly anecdotal of me. I work in FE, and I do talk to a bunch of teenagers about music regularly - none of them seem to care that much about the charts, even the R'n'B or pop/dance fans. I don't think kids feel that sense of "this is OUR thing and now it's breaking into the mainstream" much either. As a whole we seemed to give a lot more of a toss about this when I was at school.

xpost

And lex could well be right about that but then he is young and I am very old.

it's not as if there were loads of kids paying attention to the chart before! in my year i think there were maybe 4 or 5 of us who cared?

yeah probably the same here.

still think it's moot as to whether or not the BBC should have a not-necessarily chart-based TOTP-type show.

Like mike says they could make a good, diverse show and some people would enjoy watching it, I don't disagree with that. And there are some kinds of music the BBC don't really put on TV, I agree with that. The bit I disagree with is when Andy Fordham claims that the nation is somehow missing out because TotP isn't on any more.

Also he should be concentrating on his darts, imo.

Andy Burnham claims that the nation is somehow missing out because TotP isn't on any more

fine but loads of people think this anyway. MP 'in touch with public' scandal. hardly something worth calling him a cunt for.

I called him a fuckwit, it was grimly that called him a cunt.

Loads of people thing loads of mad things, my only concern is when they are employed at the public's expense to think them out loud.

Those two imaginary TOTP line-ups, following The Rules, show exactly why The Rules made it such interesting viewing for so many people: a musically diverse bunch of artists/songs, not just teeny stuff, not just grown-up stuff.

While there probably is (at least) a generation of kids who couldn't give a monkey's arse about who's in the hit parade, maybe a show like TOTP would actually rekindle their interest in such thinking. There's enough tribalism in schools already to see this happen, no?

He is a fuckwit.

He's the least intelligent 'educated' (Cambridge) person I've ever come across (Though it's impossible to know what he really thinks, as it's impossible to move him off his memorised new labour lines).

He's rated by Treasury offfials as the worst performing Minister they've suffered in living memory.

Then again: if a revived show did take off, the majors might start finding new ways of arsing about with the charts, in order to make their acts eligible for inclusion on the show.

oh come on both of the imaginary line-ups are fucking terrible. i like some of the acts, but why would i choose to switch on totp to watch alicia keys or kanye west if it meant i also had to sit through iglu & hartly and oasis? when i could just get on the internet and find an mp3 or youtube performance/video of what i wanted in the first place?

i mean, i watched totp because when i was growing up access to pop music was so limited that you took what you could get, even with its faults, but i don't see any reason why anyone would do that now when they can access the music they actually want so easily and directly, and cut out the chaff.

because not everyone "wants" music in that way. many are more casual or lazy about it, or don't know what they want until they're confronted with it and don't really know what to look for and where efficiently. and because youtube and computers is still a crappy way to watch music a lot of the time.

oh come on both of the imaginary line-ups are fucking terrible. i like some of the acts, but why would i choose to switch on totp to watch alicia keys or kanye west if it meant i also had to sit through iglu & hartly and oasis? when i could just get on the internet and find an mp3 or youtube performance/video of what i wanted in the first place?

This is why 'apatheid' 1Extra exists in the first place!

I was going to edit the typo there, but as slips go it's quite an apt one.

Lex should ask the kids at the back of his bus what they would prefer.

Obviously, a lot of people do know The Smiths. The question is rather, how many of these people do actually remember them from back then, and how many of them do only remember them because Damon Albarn, Noel Gallagher or whoever told them to in the mid 90s?

Jesus Christ...

is that really the question?

you mean you think there are significantly less kids talking about "what's number 1" and similar now than before?

The fact that you have this fragmentation that is maybe the most typical music trend of the 00s means that there is probably a smaller number than before. The singles chart matter to those who are into teenpop, R&B or (in the UK) pop oriented indie, because those are the genres that the largest number of people are into. But there is an ever growing number of fans who aren't really into those genres. For instance, there is a huge number of teenagers whose favourite bands are Metallica, Iron Maiden, AC/DC and Guns'n'Roses. Why would they care what is in the singles charts considering most of the music they dig was made 20-30 years ago?

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/music/music_images/cduk_03.jpg

But there is an ever growing number of fans who aren't really into those genres. For instance, there is a huge number of teenagers whose favourite bands are Metallica, Iron Maiden, AC/DC and Guns'n'Roses. Why would they care what is in the singles charts considering most of the music they dig was made 20-30 years ago?

I think it was them trying to cater to precisely that sort of recidivist throw-back grebcheese bastard that killed TOTP for me, what with umpteen specials from the likes of the RHCPs and such.

I think that is also partly because the kids want the stuff. Guitar Hero and the Internet has made it more natural for kids to get into older stuff. And for some reason, the kids who love hard rock don't seem to get much into today's hard rock.

put a show on at the same time every weeknight, different genre group for each night e.g.

mon: pop
tue: rock
wed: rap & rnb
thurs: dance
fri: darkwave

dj martian will be along in a min asking wheres the metal.

Country & Western night for the oldies in the west of scotland

i mean, i watched totp because when i was growing up access to pop music was so limited that you took what you could get, even with its faults, but i don't see any reason why anyone would do that now when they can access the music they actually want so easily and directly, and cut out the chaff.

i watched totp for the live performances, which were pretty much always totp exclusives and thus something to cherish and record for posterity. there was always a chorus of boos in the romo when a band was "represented" by a video.

i also enjoyed, to a degree, shouting at the telly when someone shit came on. i'm well aware that youtube etc removes this element of having to sit through something you don't care about in order to get to something you'll like, but i also think there's room for a middle ground with red button-based 'choose your own adventure'-style choices.

many are more casual or lazy about it, or don't know what they want until they're confronted with it and don't really know what to look for and where efficiently

ughhh casual fans who want somehow to be aware of pop music but can't be arsed to make the minuscule effort to do it themselves...i don't think of these people as music fans! it's like someone calling themselves a tennis fan but only watching wimbledon every year. if something's your hobby you'll enjoy spending time on it. to sum up: get to work, hoes!

also you get live performances on youtube now too

there was always a chorus of boos in the romo

Which romo was that then?

Wonder if whether or not the charts are actually _more_ important to "music fans" (hardcores, I mean) nowadays than before, due to the fact that a) songs can actually chart based off buzz a lot easier than before and b) whereas in the old days you'd only have a "we must buy this single so it charts well" when there was a Beatles v Stones/Spandau v Duran Duran/Oasis v Blur chart battle, nowadays you get a lot of rushed first week purchases from fans of bands (as opposed to fans of genre?) trying to send "their" group high in the charts. Added to the fact that 90% of all discussion between rap fans nowadays revolves around sales figures, and if the old teenpop threads were anything to go buy, that figure rises to 99% for the pop industry.

Jesus Lex, I know you're one of the more blinkered posters on ILX, but really. Don't you see that TOTP was never a show for true music fans at all? If anything it was a music show for people who DIDN'T care enough about music to go looking anywhere other than those few minutes before Eastenders came on. It was a show for Dads to unsuspectingly perv on Brian Molko thinking that he was a girl, or for your granny to worry a little about those scarey Iron Maiden fellows, or for your little niece to go googly over Westlife. It was of very little interest to "true" music fans, and by this I mean pretty much anyone with an ounce of taste or interest in pop/rock. However it did do a very good job of keeping the rest of us informed on the current music climate.

It wasn't even aimed at teenagers and I'm not surprised they don't take much interest in the charts these days (not having TOTP on TV doesn't help this). The only reason the general public really cared about the charts was BECAUSE TOTP existed. It dies, the charts die. I blame the rescheduling to a Friday - why?? Thursday was TOTP day, plain and simple.

I don't think Kogan et al should be taken as naything like representative of the general teenpop audience.

In terms of indie there is a hell of a lot of campaigning by bands now via MySpace/Facebook/email lists/forums to get good first week chart figures, and indie record labels have very definite targets for what they want their bands chart placings to be.

TOTP was never a show for true music fans at all

^^^^^this

What Groz said: Hooray. I'm not on a place where I can type big para's, but: all that.

(xpost I can type slightly more than ^^^^ this..)

then the decision to take it off air was a right one. why bother catering to an audience which fundamentally doesn't care about the product?

Oh fuck off you smelly old dunky dosspot ("Grozart" xp). Lex was absolutely right.

"True" music fans? Anyone with an ounce of taste or interest in pop/rock? What century are you living in, Uncle Silas? We've killed all your gods. Deal with it. You're lazy. Deal with it. You can't keep up. Deal with it. Take up golf. Watch Dave.

Lex, we may as well take the 6 o'clock news off the air in that case because people who really "care" about current affairs should be going on the net and reading Indiemedia and everyone else is too stupid to be allowed to catch up with the news anyway so let's not show it to them.

er, that will probably happen within the next 10 years or so, you realise?

but not now. terrestrial television is still important for a large amount of people.

tick ... tick ... tick ... *fades to static*

Great thread

http://www.budgetairlinefootball.co.uk/mediac/400_0/media/kharkiv_metalist.jpg

isn't going on the internet an easier way to catch up for people who don't obsess over current affairs anyway? click on to bbc news in a spare 5 minutes at your convenience vs wait for 6pm or 9pm or whenever the news is, when you might be busy again. news 24 is pretty handy if you like the tv medium but yeah actual scheduled news programmes seem even more obsolete than totp tbh (plus, the whole "breaking news" issue! when something big happens you want to find out NOW not at 6pm)

Fuck TOTP, they should bring back Grandstand. You have no idea how hard it is to find grass bowling and badminton highlights on the web. Much better theme tune as well.

I think you're looking at this from the point of a young adult Lex. Television has a passive and captive audience whereas you actively have to buy a paper or log onto BBC News online to get your news fix.

How do this generation of 10 year olds discover music, or even discover that they even like music in the first place? Going online and downloading videos is all very well, but how do you even know what to look for? Listen to the radio, perhaps, but I only started listening to the radio because I'd seen the acts on TOTP and wanted to hear the songs again.

Radio listenership >>>>>>>>>> TOTP viewing figures you impossible fool.

you actively have to turn on the tv, too, which is about the same amount of effort as going on the internet.

more people watch tv than listen to the radio you insufferable cretin

You know what I haven't had in a while? Big League Chew.

All this, and Monster Munch are getting smaller.

How do this generation of 10 year olds discover music, or even discover that they even like music in the first place?

They find/hear my "Oddesey&Oracle" and want to hear it over and over again!

lex, not really. there are what, an average of about 20 (watchable) channels on the average uk tv set, but there are billions and billions of websites. my gran doesn't know how to download a podcast, my dad isn't going to trawl drownedinsound for new indie hits and i doubt my mate's six year old daughter knows what youtube even is. TV is on in the household all the time, it's a communal thing. The family doesn't sit down round the computer for dinner of a Thursday night and surf for Kanye videos do they?

i doubt my mate's six year old daughter knows what youtube even is

I doubt she doesn't, but anyway...

All this, and Monster Munch are getting smaller.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 10:15 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Good news--they're returning them to the old size. I read it in the Metro.

You're making the fundamental mistake of thinking that computers and the internet are things that young children don't know how to use. Most kids have had the internet around them all their lives, know all about YouTube and how to use it. You're confusing the way young kids and teenagers consume music on the internet with the way ILM posters consumer music on the internet. They are not the same.

Still, the temporary return of Wispa shows what we can achieve when we all work together.

monster munch is gross

I was more of a Space Raiders man too.

Are you more of a Space Raiders man?

(Damn xp!)

Star Bars back, Wispa back, Golden Nuggets back..

It's only a matter of time until...

Star Bars never went away.

Alistair Darling was on record yesterday as saying the government will invest £30bn to boost the British economy by bring back the Wham bar.

You get my point - not enough people are actively interested in music to spend ages going out and looking for it, but people still enjoy music when it's presented to them in a passive manner, and maybe when this happens they might start looking elsewhere. You can't just expect everyone of every age and background to be a music or internet expert. And saying that people who don't take much interest in music don't deserve shows like TOTP, well that's just stupid.

wtf are space raiders? they sound gross too

Wham bars never went away either.

Can I agree again? Or does that make me too old and an Ocean Colour Scene fan or something?

(xpost)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/20/Space_raiders_snack.jpg

Space Raiders are a cheap snack food, intended to fill the same niche market as crisps, and are sold in similar style packets. They are made from corn and wheat and available in several flavours. They are made by KP Snacks in Ashby-de-la-Zouch in the UK. Space Raiders are especially popular with children (due to their low cost and science fiction style packaging) and also hold nostalgic notions for many British adults today.

Are Space Raiders still only 10p? That's some King Canute type stand against inflation there.

They are 15p now.

In 2004, stock taker Mr Whitfield of Middlesbrough, ate 38 bags of Beef flavored Raiders to settle a wager with work collegues, in winning the £5.00 bet, he commented that it was better than his 2.8 second wolfing of a Muller corner, and that he never been so proud since he wiped Corned Beef on his dog Buster.

"pickled onion flavour" ewwww. they do look gross.

Basically, I think Space Raiders are cheaper than Monster Munch due to them not containing whatever expensive ingredient stops them from going stale in the packet.

i'm going to hazard a not-at-aall-researched guess that more people who listen to music on the radio don't buy music than buy it.

and i'd also suggest that even in its millions-of-viewers heyday, the same was true of totp.

for what it's worth, i don't remember seeing the smiths on totp, but i do remember seeing the jesus & mary chain on it in about 1986. didn't become a fan until 89, mind, but all the same, the image was there.

You're confusing the way young kids and teenagers consume music on the internet with the way ILM posters consumer music on the internet. They are not the same.

No I honestly think it's you guys who are getting confused. Lex is saying that everyone, even dilletants, grandmothers, toddlers and passing-interest types are expected to know how to search for music online in the same way critics, ilxors and music obsessives might do.

I have like, next to zero interest in football so I'm not going to go looking on the net for football news, but say there's a big game on and it's significantly important enough that I might like to know who wins or I just fancy dipping my toes in to see what the fuss is about, at least I can if I want bung on the TV and watch a few minutes of MoTD. I might not even need to switch it on, it might just BE on. And who knows, I might like it, I might even learn something and I might be more informed about the sport. If they stopped showing football on terrestrial and confined it just to specialist channels and the net, there's not a snowballs chance I'd ever watch the footie until the next World Cup final.

in short it's always people on mailing lists getting sent promos berating people who aren't for not 'keeping up'

nb my reason for pointing out the above is to suggest that even though the non-buyers ddon't buy music, they're still sufficiently interested in it to watch it on telly and listen to it on the radio - and if they're watching/listening to the bbc, they're paying for that experience via their license fee, whether or not they're walking into Zavvi brandishing a Maestro card.

xpost

The point is TOTP was intended for a mass mainstream audience, not "music fans." That's why the Old Grey Whistle Test existed and why Later With Jools Holland exists.

As soon as they attempted to "cater" to "music fans" they killed it stonily dead.

maybe there's just no demand for "exclusive" in-studio performances anymore and that's the end of it.

The point is TOTP was intended for a mass mainstream audience, not "music fans." That's why the Old Grey Whistle Test existed and why Later With Jools Holland exists.

― A. FIND MISSING LINK B. PUT IT TOGETHER C. BANG! (Marcello Carlin), Wednesday, 8 October 2008 11:36 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Bring back TOTP2 imo.

You don't have to get promos to keep up. There's the internet, there's the radio, there are clubs, there are gigs.

If people don't feel that they want to do that and are happy with what they know and love, that's fine.

But it means that we shouldn't trust what they have to say about what's happening in music.

The mid 90s TOTP2 when they played 187 Lockdown and Eels not the early 2000s one where it was Steve Wright going "haha look at this bassist's tie!" over Hot Chocolate live performances

xp

I remember the days when you could watch pop music on TV. I suppose it's gone the way of white dog poo now. I stopped watching TV altogether when they pulled The Chart Show, but I know all TV's been crap since.

fucking steve wright and his fucking eva cassidy obsession

xp

f they stopped showing football on terrestrial and confined it just to specialist channels and the net

oh, if only. if only.

I don't want TOTP2 back, with or without Steve Shite's commentary; it's been superseded by YouTube and should remain as such.

Reflect what's happening now, not All Our Yesterdays over and over again for middle-aged solvent retards.

You Tube = shit quality video and the epitomy of quantity over quality. last.fm as a filter for it does help tho.

It's a quantity over quality issue. Many people still want better and more accessible filters. I used to love catching an exciting new artist's video on selected MTV shows (Raps, Party Zone, 120 Minutes etc.) with minimal effort. I'm not convinced getting Sky Plus would facilitate the same thing now tho but I'll probably cave in eventually.

TOTP was a chart filter. I still want to see filters with that strong visual aspect (a videos-only show can also provide this). The big problem is how wide to cast the net genre-wise.

watching music on youtube is shit 'cause the rest of the internet is there to distract, i end up reading fascinating and learned articles ilx and forgetting about the music.

these days i watch the charts on freeview tmf 4music teh hits whatevah.

So that's 19,990 downloads in 24 hours, or 88% of "singles" bought. So the formatting has changed almost entirely from a physical producct to a packet of data, but they're still selling.

I think the downloads element is interesting also because, contrary to what I feared, they had actually made the charts more musically diverse. At least here in Norway, typical album acts make the "singles" chart to a much larger extent now than they did before downloads exploded. There is this old clergyman here called Bjørn Eidsvåg whose main fan demographic consists of 50 something. He has always been a steady seller in the albums chart, but he has never done anything much at all on the singles chart, until 2006, when people downloading the entire album helped the radio hit off the album to hit the charts. And, like in the UK, Norway has no airplay element incorporated in the charts, so he did from sales (including downloads) alone. Now surely, you may have varied opinions about the kind of stuff that 50 year old women buy. But the point is: It makes the singles charts more representative of people's taste than before.

On the UK chart, my impression is that the downloads element has helped speed down the charts. Which is a good thing because it was toofast in the late 90s. Then you'd usually see that an act's highest charting single was usually the single after their biggest hit, because their biggest hit took so long to catch the momentum that it never reached the top. One typical example of Verve. "Bitter Sweet Symphony" is obviously their biggest hit. It stayed on the UK chart for a long time when compared to most other hits at the moment, but never quite made it to the top. Instead, it was "The Drugs Don't Work" who, helped by "Bitter Sweet Symphony"s' popularity, made it all the way to the top in its first sales week. Personally I like it better than "Bitter Sweet Symphony", but no doubt "Bitter Sweet Symphony" is the song they are most famous for.

4Music lists it's evening programming here

it's mostly lists and gig-based. nothing directly devoted to 'what's going on right now'. do they just play new videos randomly in the daytime?

may well record this tho:

SATURDAY OCTOBER 4

3:00pm – 11:45pm 21ST CENTURY'S R'N'B BEST SELLERS: TOP 100
Compiled exclusively by the Official UK Charts Company, these are the 100 biggest selling R'n'B tracks of the 21st century so far!

maybe digital TV channels schedules reflect the general fear of the unknown/new among perceived audience

do they just play new videos randomly in the daytime?

yeah, interspersed with annoying alexa chung or clone yabbering. also top 20 from time to time, sans yabbering.

How do this generation of 10 year olds discover music, or even discover that they even like music in the first place?

Oh, I am sure their music teachers make sure they sing "Yesterday" and "Hey Jude" at school, so no worries. :)

You are worse than Hitler

i'm really not sure how serious geir is being here

i wanna see 4Music's daytime playlist. what is the 'edgiest' thing they play? i suppose i could just record it tomorrow and then watch when i get home, skipping 90% of them.

what is the 'edgiest' thing they play?

― Annoying Display Name (blueski), Wednesday, 8 October 2008 12:03 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Some nu-rave fashion show bollocks probably

today's schedule is MUST SEE TV:

4:00pm – 4:30pm UNDER THE SKIN OF... BASSHUNTER
4Music gets 'under the skin' of Swedish DJ Basshunter, to find out which tracks make him tick, who's influenced him the most and what his plans are for the future.

11:00pm – 12:30am TOP 20 FORGOTTEN GEMS OF THE 90S
The 90s brought us boybands, girl power and Britpop, but what about the rest of it? Join us as we turn the clock back and relive the 20 greatest forgotten gems from the last century.

stoked for the OMC madness

The next person wanting to turn the clock back will get the clock shoved up their Hoxton arse.

but is saying that totp was quite a good thing and it's a shame they cocked it all back by dicking around with the scheduling and trying to make it rilly rilly cool necessarily about wanting to turn the clock back marcello?

errr... weird writing on that last post - apols, i should be working.

you're wasting your time

Aren't we all these days?

otm

plus ca change

Reinstating the programme in its original format in order to give an accurate picture of the charts is hardly turning the clock back. As with the news and weather, some formats are better unchanged.

good

Yes. (whew, thought you were serious about agreeing w/Lex there!)

i don't think i agree with anyone here. but i do think lex has made some very good points.

The next person wanting to turn the clock back will get the clock shoved up their Hoxton arse.

i don't think i agree with anyone here. but i do think lex has made some very good points.

oh don't tease us. which points?

List of Lex's vg points:

1) The kids don't need it.

Sure, so: Don't aim it at the kids.

two very good lex points:

but why would i choose to switch on totp to watch alicia keys or kanye west if it meant i also had to sit through iglu & hartly and oasis? when i could just get on the internet and find an mp3 or youtube performance/video of what i wanted in the first place?

and particularly this:

i mean, i watched totp because when i was growing up access to pop music was so limited that you took what you could get, even with its faults, but i don't see any reason why anyone would do that now when they can access the music they actually want so easily and directly, and cut out the chaff

and saying: "oh, but people watch strictly come X Factoring" is an apples-and-oranges comparison, really.

xpost:

Don't aim it at the kids

er, what? top of the pops for adults? isn't that what they tried when they went all "exclusive" on us? which, umm, everyone's been moaning about?

if you want nostalgia, there's an internet full of it.

for the billionth time then, WHAT IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT

if you want nostalgia, there's an internet digital TV schedule full of it

No, aim it at everybody. By being the show that has Bob the builder, slipknot and the nolans...

that used to work but probably wouldn't now, because everyone theoretically has greater choice, as has been said. i don't think it's worked out as simply as that in practice but goin in circles here.

to go back to the 'cool police' thing i think there was something in this actually. in that it's harder to imagine people wanting to accommodate the wilfully naff side of pop more these days, something the charts still will (just about). it seems like there is more ill-judged taste-making going on in youth-orientated TV generally so TOTP's demise was perhaps a consequence of that as much as anything else.

did totp still exist when crazy frog got to no.1?

"Opening people up to new sounds" was just as much playing Sparks to yer granny as givving the kids The Smiths to think about.

But, yeah, circles now. Argument done?

(xpost yes. Mr Coldplay man doing a 'ding ding' chorus to "In my place" I believe...)

Everyone has a greater choice -> everyone chooses different things -> trends coalesce around a smaller number of focal points.

People on this thread are just being nostalgic for an era where there was one big Rosetta Stone into pop where now there are a million ways into it AND there is more pop on mainstream TV than when TOTP was in its heyday. How many people are there really who 'don't know what they want' at all? Very few I suspect.

My granny never watched TOTP. I suspect this idea of the whole family sitting in front of it is more a cosy myth than anything else.

that was on jonathan ross though, no?

xpost

matt DC so OTM it hurts. i'm going to go away and do two solid hours' study now :)

Might have been, xpost, yes.

CrazFrog was certainly on TOTP though...

Lowest point of ol' TOTP?

When the first of the elvis re-releases got to number one, and the record company refused to allow even an elvis photo to be used, so the show had to use a bad Elvis impersonator...

It's actually bullshit on both counts.

My family and all families we knew sat round and watched TOTP as a unit when we were growing up.

Secondly, apart from the odd daytime half hour there is virtually no pop on mainstream TV.

Pop musicians are frequently on TV but mostly asked to do other things. They're hardly ever called upon to play music. And Later etc. are tailored around a dated idea of rock rather than pop as such.

STINKING CORPSE, TOP OF THE POPS

― J0hn D., Wednesday, 8 October 2008 02:26 (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

How many people are there really who 'don't know what they want' at all? Very few I suspect.

i often feel this way actually. obviously i've been listening to music long enough to know i like but finding it often seems more difficult than it should be. there is a lot of stuff i am potentially interested in and the increased ways of accessing it actually do make the whole thing seem more like a chore at times. yes the advantages of this are also clearly evident but part of the problem there is that i'm spending maybe 60% of the time finding and listening to old stuff - more than i did in the past, because that's also become a lot easier.

but this argument is about the visual presentation of music anyway, as a service. it'll be okay once TV and the internet actually converge properly and you can enter tagwords (NOT genre by genre) and use Genius-like system to bring up broadcast-quality video clips based on advanced and detailed criteria of your own choosing. then think users last.fm radio stations but in richer TV form. but then you'll still be missing the relative thrill of 'band you like performing live in a TV studio' perhaps.

also my grandparents did used to sit through TOTP now and then in that very cliched way (cliched for a reason).

They weren't required to play music for most of TOTP's history either.

(xpost this may all be moot for me anyway since I have zero interest in the visual presentation of music outside of gigs and clubs. I can't remember the last time I had any interest in what was in a music video).

i thought shorter attentions spans were going to be rewarded in this modern age!

this may all be moot for me anyway since I have zero interest in the visual presentation of music outside of gigs and clubs

then i would say it is moot yes

They weren't required to play music for most of TOTP's history either.

That's meaningless. On TOTP they played their hits, or at any rate mimed to them, or if all else failed got Pan's People or whoever to dance to them.

Anyone wanting to go into a boring debate about mimed vs. live etc. - Saga Magazine is available from all good newsagents. No one gave a shit except Musicians' Union killjoys and in the brief early nineties "sing the sample" era that accidentally gave birth to some of the best TOTP performances.

"injected with a poison" live vocal..

Climie fisher miming Richard Harris (?) "C'mon buddy, get with the beat.."

they should've made The Orb shout the "waoh-woah-woah-woaaaaah" bits of 'Blue Room'

Phil Harris but that was 1987/early 1988 so didn't apply.

Thinking in particular of "Sesame's Treet."

I nearly said Bob Harris, so ..

JT & The Big Family to thread, four leathery Italians miming what was essentially a collection of funk and soul samples over a slow Italo house backdrop.

One word: "GO!"

Timo Maas (was it he?) waving his arms around and occasionally touching one of two turntables, for "Dooms Night"

Haha, I used to love it when they'd get a DJ at the back pretending to mix. What were they supposed to be doing exactly? THERE'S ONLY ONE RECORD PLAYING.

a nation of children denied this kind of conversation in years to come. HOPE YOU'RE SATISFIED GORDON BLEURGH BROWN.

"I can confirm that I am making robust efforts to establish unambiguously that I was fond of Big Country, especially when they did the bagpipe thing with their guitars."

but why would i choose to switch on totp to watch alicia keys or kanye west if it meant i also had to sit through iglu & hartly and oasis? when i could just get on the internet and find an mp3 or youtube performance/video of what i wanted in the first place?

Maybe that's why people had a more varied taste in the past? Maybe that's why the hitlists contained a larger variety of different musical genres in the past? Maybe that's why record labels and managers were less obsessed with "formatting" back then, because the kids' tastes were not predictable anyway?

i shouldn't do this, i know, but i'm kind of enjoying this thread. so LET'S GO CRAZY ...

that's why people had a more varied taste in the past

... eh?

that's why the hitlists contained a larger variety of different musical genres

... you what?

Maybe that's why record labels and managers were less obsessed with "formatting" back then

dude! back in ye olde halcyon days when the sun beat down on the gladioli and there was a smith on every corner, there was only one format, and it was the 7" single! unless i'm missing your point?

I am speaking of genre formatting. You don't need to go back longer than to the first half of the 80s: Then, the bands the kids screamed at all had their own sound, wrote their own songs, were formed by the band members and not by their manager. And so on. And they didn't all sound alike. Some used synths only, some used a combination of guitars and synths. And there were even some (Haircut 100) who didn't use synths at all.

And besides those, there was also a 50s rock revivalist (Shakin' Stevens) who was huge. And it was not like all the new romantidcs fans hated him because he was "different" either.

petridis weighs in

TV On the Radio come on. They sound impossibly adventurous and thrilling. I can't help thinking that if their performance was shown on prime-time TV, it would be one of those famous music television moments, when the sense of an exciting artist suddenly barging into the nation's living rooms makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

But then I remember Malcolm Gerrie explaining that music television doesn't really do that any more: "The audience has fractured, music itself has fractured into a million different genres. It's all about niche programming now, being bespoke, catering for a minority group." You have to be content with smaller thrills, but at least it's still capable of delivering them.

well, quite.

Malcolm Gerrie, by the way, is the man behind The Tube.

Petridis says music TV shows are notoriously expensive. well the Chart Show can't have been, despite the ground-breaking CGI...

bring back snub tv - that was cheap to make

Maybe this is a daft question, but why are music TV shows so expensive to make?

paying the artists for live performance?

tis all those candles and flowers that push up the costs.

Well, they said about how expensive Science Fiction was to make, and that's why they wouldn't bring back Dr Who.

the bands should perform for free. they're lucky to be there at all.

do artists who mime get paid for a live performance?

the bands should perform for free. they're lucky to be there at all.

― Annoying Display Name (blueski), Friday, 10 October 2008 13:35 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

a lot of the cost IS 'paid for' by the record label--ie taken out the bands advance.

Doctor Who can be syndicated around the world and they make a bomb on DVD sales as well. The same can't really be said about TOTP.

It's expensive cos of all the drugs on the riders.

TOTP WAS exported as a format to other countries tho. And there have been a few DVDs and comps.

Doctor Who can be syndicated around the world and they make a bomb on DVD sales as well. The same can't really be said about TOTP.

― Matt DC, Friday, 10 October 2008 14:47 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Top of the pops got (gets?) franchised around the world.

xpost

There was a magazine too

I had a keyring once, that's gotta be worth something?

Well, that's what I'm saying: They put a business case for bringing back Dr Who!

Ting Tings call for TOTP's return

The Ting Tings have said they would like to be the first band to play on a revived Top of The Tops.

The duo's drummer and guitarist Jules De Martino told Absolute Radio: "We'll force our way onto it."

"Bring back TOTP and let us be the first band to play on it," he said of the show, which was axed in 2006.

Nail in coffin etc

In Time Out this week Noel Gallagher blames knife crime on lack of Top of the Pops. "Before everyone was sitting down and watching TOTP and getting into pop music at the same time. Now they just stab each other", or something like that.

Cowell wants to take TOTP to ITV

X Factor judge Simon Cowell has said he would like to buy the rights to the Top of the Pops Christmas Special from the BBC and broadcast it on ITV.

"I would rather it came to us than just sit in the dustbin," he said.

On Tuesday, the BBC announced The Top of the Pops Christmas Special - a regular fixture in the festive viewing calendar - will not be shown this year.

"If the BBC wanted to do a deal, and I can get ITV to buy it and broadcast it, I'd put it on ITV," said Cowell.

Would any non-Cowell acts be allowed on it?

Maybe Cowell can hire Ross and Brand to present it, dressed in gimp suits. And when they're not presenting, keep them locked in metal boxes. While Louis Walsh comments that "they had it coming".

What will probably happen in the end:

Strictly Top Of The Pops: Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly present 14 celebrities and their professional partners singing that week's hits before a panel of judges.