Farewell Top of the Pops

Top of the Pops has ended, not with a bang, but with a whimper. The show which ran from 1964 to 2006 aired its last broadcast on Sunday night, and only 3.9 million people bothered to watch.

There was a time, in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, when T.O.T.P. amassed enormous viewing figures of around 15 million. It was shown at primetime on a Thursday evening (and later on a Friday) on BBC1 when all the family gathered around to watch it. In 2006, the BBC producers were scratching their heads as to why viewing figures had dropped off so dramatically in the last few years, never contemplating the idea that it might be due to a Sunday evening slot on BBC2!

During its heyday, T.O.T.P. witnessed sparkling performances from Slade, Elton John, David Bowie and a very young Madonna. More recently, we have been subjected to winners of various talent shows singing their one and only single before scurrying off into obscurity, and life-suckingly bland performances by pretty boys doing cover versions of awful songs. Yes, I mean Westlife.

The BBC has been quite patronizing in its coverage of the final days of T.O.T.P. Documentaries have been aired, highlighting the highs and lows of it’s history, even though it was these same people who were consigning it to become history. Radio and TV gave us plenty of reminders to watch the last show, although had the BBC put a little more care and attention into its publicity for T.O.T.P., they may not have found themselves scrapping it.

They even brought back the previous hosts to celebrate the life of a once cutting-edge production. The wonderfully eccentric Jimmy Saville, stood next to the multi-talentless Reggie Yates providing further insight into why nobody is watching the show anymore. There was no fun, no imagination, and no point.

Yes, it must be acknowledged that television has moved on. MTV has created a culture where teenagers have an attention span which lasts around 3 minutes, so the very idea of sitting down for half an hour to watch a whole show is ridiculous. I can lay into the teenagers here and blame them entirely for the end of an era, as they would have stopped reading two paragraphs back.

The sheer saturation of the pop music video market and the importance that a memorable video now has on single sales, means that live performances are not financially viable. Would “Call On Me” by Eric Prydz really have been number 1 for weeks if it hadn’t been for the fit bird in the leotard?

The BBC never made the most of T.O.T.P. as a brand. They could have created their own MTV channel with the vast tunnels of archive footage that they own, rather than just spilling out half a performance along with some glib trivia comments on T.O.T.P.2.

Goodbye Top of the Pops. Or as the legendary Tony Dortie would have said “Laters!”