Top of the Pops on BBC Four

[James2001]

Possibly omitting the credits out of resepect for Freddie?

Digiguide has been updated now though, and no longer listing the 28th November episode... Whether it is not being shown because of Adrian Rose or another reason, I don't know. We'll find out soon though, as he presented the 19th December edition as well, and presumably we'll know next week if that one's getting shown or not.

Didn't realise until someone posted on DS that Adrian Rose is also known as Adrian Woolfe- now a TV executive and one of the people responsible for bringing WWTBAM to the screen.

[mumu03]

Possibly omitting the credits out of resepect for Freddie?

You'd think that, and indeed the previous time TOTP paid respects to a musician/performer's death by playing out with their work - John Lennon, 1980 - the credits were simply ran over that week's number one instead. They're definitely nowhere to be seen on the 28/11/1991 edition though.

Does strike me as quite odd that they didn't include them altogether, and perhaps the complete lack of both production credits and copyright somehow prevents it from being repeated (?).

[James2001]

Someone on DS said they've messaged Femi Oke and she said her episodes are going to be shown, so that does leave Adrian as the only Year Zero presenter with a question mark hanging over them.

This situation does seem interesting, as several past presenters have said they didn't have to give their permission for their episodes to be shown and couldn't block them even if they wanted to (Mike Smith seems to have been a special case, and it's quite possible there wasn't anything technically stopping them from showing them), many weren't even approached, Andy Crane had no idea his episodes were being shown until people told him on Twitter the same day his first edition was on. Whereas it seems the Year Zero presenters might have had to be approached and signed contracts going by what Tony Dortie and Elayne Smith have said- was there possibly something different in their contracts than with the others with regards to how repeats are handled?

[mumu03]

Someone on DS said they've messaged Femi Oke and she said her episodes are going to be shown, so that does leave Adrian as the only Year Zero presenter with a question mark hanging over them.

This situation does seem interesting, as several past presenters have said they didn't have to give their permission for their episodes to be shown and couldn't block them even if they wanted to (Mike Smith seems to have been a special case, and it's quite possible there wasn't anything technically stopping them from showing them), many weren't even approached, Andy Crane had no idea his episodes were being shown until people told him on Twitter the same day his first edition was on. Whereas it seems the Year Zero presenters might have had to be approached and signed contracts going by what Tony Dortie and Elayne Smith have said- was there possibly something different in their contracts than with the others with regards to how repeats are handled?

It certainly appears so. At a guess, with them all being relative unknowns/fresh to BBC work at the time (besides Dortie and Simon, anyway), they had much different contracts to the R1 DJs and kids TV presenters that had came before.

Simon Bates has once implied he doesn't hold any power in actually putting a block on any of his TOTP editions from being shown, which probably muddies things even further.

[James2001]

I imagine there's a question of what happens with the 1994-97 guest presenters too- though there's been several guest presenters over the BBC4 run, especially in 1980, we haven't lost any episodes due to them refusing permission, and I can't imagine the BBC would have gone to the effort of seeking out (or would have got- I'm sure Roger Daltrey would rather the episode he sulked his way through never got seen again!) the permission from all of them, and we've had the 1994 and 95 Christmas editions repeated as well (though admittedly the members of Take That and Jack Dee are likely easier to get hold of than many of the other guest presenters if permission is needed).

[Colm]

One guest presenter will be skipped without question (GG), which also impacts on whether we get editions in those preceding weeks.

I was reminded recently during the Peters era, on-screen graphics/stings billing that/next week's acts were the norm. Given how the token alt-band invited on TOTP at the time was Lostprophets...

[Ade Jacobs]

One guest presenter will be skipped without question (GG), which also impacts on whether we get editions in those preceding weeks.

I was reminded recently during the Peters era, on-screen graphics/stings billing that/next week's acts were the norm. Given how the token alt-band invited on TOTP at the time was Lostprophets...

Is promoting the Lostprophets as being on a future show but editing them out any different to including them or artists like Gary Glitter in the chart rundowns?

[Colm]

If they edit out non-contextual references to affected hosts, I'm sure they'll do the same for performers; as before, if too much effort is involved to by-pass this, there's another skipped edition to add to the list.

Although it's never been confirmed as the case, as the Official Charts Company has chosen not to amend historic charts to 'cancel' entries by musical personae non grata, the BBC style has been to acknowledge, without comment, that the song charted, choosing not to play the track in question and moving swiftly on.

By the by, the Friday night Channel 5 series features the top 30 best-selling singles of 1972 - of which Number 7 belongs to Gary Glitter.

[HEW2343]

By the by, the Friday night Channel 5 series features the top 30 best-selling singles of 1972 - of which Number 7 belongs to Gary Glitter.

With the 1970 episode they played about 10 seconds of Rolf Harris before swiftly moving on to the next best seller so they'll do that to all the Gary Glitter years.

[Neil Jones]

Although it's never been confirmed as the case, as the Official Charts Company has chosen not to amend historic charts to 'cancel' entries by musical personae non grata, the BBC style has been to acknowledge, without comment, that the song charted, choosing not to play the track in question and moving swiftly on.

The problem with media (mostly music) is that its so easy to just slap it on a compilation somewhere and knock them out quickly and cheaply. In the days before YouTube it was easier to hide away visual media that they didn't want people to see, by just not airing it in the first place. Music is different (and again before the days of YouTube, Spotify and every song under the sun available behind an interface), it only has to appear on the back end of some catalogue/album/"best of" somewhere that was released years ago and that's it.

Unfortunate as it may be, Glitter and Harris and what not were big showbiz stars of their time, Rolf Harris of course had four top ten hits in this country and Glitter had three UK number one's. These artists aren't "banned" as such from airplay or compilations or use in film (indeed a Glitter song featured in the 2019 Joker film but I believe he flogged all the rights to his music not long before he fell from grace so he'd have made naff all from it anyway), but its probably seen as bad taste if not inappropriate to use them.

[James2001]

The BBC website's now listing the Christmas edition for the 26th November, skipping the 19th December episode, so it does look like Adrian has indeed blocked his episodes. Very disapointing.

[Ade Jacobs]

The BBC website's now listing the Christmas edition for the 26th November, skipping the 19th December episode, so it does look like Adrian has indeed blocked his episodes. Very disapointing.

I must admit I'm saddened by this, firstly because I had hoped that we were beyond the point of Presenters blocking their shows. Also the possibility that Adrian felt it the correct decision in his mind not to sign the release form to allow these to be aired.

[Brekkie]

Do the hosts (who don't block the airings) get any kind of repeat fees, and also would the music acts themselves?

[Robert Williams]

It's no wonder I have no recollection of Elayne Smith given that she only appeared in vision three times on the first of her two shows. It hardly seems worth having two presenters when so many of the links are done out of vision.

[James2001]

It's no wonder I have no recollection of Elayne Smith given that she only appeared in vision three times on the first of her two shows. It hardly seems worth having two presenters when so many of the links are done out of vision.

By the time you get later into 1992 and 1993, there's some editions where literally only the link after the first song and the link into the credits was in vision.

I can't help but wonder if it would make cutting out potentially problematic acts (though Rolf Harris is admittedly the only one I can think of in the year zero era), as the out-of vision links mean the camera pans from one act to the next, which would make editing more obvious (as well as seeing the problematic act in the background) then when you're cutting to an in-vision presenter.

Looks like Rolf's performance is coming out of the breakers though, which might make things easier.