TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 -
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 claim in a 1979 Southern TV documentary that the public had
been given a chance to vote on which TV show they preferred -
It first got an airing on ATV London on 24th February 1968, nearly a week before
its actual debut Southern transmission. Local ITV stations would only show programmes
if they could find the time in their schedules, leading to transmission date confusion.
It's possible that the first show was only shown by ATV London as Southern's first
transmission on 1st March appears to be a different edition. The show was replaced
on Southern the following week by ATV's sit-
From Disc 19th October 1968 "SPECTACULARS on the Beach Boys, Kinks and Bee Gees;
"Revived 45" spots with groups like Manfred Mann with Paul Jones and Peter and Gordon;
request spots; new faces never seen on TV; jam sessions with top men from different
groups; and regular spots from London's famous "Revolution" club ... these are just
some of producer Mike Mansfield's ambitious plans for the new look "Time For Blackburn"
show, which is nationally networked this week." Sadly, most of this never happened.
Mike Mansfield told Disc "Tony Blackburn and the production team will be travelling
with the Bee Gees on their train through their German tour, and a special show will
be built round them, with interviews, off-
"I shall be doing a whole show with the Kinks, possibly using one other top artist
to sing a Ray Davies' song-
Produced by Southern TV regular Mike Mansfield, the show would on occasion use inserts
filmed at London’s Revolution Club, while Blackburn would introduce the acts and
clips from the studio in Southampton. Johnny/Johnnie Pearson was hired to be the
the musical director, a job he would also do at Top of the Pops. The opening credits
for the first shows had Blackburn emerge from a just-
Talking to the Daily Mirror in late July 1968 he confessed to envying the position of one of his colleagues, "Something like Simon Dee's I envy him talking and meeting interesting people. Interviewing pop people all the time becomes so limiting."
The show was deemed successful enough to extend its scheduled finale 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 the show briefly moves to Friday and then back to Saturday, while George Alexander of Grapefruit was asked to record a new theme for the show, so Southern must have thought it had a future. In late August London Weekend and ATV decided not to continue with the show, but it return to London Weekend in late October on Fridays.
The show had weekly guest reviewers to give their opinion on the songs just performed, leading to embarrassment and resentment. It was amazing that any acts turned up at all, given the potential for humiliation. Disc referred to the show as "Time For Embarrassment."
One edition made news headlines when on the 20th July 1968 The Crazy World of Arthur Brown performed Fire on the show and Brown's hair caught fire. The show also caught The Rolling Stones on stage at the NME Pollwinners’ Concert at Wembley, two years' after ABC stopped regularly broadcasting the show.
The one surviving edition from October 1968 features The Who.
Mansfield would leave Southern TV in February 1969 to work for Associated London Scripts, a division of the Robert Stigwood Organisation and Blackburn would find gainful employment at BBC Television Centre on Top Of The Pops.
TIME FOR BLACKBURN!
Southern
24th February 1968 to 4th January 1969