RD
This terrible quality Youtube video shows what the CD:UK titles were like at the start.
By the sounds of it, it's the same theme as SM:TV or extremely similar just replacing 'Saturday' 'Wake Up' with 'Countdown UK'.
I think the producers were painfully aware that they probably hadn't got either show right at the very start and the changes that they very swiftly made turned it into ITV's most successful Saturday Morning show since Tiswas and the show that infamously killed off Live & Kicking.
By the sounds of it, it's the same theme as SM:TV or extremely similar just replacing 'Saturday' 'Wake Up' with 'Countdown UK'.
I think the producers were painfully aware that they probably hadn't got either show right at the very start and the changes that they very swiftly made turned it into ITV's most successful Saturday Morning show since Tiswas and the show that infamously killed off Live & Kicking.
JA
Ahh, one of the wonders of taping stuff in Long Play, along with often not being able to get the tracking right on another VCR.
Wasn't the original producer Ric Blaxill, the same person who "saved" TOTP from the dire 1991-94 era?
Wasn't the original producer Ric Blaxill, the same person who "saved" TOTP from the dire 1991-94 era?
LL
Hard to believe Saturday mornings once had so much energy, and not just cookery shows and whatever the hell ITV do nowadays. Did telly just give up on catering for that audience, or did the numbers not justify making such big shows at that time of the week? A good chunk of SMTV's audience watched the show as a sort of hangover cure, and considering they frequently included traces of adult humour in the show, I think the producers caught wind of it. It's a shame nobody can risk approaching a proper Saturday morning show in the same way again. Unless somebody's going to put me in my place by telling me that the numbers actually didn't justify a show like this anymore.
As for the scheduling, I've seen quite a few people on social media comment that they'd be more than happy to get up early on a Saturday morning to watch an SMTV reunion. They shifted the Tiswas reunion to a late primetime slot when that happened a few years back. Personally I'd like to see it in the morning in the hope that Ant and Dec shift back to their looser style rather than trying to be the Morecambe and Wise clones they come across as nowadays on SNT.
As for the scheduling, I've seen quite a few people on social media comment that they'd be more than happy to get up early on a Saturday morning to watch an SMTV reunion. They shifted the Tiswas reunion to a late primetime slot when that happened a few years back. Personally I'd like to see it in the morning in the hope that Ant and Dec shift back to their looser style rather than trying to be the Morecambe and Wise clones they come across as nowadays on SNT.
FA
I seem to remember the characters from the SM:TV titles were on the backgrounds of the CD:UK stages at first as well, another close link between the two shows. The link clearly started to die after Ant & Dec left, then even more when Cat left SM:TV (but stayed on CD:UK) and obviously died entirely when SM:TV ended (and I personally felt CD:UK went downhill quite fast when the cord was cut entirely from the main Saturday show).
The characters and similar artwork (like a female astronaut who I thought looked like Billie Piper) was used for the first 18 months or so. After a few months when they started to have pop bands perform on SM:TV, they would replace the cd:uk logos on the stages with SM:TV ones, it must have been a struggle to change everything, especially in late 1999 when the Chums set was on the Delta stage (before it replaced the plectrum stage, possibly in September 2000). It was a well created set initially using the space incredibly well, with incredible lighting and features, slowly as SM:TV required more space the CD:UK set became smaller.
CD:UK lost a lot of buzz about it, possibly as the music scene refocussed and there weren't as many pop bands around to fill the stages and I felt that when SM:TV ended without the connection there CD:UK felt like it was aiming for an older audience. For me the early days of CD:UK were better where the chart was an integral part of the programme rather than quickly dropped in at the end.
I seem to remember the characters from the SM:TV titles were on the backgrounds of the CD:UK stages at first as well, another close link between the two shows. The link clearly started to die after Ant & Dec left, then even more when Cat left SM:TV (but stayed on CD:UK) and obviously died entirely when SM:TV ended (and I personally felt CD:UK went downhill quite fast when the cord was cut entirely from the main Saturday show).
The characters and similar artwork (like a female astronaut who I thought looked like Billie Piper) was used for the first 18 months or so. After a few months when they started to have pop bands perform on SM:TV, they would replace the cd:uk logos on the stages with SM:TV ones, it must have been a struggle to change everything, especially in late 1999 when the Chums set was on the Delta stage (before it replaced the plectrum stage, possibly in September 2000). It was a well created set initially using the space incredibly well, with incredible lighting and features, slowly as SM:TV required more space the CD:UK set became smaller.
CD:UK lost a lot of buzz about it, possibly as the music scene refocussed and there weren't as many pop bands around to fill the stages and I felt that when SM:TV ended without the connection there CD:UK felt like it was aiming for an older audience. For me the early days of CD:UK were better where the chart was an integral part of the programme rather than quickly dropped in at the end.
JA
I don't think it helped that CD:UK was often pre-recorded towards the end (which you'd notice when the chart rundown was read by someone other than the presenter that week- which often wasn't Cat from 2004-2005) so the chart wasn't even known when the show was recorded. And don't mention geting rid of a proper chart entirely in favour of the MiTracks crap during the last few months.
JA
Which has already been mentioned in this thread... along with that first video you linked to.
Interesting that SM:TV Live titles initially had CD:UK's music:
Which has already been mentioned in this thread... along with that first video you linked to.
DB
Which has already been mentioned in this thread... along with that first video you linked to.
I skim-read. (soz)
Interesting that SM:TV Live titles initially had CD:UK's music:
Which has already been mentioned in this thread... along with that first video you linked to.
I skim-read. (soz)
JA
The intro to the first episode is good too see, I remember watching it at the time. The accidental still from Cow & Chicken always stuck in my head, maybe partly cos that was why I chose to watch it!