TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

ITV had made the decision to tie two new Saturday morning shows together, both to be hosted by Ant & Dec. One would be their own comedy based show SM:TV (Saturday Morning TV) and CD:UK (Count Down United Kingdom) which would be an hour long version of Top Of The Pops, but without the chart run-down.

Made to replace the Chart Show, it utilised the talents of co-hosts Ant & Dec (previously known as PJ & Duncan, characters they played in BBC children's drama Byker Grove), along with other co-host Cat Deeley (more famous as the girl from TFI Friday who gets rejected by the Ugly Bloke every week).

Featuring live appearances from six live acts on the plug, the look was nothing more than a complete mirror image of TOTP, right down to the hiring of Ric Blaxill, ex-TOTP producer.

After Ant & Dec left in 2001 several other presenters came and went until the show was cancelled. Sponsor Tizer had ended its association with the show and Ribena would then take over until the show was dropped. It was later suggested that the show was too expensive to produce.

A proposed fifteen week replacement show produced by Done & Dusted would in time be cancelled as sponsor O2 pulled out. The show would have had a MySpace-style website so that viewers could interact with it.

Channel 5 had been in talks with show producers Blaze for a revival of the show in 2007 with new presenters Caroline Flack and Dave Berry along with a new time slot on Saturday evening, but a new management re-structure at the channel meant that the idea was dropped.

It was also about this time that the decision was made to drop Top Of The Pops. After forty years British TV had fallen out of love with pop music.

CD:UK

ITV / Blaze

29th August 1998 - 1st April 2006