Top of the Pops

"Top of the Pops, a new series for teenagers, will be based on the latest discs, mainly hits from the current week's top 20 or 30. In many cases you will meet the artists whose records are being played. They will mime their songs. This is a departure from normal BBC practice, but the rule is being relaxed because the purpose of the programme is to let you hear the discs exactly as recorded, though within the setting of a television programme. No artist gives quite the same performance twice, but what goes out in Top of the Pops is precisely what won the 'pop' the first place."

That's how the Radio Times announced the launch of the BBC's new pop programme back in January 1964. The original commission was for just six episodes, with the option of six more if things went well. Furthermore, the production team of the new programme were sent to work from the BBC's tiny studios in Manchester - simply to use up studio facilities that were until then fairly redundant.

The very first show was presented by BBC Radio 1 DJ Jimmy Savile and the first artists to appear were the Rolling Stones, who sang I Wanna Be Your Man. Within a few weeks the run was made open-ended, and one of the huge advantages that Top of the Pops has had over its rivals throughout its life has been its permanence - it was almost always on every week, in peak viewing time on the main channel. After an early shift from Wednesdays, Thursday nights were synonymous with Top of the Pops for some three decades. The early evening slot was another help, with most commercial alternatives being shown either during children's television or late at night.

Producer Johnnie Stewart implemented a series of rules to ensure that the programme had a discipline. These rules were straightforward enough; the number one record would always be featured, as would the highest new entry and the highest climber. Records going down the charts would never be featured, unless they then started to climb again and reach a higher position than before. Non-movers could only be played if they didn't move for four weeks, and, crucially, no record apart from the number one could be featured on consecutive programmes. What this meant was that, in a sense, it wasn't up to the producer what went on the programme, but rather the public who had gone out and bought the records. It also meant there would be a high turnover of material, rather than the same old faces showing up all the time.

A further convention from the early days that stayed a tradition was that each artist normally only got three minutes to perform. This meant that if you didn't like what was on just now, there would be something else along in a moment. To further emphasise this approach, no regular presenter was booked. Instead Jimmy Savile, Pete Murray, Alan Freeman and David Jacobs took it in turns in the early days to front the show. When Radio 1 began in 1967, most of the show's hosts were DJs from the station, and many had little television experience.

By the end of the 1960s Top of the Pops had become well-established as a regular fixture on BBC1. By now it had moved from its original Manchester base to new studios in London, which brought with it higher technical standards and made it easier to entice big name artists onto the programme. It had also become a Christmas staple - on Christmas Day 1967 a review of the biggest hits of the year was scheduled before the Queen's speech at 2.10pm, and this has become a fixture on 25 December for the next forty years.

The show was finally axed in 2006, with Jimmy Savile fronting the last show as he had done the first forty-two years earlier.