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Bring back Top of the Pops for the X-Factor generation
tvphil
Posts: 990
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Surely it is time to bring back TOTP as a weekly programme.
This year we have had a Christmas TOTP2 as well as the traditional Xmas day show.
Even Channel 5 are showing an old episode this Christmas.
Come on BBC - put it in a decent time slot every week and I am sure the X-Factor generation will love it!
Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates sound like they are still up for it...
'Cotton, 29, would welcome its return as a weekly show. "Oh, they've got to bring it back. Be brave and do it." Yates, 27, agrees. "Chart music is really interesting right now, everything from dubstep to dance to traditional boy bands. Having the show back would reflect that." Look at The X Factor's Sunday night broadcast, says Cotton, with its guest-appearing pop stars. "Essentially, Top of the Pops. And people are tuning in."'
from http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/dec/19/top-of-the-pops-christmas
Facebook - http://en-gb.facebook.com/group.php?gid=373798866366
Petition - http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/petition-sign.cgi?totpback
This year we have had a Christmas TOTP2 as well as the traditional Xmas day show.
Even Channel 5 are showing an old episode this Christmas.
Come on BBC - put it in a decent time slot every week and I am sure the X-Factor generation will love it!
Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates sound like they are still up for it...
'Cotton, 29, would welcome its return as a weekly show. "Oh, they've got to bring it back. Be brave and do it." Yates, 27, agrees. "Chart music is really interesting right now, everything from dubstep to dance to traditional boy bands. Having the show back would reflect that." Look at The X Factor's Sunday night broadcast, says Cotton, with its guest-appearing pop stars. "Essentially, Top of the Pops. And people are tuning in."'
from http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/dec/19/top-of-the-pops-christmas
Facebook - http://en-gb.facebook.com/group.php?gid=373798866366
Petition - http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/petition-sign.cgi?totpback
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Comments
Im thinking a live show with Twitter info, Facebook. Competitions on these to see who can win tickets for the show. Have it as a 'travelling' roadshow and each week its in a different area of the UK.
The brand is so iconic that they could easily 'bring it back'
TOTP died in the late 90's and it should stay there.
Comparisns with XF aren't really relevant. It's an entirely different show, and I don't think the guest performances are really what gets people tuning in anyway. Besides, I doubt TOTP could never secure that calibre of guests week-in week-out. I suspect there'd be plenty of interests both from the industry and the public for a few weeks, but the novelty would soon wear off and you'd wind up back where the show was 5 years since.
I'm not saying there's no space for a popular music programme on TV, but IMO it'll need a different twist to classic TOTP.
No, decent chart music died in the 90s, TOTP went off cos the music they were promoting was crap! Sadly it's got even worse since then
Rod
TOTP wouldn't work now in the same way as The ITV Chart Show wouldn't there are dedicated channels which there were not in years gone by people wouldn't get the buzz of only hearing the songs once a week it would fail big style.
The Chart Show and TOTP worked because they were unique and the only place on TV you could see you favourite song now you can just Youtube it anytime.
So why is TOTP needed?
Because those two channels barely play any new music at all, let alone live performances.
TOTP was bad purely because the BBC are rubbish at that kind of program. It was always dated even in it's own time.
The only way a revival would work, would be for ITV to do it. Do it as a Syco Production and big budget, get it on a Saturday night and it'll be a big hit.
Just look at the amount of people that tuned in for the live performances during this years X-Factor from other artists.
Now really is the time to bring it back, but just not on the BBC.
OK, maybe not.
`Top of the Pops` is such an old format, IMO even the name has aged.
May as well call it `The Hit Parade Show`.
Any new programme needs to reflect 2011, not the 1960's.
We have dozens of music channels and we have the Internet where the Music videos are available on demand. We can also get access to all the tracks in an instant and we see the variety in the Music Radio Stations diminishing with each one sounding more and more like the rest.
It would be much better to bring back a show like BBC Choices Recovered show that Dermot O'Leary hosted where the acts did a live performance of their own track and then did a a cover version. That would give a USP to the show, perhaps using the Live Lounge brand
why only christmas then a easter version might work 2 would not hurt
Yes, i agree
If we were going to get TOTP back, let's have repeats of the classic ones from the 70s & 80s.
Watching a live performance is not the same as watching the video on a music channel.
Many of the acts that have been promoted through X-Factor would be ideal to be shown on a revived TOTP - as well as other bands and acts in the charts.
I do not really see why it wouldn't work.
The Big Top 40 radio show is netting 2 million listeners in the time slot and the Radio 1 version is getting 1.3 million so there is clearly a market for such a show. If TOTP became the show that revealed the chart first, it would give those who follow the charts a genuine reason to tune in.
However as C5's BARB showed this weekend, there's an older audience who'd watch repeats from the 80s.
And another change if TOTP was brought back- no miming the records.
But look how successfull Doctor Who has been since it has been revived and re-invented. I think the same could happen for TOTP.
Aren't a lot of live performances on Youtube anyway?
Thing with the internet too is that it's easier to find other music that isn't in the charts and find new music. Not all music is in the Top 40 after all and sometimes the stuff that isn't is better than the stuff that is. I like the idea of a Live Lounge type show though, it could be named the Live Lounge Show or Live Lounge on TV.
here here
It won't work for TOTP as it did for Doctor Who.
Doctor Who is a fictional science fiction show about a lone space traveller who goes around the universe righting wrongs with fictional alien beings. For this reason it can continuously relaunch itself, as it has done many times, and even when it does fall foul of the viewing public, it can have some resting time and then be brought back some years later. Its format is timeless, even though the show itself or its production values may not.
TOTP was a music show that showcased bands usually performing in a studio. An idea that is no longer needed and has even less need for a revival as more and more music is listened to or watched on the internet, whenever the viewer wants to view them.
The problem with TOTP is that unlike X-Factor is that it is the result.
the TOTP format is basically the Top 20 songs from the sales chart, where as X-Factor is in effect you building the chart (fhte chart being the Top 10 of that weeks preformances)
The commercail nature of chart music has not helped matters, for so longer now music has been around 2 or even 3 months, before it charts, and then drops out of the Top 10 quickly.
Some commercail acts being apparntly incapable of preforming there track in a TV studio, opting to mime, or just not bothering.
For the BBCs part, one problem is that TOTP aired on Friday, 5 days after the chart went out, that is unforgivable, it is far to late, finding out who topped the chart is all to easy, the BBCs own Radio 1 will tell you at about 18:50 on Sunday afternoon, whilst website update soon after.
The chart show format just doesnt work, it offers the viewers little new, and either the artist is incapable of preforming for TV, or those with that talent are asked to preform the same track they just played for 2 monts before hand.
So IMO a new format is required, a format that offer something you simply dont get elsewhere, that is talent bands, being given the freedom to record something of there choice, the freedom to duet with someone unusal, to create a peice of music unique to the program, something Radio 1 & Radio 2, do with Live Lounge or Great British Song Book.
Of course the problem with this is of course that the chart topping commercail acts, dont have that talent, and even if they do, there record labels wont support it, this wont be good for ratings, artisic music is nice, but its not where the money/ratings are.
Of course that isnt TOTP, and im not totally convinced it will bring in viewers, who can simply catch the part featuring there favourite artist on iPlayer, saving 25 minutes of there lives.
Times have changed, music is even more commercail, people have change, technology has changed, some people may have to face the facts that a weekly chart show just isnt going to work.
Of course there is a reason im not a highly paid program development officer at a TV channel somewhere, so maybe im wrong, but I dont think I am.
"Music Mash Up"
A monthly music show, where a mix of chart acts, musical artists, & old timers, are all thrown into a TV studio, there mission is to create a 30 minute show, featuring themselves, in various combitions.
The first song may see Ellie Goulding, recording a song she wrote with Coldplay. It may see Cheryl Cole & JLS recording a cover of song by Nina Simone. The last track maybe Rihanna recording her lastest track with the BBC Royal Philharmonic, whilst BGT winners Diversity preform to a specaily recorded trance version of a Take That track.