Top of the Pops

I'm pretty sure that they don't, these days the World Service has pretty much been taken over by the news department. I don't think they even play Radio 4 stuff like Just a Minute any more (the listeners 'all over the world' have to listen online now)


Of course another long running music programme on the World Service (or Wild Service as he called it) was DLTs 'Jolly Good Show' which he carried on doing after he left Radio 1. Famous now for being the show that Aung San Suu Kyi mentioned keeping her company when she was under house arrest ... as if house arrest wasn't bad enough

They still do. You won't believe what branding they use for it too.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p029zl67/episodes/player

Looking at the schedules that just be one of the last remnants of the World Service as a general rather than news based service.

Though looking at the episodes it looks like its just as much a music feature as it is a chart run down.... one of the episodes is an interview with Gilbert o sullivan!

You’re quite right about it being Anthea Turner!

I did think it was unusual there was no change to the set (apart from the logo) with the 86 revamp, usually new titles accompanied a new set as well. Though I remembered that the set didn't change with the 1998 revamp, it had been changed several months earlier, though the new TOTP logo was plastered all over the set after that revamp, whereas the old logo wasn't very prominent in the lead up to it.

I guess it's not worth the effort/expense of doing some TOTP2 style compilations of the remaining performances from shows that can't be broadcast in their entirety due to the presenter or certain acts?

(Do they skip editions where the likes of G Glitter perform or do they just edit that performance out?)

Depends on where he is in the episode. We lost 2 episodes in 1984 because GG appeared at a point in the episode where he couldn't easily be edited out (in one case he opened the show, in another he appeared mid chart countdown).

We have had a couple of songs edited out for other reasons too- one was a cover of Riders On The Storm, apparently because of some sort of issue with Jim Morrison's estate, another was the Thorn Birds theme because it included footage from the show, which the BBC didn't want to pay to clear.

Presumably if a disgraced artist is Number 1 that also means the episode gets skipped. I think the next one is Rolf going to the top with Stairway to Heaven?

Another two slight casualties of the BBC accounts department earlier in the repeats were Art Garfunkel in '1979' for the Watership Down film footage, and Grease's stint in '1978', replacing Travolta & ONJ for Legs & Co.(with added Floyd)

ISTR the figure of £18k per clip was bandied about on forums for the cost of showing the repeat film footage for Grease & Watership Down, hence the reason the WD footage was chopped to little over a minute.by the BBC scissors to fall under 'fair use'.

Unsure if that's true, as the cost for broadcasting those specific segments sounds pretty steep, but plausible I suppose...

Thankfully that didn’t get to number one, although he did perform the track on one of the 1993 shows.

The Grease & Watership Down clips were shown when UK Gold repeated those episodes in the 90s (and when BBC4 showed the Xmas 78 edition back in 2008- it was replaced by Legs & Co on the 2013 screening though). Another snip was a clip from an Elvis film showed on the episode from the week he died- again shown by UK Gold. I guess the fees being asked for UK Gold were lower, or they were just prepared to pay them?

I don't think there's any more disgraced artists that got to Number 1, though Doctorin' The Tardis was based on a Gary Glitter song, and he did appear on the B-side and performed with them on the 1988 Xmas special- I imagine the regular performances will be shown (after all, we got a Human League cover of the same GG song in a 1980 episode), though the 88 Xmas Day performance will certainly get snipped. And of course there's the three episodes he guest presented in the 90s (and he appeared over the end credits of two other editions in 1994, as that week's TOTP2 preview- we'll have to see how BBC4 handle that if they get that far).

Getting even further ahead, Jimmy Savile appeared in Peter Kay's Amarillo video in 2005, though that's way ahead of thinking BBC4 will get anywhere near that far.