ah, I've missed the 1996 episodes, I only started watching the repeats a few weeks ago.

If they could show the 1993-95 episodes, they could eventually show the programme in some sort of date order by showing a programme from this particular week in the past. They'd have enough years to be able to do this if they had the full 1991- Aug 1998 run.

They have done this twice- they showed the 1996 Xmas episode at Christmas, and they had the 1998 Valentine's show last week. From what I've gathered they do have all the episodes (though the 1986-1990 ones are on 1" tape, so they can't play them), they are just mixing them around at random, presumably so we get a decent variety of shows and music from different eras.

I was pretty bored by today's episode, didn't know or like most of the songs. I'm also waiting for 93-95 !!

your chart show mock-up btw James is awesome. What program did you use to make it?

head-up display, according to some ancient posting over at Google Groups / usenet:

Chart Show usenet thread from 22 Aug 1998

Adobe Premiere (though the VCR graphics were done in photoshop).

Oh, the irony Plenty of examples of that in the repeats though. In last week's, they said they had a hat on standby ready to be eaten if Stop by the Spice Girls didn't make number one- I hope it tasted nice.


At least back then it was just announcers over credits, now there's annoying graphics popping up all over your programmes as well
Last edited by James2001 : 17-02-2007 at 14:21

I've found what may be the answer this too, in another usenet thread archived at Google Groups:

"As for the chart show The verve or there managers will not let the chart show play there videos unless they are shown in full and with no graphics over the top. I read in the NME (www.nme.com) this came about because thet chart show ran a story about Richard Ashcroft being seen at a spiritualized gig when he was supposed to being play a
Verve gig which he had cancelled at the last minute due to his sickness"
Last edited by Robbie01 : 17-02-2007 at 14:26

HAAAAAAA!!! This thread made me laugh so much, as everyone was kicking offf about the chart show being replaced by as one poster put it "3 hours of ant and dec Sh***", and this so called Sh*** turned out to be one of the most sucessfull saturday morning shows much more popular than the chart show, and it makes me laugh i bet you that poster came to love smtv/cduk possibly as alot of people liked it!

Arrr shame they couldn't see into the future (and a shame we still can't) to see how sucesssful the 3 hour ant and dec Sh*** became!!!

By the way has anyone got the promo for smtv/cduk they used after the last chart show that the posters in that really old thread said the annouer made a point of saying over the programme, as i'd love to see the promo for smtv/cduk a week before it first aired????????????
Last edited by xmastelly : 17-02-2007 at 16:57

i found this funny also as that song only made it to no.2!

It was SMTV that was hugely popular and was the ratings draw, not CD:UK. CD:UK was painfully bad over its final 18 months (and had been on the decline since Ant & Dec left). The Chart Show was as popular as it had ever been when it was axed- more than can be said for CD:UK. I doubt it would have been anything more than moderatly popular if it was on its own, without SM:TV. And, anyway, SM:TV wasn't a runaway success, it was on the verge of being axed for most of the first year.

The thing about the announcer talking over the last episode- I presume that was only in his region, both copies of the last episode I have (all but the last 5 minutes of the one I taped accidently got wiped, someone else sent me a copy)- one from Yorkshire, one from Central- have no announcer over the end.
Last edited by James2001 : 17-02-2007 at 18:50

I liked CD:UK in its final incarnation - I was bored stiff of Cat. I don't blame them for axing Chart Show either really. It hadn't become irrelevant in 1998... but I don't think it would be worth bringing back to terrestrial now. I probably wouldn't watch it myself - at least not without flicking through the other music channels every time a song that I didn't like came on. There's no need for a show like it now. TOTP however...

I think that was one of the main reasons behind the axing. More people were getting satellite & cable, digital (and even more channels) was just around the corner, they obviously decided a performance based show was needed to get viewers as people would be getting videos from music channels (though music videos are much more visually impressive than the current here-today-gone-tomorrow band on a stange miming to their latest dirge). Still, it would be dirt cheap to make, and that's the sort of thing ITV & co seem to be looking for these days.
Last edited by James2001 : 17-02-2007 at 19:29

I've got the show recorded from Tyne Tees and I'm sure the last time I watched it (admittedly, about a year ago) it played out without any announcer talking over the last video. I'm sure the announcer talked about CD:UK AFTER the Chart Show actually finished. Both video and recorder are now in the attic so I can't just get the tape to check if I've remembered right.

I must get the videos / recorder down one day anyway, I've several tapes of various programmes, both music and non-music, I want to copy to DVD... no more Chart Shows though unfortunately. From 1996 onwards I used to occasionally do overtime on a Saturday and used to record the programme if I remembered to set the video but never saved any except for that last episode.

I do have a few tapes of Sky's Hit Mix from 2001 which ran overnight after Sky One closed and was pretty much a Chart Show clone in that it was announcer free and had various charts, played some songs in full, fast forwarded through others etc. I can't remember if it had graphics like the Chart Show though (ie snippets of info for each song played) - I'm almost sure it didn't. It's years since I last watched a tape of it, and that had Geri Halliwell's horrendous "It's Raining Men" at #1
Last edited by Robbie01 : 17-02-2007 at 20:39

Just noticed today's episode's on again. Looks like midnight Sunday is a new repeat slot. They must be proving popular for them to be sticking another repeat showing in the schedule.

Did it last that long? I always thought it ended by the end of the 90's. Basically, to add to Robbie01's points. It was a 6 hour show, the same show every night for one week but it would alternative the content every night. So it would have one hour of one genre etc and rotate. I think I have some on tape but judging on the amount of tapes I have and how I don't index them or put stickers on the cassettes, I don't think I find it quick!

A colleague of mine gave me a copy of his final Chart Show from the Granada region which had a continuity announcer at the end. The announcer said there would be a promo about CD:UK straight after the Chart Show, unfortunately thats where the copy end so we didn't get to see the promo.

Was I the only one who didn't like this show? They'd always go right past my favourite songs, and play some random one

I have a tape with no announcer at the end, but I do have the cd:uk promo, but that portion of the tape is damaged (loads of dropouts) and part of it is taped over. I did also have the SM:TV promo, but that was at the begginning of the tape, which is the one that got wiped.
Last edited by James2001 : 18-02-2007 at 11:40

they arent popular at all,have been chatting with Matt from The Vault this past week and the reason they are not showing 1993-1995 episodes is because they need converting from d2 tapes as they dont have the machine that plays these anymore,Matt has had a price for getting all the shows converted including the 1986-1991 shows and he is willing to do this and also show more shows per week if the viewers are there,which they arent at the minute sadly

he even sayed that the programme shown before the chart shows came on was getting more viewers,think this was just new music videos

so we really need to spread the word and get more viewers otherwise we could lose the chart show altogether

we spoke about different viewing times and i recommened later at nights at the weekend for the pub crowd etc so i think this is a trial with the repeat
Last edited by Gaz.Baz : 18-02-2007 at 12:51

Yeah I think the times (Thursday @ 5 and Saturday @ 11) aren't great as most people will either be at work or out with the family. They should take a leaf out of Nick Jr's book and show them around 9pm at night so that us oldies can watch once the kiddies are asleep.

I just remembered by 2001 the programme that ran overnight was called Long Play, Hit Mix being the previous name.

I'm guessing, but I assume Long Play was a play on the fact that the show ran (for some of the time at least) for 6 hours, and with an E-180 VHS tape, recording in long play would give you 6 hours worth of recording time! I think the programme came to a halt around the time of the World Cup in Japan / S. Korea in 2002, Sky One began showing overnight programming, presumably for those people who were sitting up to watch the football, to give them something to watch. It certainly never reappeared not too long after that.

Another good idea would be to run promotions on all 6 of the Chart Show music channels, it's going to get more people aware of them than a few trailers that are only shown on The Vault (and I haven't even seen these for a while). Maybe you could email him back with that suggestion. Certinally, Flaunt, Bliss & Scuzz are quite popular, so running promotions on there would raise a fair bit of awareness. And possibly they could trial showing the repeats on Bliss as well- after all, they show very similar music to The Vault. A few extra repeats scattered around the schedule wouldn't go amiss either. Gaz, maybe you could send him a link to this thread so he can read it and possibly reply here to our points.

One thing about the 1993-95 eps is that, as far as I'm aware, D2 is still in use, to a limited extent, in the TV industry, so transferring them would surely be cheaper than the older 1" tapes.
Last edited by James2001 : 18-02-2007 at 14:13

it's a shame the viewing figures are not that good. Unfortunately, sticking to the years that are being shown is going to limit the audience size too. To appeal to a bigger audience they need to have a wider selection of years, but obviously technical limitations and cost are not going to help.

I hope it does work out though and viewing figures increase to a worthwhile level. I only found out about the shows about a month ago, there could be many others out there who would be interested but don't visit internet message boards and don't know that the reruns are being shown.

That is true, doing a search on google I've found quite a few results from people who have only found out about them from internet message board, or the Wikipedia article. More widespread promotion is needed, spreading it to all the Chart Show owned channels is a start, and I think my suggestion of also showing them on Bliss could work too, especially as Bliss is on cable, and The Vault isn't which increases the potential audience striaght away. I know quite a few people who watch Bliss, Flaunt & Scuzz who don't watch the other chart show channels, so showing promotions (and even the episodes) on there would ceritnally make more people aware.
Last edited by James2001 : 18-02-2007 at 15:02