TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

From the TV Times “News, views and comments from Britain's most popular DJ, plus the cream of the week's new releases.”

Tony Blackburn would later claim in a 1979 Southern TV documentary that the public had been given a chance to vote on which TV show they preferred - the choices being As You Like It, New Release and Countdown. They claimed not to like any of them, so a re-vamp of New Release was proposed and this became Time For Blackburn.

Produced by Southern TV regular Mike Mansfield, this was the follow up to New Release, this time with inserts filmed at London’s Revolution Club, while Blackburn would introduce the acts and clips from the studio in Southampton. Johnny Pearson was the musical director, a job he would also do at Top of the Pops.

The show was deemed successful enough to extend its scheduled run from the end of June until the end of the year, however with the new ITV contracts coming into force in July and August Southern would have to negotiate with each one to ensure a network showing. In August George Alexander of Grapefruit was asked to record a new theme for the show.

One edition made news headlines when on the 20th July 1968 The Crazy World of Arthur Brown performed Fire on the show and his hair caught fire. While the show also caught The Rolling Stones on stage at the NME Pollwinners’ Concert at Wembley.

The one surviving edition from October 1968 features The Who.

TIME FOR BLACKBURN!

Southern

2nd March 1968 to 28th December 1968