Top of the Pops

No - you are really only allowed to be compliant with a verbal/graphic warning on live, or fast turnaround, shows where it isn't feasible to test and/or edit the content such that it will pass a flashing pattern test. If you have the time to fix it, you have to fix it. This is a legal regulatory requirement.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/section-two-harm-offence



None of these apply to a TOTP repeat, where it clearly is reasonable practicable to follow the Ofcom guidance...

Interestingly, there's a few dimmed shots during the opening performance (George Ezra) of the edition currently showing on BBC One.

Where, like in '86, there's mirrorballs and bright lights a-plenty as part of the staging.

Now this is interesting. The single version of The Wizard is present and correct on the 17/12/87 editon (fitting in with what had been previously uncovered here). But for Christmas Day, it’s back to the original tv version!

As we're starting the 1987 episodes, I was wondering if the full length 18 minute(!) version of Michael Jackson's 'Bad' ever got an outing on terrestrial television. The Tube had shown 'Thriller' in full but ended by the time 'Bad' was released. MTV Europe launched in August a month before the single was released, so it's possible it would have been shown on there, but few would have had access to it at the time. TOTP did show the controversial full length version of 'Black or White' in 1991, so did they show 'Bad' too?

The picture zooming in and out to hide the captions at the start of every performance on the Big Hits episodes gets more and more obvious every year as the show's captions got bigger and bigger, why don't they just leave the original captions in? They're going to struggle to hide them if we reach 1990/91 when they were flying all over the screen!

Funnily enough though, they left in the end captions this time, which they've always cut out before except on Big Hits 1980 (77-79 being before TOTP used captions).

The show's own "fact" captions get worse as well, increasingly looking like the only "research" was a 5 minute browse of Wikipedia.

It was a breaker on the 24/9/87 edition and then shown on 1/10/87, although obviously not the full 18 minute version. However, neither of these will be screened on BBC Four as both episodes were presented by Mike Smith

One caption that was at least right was mentioning the T'Pau performance they showed opened the first TOTP to be broadcast in Stereo (offically anyway, as others presumably went out in stereo via the NICAM test transmissions), albeit only in London, as that episode was simulcast on Radio 1 as a one-off to commemorate Radio 1 launching on FM there (the rest of the country had to wait the best part of a year for the rollout to even begin).

Well, not entirely accurate, as the 1000th episode in 1983 went out in Stereo too.

Sadly, it's an edition we won't get on BBC4, and the copy that turns up online will doubtlessly be a not brilliant quality VHS recording in mono.

Did the 1983 one use Radio 2's FM frequencies then? It's incredible to think Radio 1 was so late to the game with FM.

Story Of was really good this time round. A lot to pack in but they did it well.

Yes, you can see here that Radio 2 went MW only at 7pm.
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/radio2/1983-05-05

Not really much in the stoey of 87 about the behind the scenes of the show itself, though I guess it was a quiet year for the show on that front- same producer, no new presenters, no new titles or any significant changes to the show's presentation.

Hopefully we'll have more in 1988, there was a new producer in Paul Ciani and several new presenters (including some from CBBC rather than just Radio 1), so there's a fair bit to talk about there.

I guess the producers knew minutiae such as two new fonts on the captions, or using the 7" edit of "The Wizard" on the chart rundown, would be too much of a concession to us geeks...

Don't forget that neither Radio 2 nor Radio 1 had full-time FM stereo broadcast until Radio 1 got its own FM frequencies. Prior to that R2 and R1 shared a single FM service, rather than R2 having a full-time service and R1 having no FM broadcasts. The Sunday evening R1 Chart show and Annie Nightingale show that followed it was required listening on FM Stereo in the 80s

On RDS receivers the label switched from "BBC R2/R1" to "BBC R1/R2" or similar ISTR (the first listed station was the active one)