TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 -
A weekly sponsored version of Britain's Independent Radio chart. In reality it was
a sequel to ITVs The Roxy and produced for Channel 5 by Malcolm Gerrie's Initial.
The show was a mixture of a few live appearances, promo clips, news and a chat with
a few of the stars. The first hosts to be hired were Rhona Mitra and Eddy Temple-
The producers of ITV's existing Chart Show protested Channel 5's use of the word 'chart' in the title, claiming there would be confusion. Keith McMillan, producer of ITV's Chart Show claimed “My worry is confusion in the market and that seems silly to me. We have had lots of calls from the general public and record companies who are confused.” Pepsi later replied that they weren't aware of any confusion. There would be more problems when according to Broadcast magazine in May 1998 Top of the Pops producer Chris Cowie went onto the set of the show to say hello to his old boss Malcolm Gerrie only to be told to get lost.
When the show launched in 1998 viewing figures topped 650,000 which was acceptable for a channel which didn't have national coverage.
A media report from May 2002 claimed the show had lost two thirds of its audience in the last twelve months with viewing figures bottoming out at 100,000. XFM's Matt Brown introduced the last show in Thursday 27th June 2002, but it wasn't announced as the last show until the following week.
The show was replaced by another Initial production POP, hosted by Lauren Laverne and Matt Brown in August 2002. In the meanwhile there would be four compilation shows on Channel 5. Pepsi were looking for another channel to take the show and eventually placed it on a satellite channel called Rapture.
THE PEPSI CHART
C5 / Initial
4th February 1998 -
