Top of the Pops and the importance of keeping BBC Four on air

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On the 26th May this year, the BBC announced the discontinuation of BBC Four and will be taken off the air in "the next few years". While the BBC believe it's a good idea as the world has become digital in a short amount of time, there will be a lot that will be missed from this channel. 

Since 2002, BBC Four has shown off some of the best shows and movies in the realm of arts, music, culture and much more. And now, the BBC want to let it all go? Surely not. Throughout the channel's 20 year run, the channel has bought us shows from the past and the present. 

Some of these include: 
- Only Connect
- Screenwipe
- The Top of the Pops repeats
- Storyville
- Concerts or montages of bands and artists
- And many more from imports and repeats

The ratings may not be high, but it's about the quality and content of programmes BBC Four have bought to British television. Proving that the license fee can bring in quality content.

But to me, I Believe BBC Four is still a TV juggernaut. Not only just on TV, but on Social Media.

From the TOTP Archive

On every Friday at 8pm, BBC Four airs repeats of Top of the Pops with two episodes in one hour. The show originally ran on BBC One from 1964 to 2006 and was the main music show in the UK. This was before YouTube, MTV, TikTok, Spotify and many more. Once you heard a band like The Jam on the show, you would go to the record store the next day with your friends and buy the single or album. That was the power of Top of the Pops. 

The BBC have been showing these repeats from 2011, starting from 1976 to now (as of writing this) showing episodes from 1993.

BBC still showing some love for the Pops


They have also made a documentary series on the show too known as 'TOTP : Story of', where they show off what was going on with the show every year featuring interviews from the artists back then. As of recent, the last Story of episode was on the year of 1999 to coincide with BBC Two's Saturday 90s slot.

Yes, there's controversies and a lot of acts that can't be shown because of you know what. Luckily, BBC Four have understood and have deleted episodes showing Jimmy Saville, Rolf Harris, R. Kelly, Dave Lee Travis and many more. Even some performances that seemed potentially offensive were cut too.

The latest controversy that bummed a lot of people off was the disappearance of episodes with Adrian Rose appearing as presenter. It turned out he called the BBC to withdraw showing his episodes to save him from 'Embarrassment'.

Mostly everyone, including me, were angered. It meant that we wouldn't see performances from James, Beautiful South, Manic Street Preachers, Kylie Minogue and even that infamous Nirvana performance where Kurt Cobain sang in baritone because he had flu.

Unseen episodes aside, the re-airings of Top of the Pops have been a blessing for BBC Four. Not only does it bring back nostalgia of music from the 70s to the 90s, it has created a Twitter group of thousands of music lovers to tweet their love and banter of the show and artists with the hashtag #TOTP. I jumped on the Pop-Picker ship when they broadcasted Top of the Pops : Story of 1987 and then got into watching the shows when they started showing the episodes from 1988. 

An example of what goes on at TOTP Twitterati

It would be in the 1989 episodes where I learnt about the Twitter side of the Top of the Pops and that was when I realised that I was not alone. There are thousands of fans of the show and near the end of the repeats, it would always reach the #1 spot on the trending page; sometimes defeating the biggest news stories, sports matches and even Love Island at times!

One of the rare days Top of the Pops beats Love Island

And finally, I joined in around the 1992 episodes and started to tweet my thoughts and have banter with the show. The result? likes, retweets, quote tweets and even getting noticed by many of the bands and presenters on the show. These include Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin (both presenters at the time), Jim Bob of Carter USM, Cud, Utah Saints, David Gedge, Mixmaster Morris, Tasmin Archer, Jesus Jones and Sultans of Ping FC. 

David Gedge of The Wedding Present follows me.
His band released 12 songs (1 every month) in 1992 and all charted in the top 40!

Now that's what I call networking. I love the wholesomeness and fun of people tweeting their thoughts on the show itself. It's also why a lot of the performers like the tweets and follow people on their two because it's a way of getting people to remember how great they were and still are and a way to interact with the viewers on their experiences.

Speaking of experiences from watching the repeats from 1989, there were a lot of funny moments on the Twitter Side of Top of the Pops. Some of these include muting the show if Michael Bolton, Right Said Fred or even Vanilla Ice was on; making fun of what the hosts or singers were wearing, wondering why they could have chosen a better band than the one being shown and finding lookalikes of the people on the show.

In 1989, the tyrannical reign of Jive Bunny. Every time this maniac appeared on the show, the whole Twitter group would groan and take the mickey. And who would too? Jive Bunny was proof that medley mixing songs together into a single was lazy way to make money.

As I've tweeted on the show since around March this year, I've had fun listening to music I had not heard before or have heard and was happy to hear again. Many tweets have been successful because it. But my biggest achievement on TOTP Twitter is this...

I posted a meme based on the BBC announcer's line whenever the second episode is about to begin. It turns out they cut and paste this and have not changed it; so I made this meme and turned out it got a high amount of likes. Even Jacqui Abbott, formerly of the Beautiful South liked it too.

All I can say is BBC Four's decisions to air the Top of the Pops re-runs have proved that it is still a strong channel. Yes, the views may not be as good with around 200,000 to 400,000 people watching, but it's still fantastic to see the power of the Pop-Pickers work well on Twitter. #1 every Friday night on the trending page and getting people to notice the bands and singers again. There's no wonder many of these groups has seen success again. 

Deacon Blue's album 'City Of Love' reached #4.
One reason for this was the sudden attention after the Top of the Pops repeats.

We'll just have to wait and see if the Gallagher brothers would reunite if they started watching the repeats when they get to 1994 or if the Spice Girls would record another album together when the re-runs get to 1996. Heck, I could go further. Anyone wonder if Dua Lipa's 'Future Nostalgia' was inspired by the Re-Runs of Top of the Pops when they were showing the episodes from around 1987?

For BBC Four, Top of the Pops and other shows have proved why it deserves to stay on TV. Taking it off would make it difficult to put the programmes on the channel on other ones. It would also start a domino effect for other channels to depart from Freeview. The documentaries, the repeats, the movies, the travel shows, imports and more have helped BBC Four become what it is today and Top of the Pops helped a lot like a Paracetamol.

A petition to save BBC 4

And who knows? Maybe the BBC would re-commission Top of the Pops for the modern generation and we get to see acts like George Ezra, Mimi Webb, KSI, Olivia Rodrigo, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran and many more take to the stage on the hit parade. Maybe get Jordan North and Clara Amfo

Without BBC Four and T.O.T.P., Friday night will never be the same again. As of now, they're here to stay and hopefully they stay as long as possible.

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