TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

The BBC had been considering a response to Associated Rediffusion's successful and trend-setting Friday tea-time pop show Ready, Steady Go! which had debuted in August 1963. BBC Television Producer Johnnie Stewart had taken Radio Luxembourg's Teen and Top Twenty Disc Club as his inspiration, and gave its host Jimmy Savile eight weeks to predict what would be in the UK top ten by the first week of January 1964, and that prediction would be the basis of the first show. The Teen and Twenty Club had previously been given its own pilot show by the BBC in late 1961, hosted by Savile and produced by The Good Old Days producer Barney Colehan, but despite favourable reviews by the panel it was not commissioned.

Producer Stewart had previous experience in pop and light entertainment for BBC Television working on pop shows Juke Box Jury, Twist! and The Trad Fad, so was the most likely to get a show of this nature commissioned. The show format was devised by Savile and Colehan and a pilot was ordered for late 1963. The title Teen and Twenty Record Club had briefly been considered, but since it was associated with a Radio Luxembourg show a new name had to be produced. It was Stewart who had suggested the title 'Top of the Pops'. It was however not a new name as it had been used before back in the 1950s for a BBC Light Programme radio series, and it would also be used again by the BBC's Transcription department for a weekly World Service radio show in the sixties, hosted by Brian Matthew.

The pilot was recorded at the location that would become the home of the show for the first two years, a converted Wesleyan church in Dickenson Road, Rusholme, Manchester, formerly the home of Mancunian Films. The format devised would concentrate on hit singles, rather than anyone that happened to be available, but it was the Head of Light Entertainment Bill Cotton Jnr who suggested that it should concentrate on the top twenty. This format would make the show more of a crowd-puller, but this also meant that at least eight of the top twenty acts would have to make themselves available at short notice. A series of six shows was commissioned, with a budget of  1300 per show to debut on New Years' Day 1964, with the show recorded on Tuesdays for transmission the following night.

Since the show is based on what the public is buying a chart, from the many available, had to be chosen. They decided to use the music paper charts for the first few years, although this is never mentioned on screen.

The show is publicly announced in the Daily Mirror on 21st November 1963, where a BBC spokesman tells the paper "We want to have the exact sound on the record in the charts, so we are waiving the 'no miming' rule. But this does not show any change in our basic attitude to the miming of discs. We feel that just to have an artist come on and shape his mouth to the words of his or her record is lazy and dishonest."

Talking to The Stage in December 1963, a few weeks' ahead of the first show Stan Parkinson, assistant to producer Johnnie Stewart stated that the records would be chosen from those going up the top twenty/thirty as well as the top three. Also the ban on miming would be relaxed "to let viewers hear the discs as recorded within the setting of a television production". Talking to Radio Times ahead of the first show Stewart claimed "It's like doing the pools, I have to anticipate who's going up, who's falling back. My bush telegraph brings me the new chart at tea-time on Tuesday. That leaves me twenty-six hours to contact stars, fix 'live' TV spots and arrange filming sessions. Sometime of course I don't. You don't need super-wizardry to see The Swinging Blue Jeans or the Dave Clark Five on the up and up, so I can film them in advance or organise a special appearance."

Several rules would be implemented over time - only to play records that are climbing the chart, the highest entry, the highest chart climber and never play the same record two weeks' running unless it's the number one. However, the maths of only playing records that are going up the chart wouldn't always work as a record at, say number ten one week could sell more copies the following week but still go down the chart as chart placings are relative. Over the years an almost Spinal Tap equation would be quoted by many acts which was "ours was the only record to be on Top Of The Pops and go down the chart the following week." In reality, it's very likely they sold a lot more copies, but the records above them are obviously doing much better that week, so their record goes down the chart. Similarly a record could also climb the chart on lower sales than the previous week if it was a slow sales week overall.

Much has been made of Jimmy Savile and Johnnie Stewart having to guess the what the chart would look like a few weeks' ahead, but choices made in early December included Heinz and Brian Poole & The Tremeloes, neither of which were in the top ten on the week of transmission.

The choice of hosts for the show was not going to be difficult, with Jimmy Savile a top DJ, albeit on Radio Luxembourg, as was David Jacobs who had previously hosted the BBC Light Programme's Pick of The Pops, Alan Freeman, the then current Pick Of The Pops host and radio favourite Peter Murray, who was also a familiar face from the 6.5 Special days. He later claimed he was asked to be the permanent host by Stewart, but said that he would only do it once a month, fearing that he would be too associated with one show.

The debut couldn't have come at a better time for the BBC. Pop music shows had started making their presence felt in the Television Audience Measurement top ten ratings. Thank Your Lucky Stars had been in the top ten twice in summer 1963, while It's The Beatles, their appearance on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, Juke Box Jury and the Royal Command Performance also took pop music into millions of homes the month before the The Pops' first show. However, it has to be noted that Top Of The Pops itself never once reached the top ten ratings in the sixties.

Despite a no-brainer of an idea Ready, Steady, Go! was the trend-setter, whereas The Pops could only respond weeks later with the nation's desire to hear to the same records.

The decades - click on each

The 1960s - The 1970s - The 1980s - The 1990s - The 2000s

For more detailed information about the early years of the show I recommend The Lost Years Rediscovered 1964 - 1975 by Peter Checksfield

TOP OF THE POPS

BBC/BBC1/BBC2

1st January 1964 - 30th July 2006