Mike Read's Heritage Chart

Is anyone else fascinated by this? Mike Read runs a chart of new music by 'heritage' artists, mostly people you had no idea were still working. The chart places are awarded based on listener votes and there's an affiliated TV show on Talking Pictures TV and an online radio station. It's like a parallel universe where Matthew Bannister never existed. The latest chart should give you a sense of what the general vibe is https://www.heritagechart.co.uk/chart-archive/week-250

the ultra-low budget videos accompanying the songs on the TV show are often bizarre, particularly as an increasing number of them seem to be at least partially AI generated.

A radio first 2.00-3.00 on Heritage Chart Radio. We're letting 19-year-old Herbie Westhorpe loose among the Heritage Chart top 40 songs every week to see what younger ears make of the heritage artists and their new music. Repeated at 2.00 tomorrow. https://t.co/CbzdhmBgKJ pic.twitter.com/Uz45EIJBUV

— Mike Read (@MikeReadUK) May 10, 2025

maybe we could get in touch with this lad and get him to do something similar with ILM?

I had a phase of watching this - everything about it is deeply bizarre. There's a podcast series about it: The Heritage Chart Show Show. https://shows.acast.com/the-heritage-chart-show-show

I've stumbled across it occasionally.

"Horse with no name" Limahl ?

Yeah, I had to play that one. HMMM.

thank you for the link to Pete Paphides and Siân Pattenden's podcast about the Heritage Chart, I wasn't aware of that. I also found an article Paphides wrote about the TV show which I think gets at something that appeals to me about it - in an age where most of the traditional signifiers of 'making it' as a pop star don't exist any more (appearing on TOTP, appearing on the cover of the NME or Smash Hits, seeing your single in physical form on the racks of a high street record shop etc), the Heritage Chart expresses this desire to artificially re-create them, or create imitations.

https://medium.com/@petepaphides/was-it-just-one-enormous-cheese-dream-on-mike-reads-heritage-chart-show-a1943d24ca6a

Regular viewers of Mike Read’s Heritage Chart Show will know that it matters a great deal to Mike Read that his chart exudes properness. And, even on a clearly restricted budget, Read goes to extraordinary lengths to achieve that effect. We’re told every week that the show comes to you “in association with Rockefellas TV, Los Angeles, California.” What is Rockefellas TV? No-one knows! Why does it matter? Well, maybe it doesn’t. “The current number one is on billboards on US highways!” trumpets Mike, as we cut to a photograph of a billboard on a US highway showing a photograph of Bruce Foxton from The Jam. What a confusing sight that must be for passing American motorists.

Again, why? Nothing is explained. And again, the only explanation can be that it helps to make Mike’s chart seem a bit more official. A bit more proper.

3am on a cable channel? Sounds like paid programming.