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Smtv Live reunion

(August 2020)

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WH
Whataday Founding member
I think Ant and Dec Productions was pretty much just a label rather than a fully-fledged company, and all their shows, from The Ant and Dec Show through to SMTV, were basically Zenith Productions.


Ant N Dec Productions was a 50:50 joint venture between Ant & Dec and Zenith, but after the first year of SM:TV Ant & Dec decided to take a step back from the business side of things and it was reworked so that Zenith would take over production and give Ant & Dec a development deal so that they'd still have creative control.
JA
james-2001
It seems incredibly strange that the rights to CD:UK are now entirely separate from SM:TV seeing as at the time they were both effectively different segments of the same show, and SM:TV's end credits appeared at the end of CD:UK (apart from during the SM:TV Gold era, anyway). I presume it's due to the fact there was a short lived US version of CD:UK at the time Zenith went bust, and the rights went to the company producing it at the time. Owned by Shout Factory who seem to be effectively a US version of Network judging by the amount of old TV shows and films they release on DVD.
LO
loydy
It seems incredibly strange that the rights to CD:UK are now entirely separate from SM:TV seeing as at the time they were both effectively different segments of the same show, and SM:TV's end credits appeared at the end of CD:UK (apart from during the SM:TV Gold era, anyway). I presume it's due to the fact there was a short lived US version of CD:UK at the time Zenith went bust, and the rights went to the company producing it at the time. Owned by Shout Factory who seem to be effectively a US version of Network judging by the amount of old TV shows and films they release on DVD.


Hit the nail on the head. The exec of the shows Conor McAnally took the show to America, he worked on it as the show’s Producer. There were 53 episodes that were an hour long.
JA
james-2001
Conor being the person we see sweeping up the empty studio and turning the lights off at the end of the final SM:TV.

Something which was copied (badly) at the end of the final Top Of The Pops.
WH
Whataday Founding member
Channel Five was VERY close to commissioning CD:UK from Blaze (under Shout Factory's ownership). It would have aired on a Saturday at 5:35pm with Caroline Flack and Dave Berry as hosts. It all fell through when Five's Director of Programmes left.
BH
BillyH Founding member
I remember Unzipped well and there was one episode with the running theme that the Pet Shop Boys were going to perform live in the studio, only for it to be Chas & Dave in silly costumes each time doing cockney knees-up versions of Go West and some of their other songs. Except being about eight I took it all deadly seriously and thought they were just two random middle-aged men who’d broken in and were ruining the show by falsely pretending to Ant and Dec that they were the PSBs. The real ones finally showed up at the end from memory.

Then there was one where they said it was “the end of PJ and Duncan” and had all these tribute features as if they were retiring from television, only to explain afterwards that they simply meant that they were retiring the PJ and Duncan names and would permanently be known as Ant and Dec from now on - a change that also happened in their musical career about the same time.
JA
james-2001
One thing I remember about Unzipped was in the first episode they had a bit explaining they were now on Channel 4, then cutting to some girls in the studio holding up 4 hula hoops and a Channel 4 logo imitating the Channel 4 idents of the time.
FA
fanoftv
Asa posted:
There's very little of it on YouTube which is a shame, I can't even think what the titles were like?




See from 3m25s (or 3m11s for an old UTV Ident).
SW
Steve Williams
Then there was one where they said it was “the end of PJ and Duncan” and had all these tribute features as if they were retiring from television, only to explain afterwards that they simply meant that they were retiring the PJ and Duncan names and would permanently be known as Ant and Dec from now on - a change that also happened in their musical career about the same time.


I'm sorry to say, due to my extensive knowledge of the musical ouevre of Ant and Dec, that was actually The Ant and Dec Show, because they retired the names in the spring of 1996 when they were still on the Beeb. I remember Peter Simon, who was a regular guest on the Beeb incarnation, hosting the tribute.

I watched Unzipped every week, but I can't remember much about it now. One of the writers was Eddie Braben, the famous Morecambe and Wise writer, who they'd suggested getting involved, and I remember Ant saying he sent some brilliant stuff, but some of it was so bizarre even Reeves and Mortimer would have had second thoughts about it.

Unfortunately they fell foul of a big change at C4 in 1997, when Michael Grade and most of the commissioners departed as well, so everyone who hired them had left and the new people weren't particularly interested in them, so that was the end of it. Everyone forgets they were really down the toilet when SMTV started, it was a last throw of the dice for them, as they hadn't any TV work and their music career had come to an end as well. Shout is a bloody great record, BTW.
Last edited by Steve Williams on 18 September 2020 9:12am
bilky asko, Ian of old and BillyH gave kudos
ME
mediaman2007
And as they state in the book they actually turned down SMTV as they just wanted to do CDUK the cool music bit. If that had happened I wonder how things would have turned out for them.
SW
Steve Williams
And as they state in the book they actually turned down SMTV as they just wanted to do CDUK the cool music bit. If that had happened I wonder how things would have turned out for them.


Yes, as they say, they originally pitched CDUK as a Sunday teatime show that would coincide with the announcement of the new chart, but Nigel Pickard commissioned it for Saturday mornings, and asked them to do a Saturday morning show before it. Certainly CDUK was the main attraction in those days, and SMTV would constantly promote it and the idea was they'd be hanging around backstage watching the stars arrive, only for them to realise pretty soon that was incredibly boring and they'd be doing the same thing every week, and nobody watching at 9.30 cared about all the cool bands they'd got on.
paul_hadley and Revolution gave kudos
ME
mediaman2007
And as they state in the book they actually turned down SMTV as they just wanted to do CDUK the cool music bit. If that had happened I wonder how things would have turned out for them.


Yes, as they say, they originally pitched CDUK as a Sunday teatime show that would coincide with the announcement of the new chart, but Nigel Pickard commissioned it for Saturday mornings, and asked them to do a Saturday morning show before it. Certainly CDUK was the main attraction in those days, and SMTV would constantly promote it and the idea was they'd be hanging around backstage watching the stars arrive, only for them to realise pretty soon that was incredibly boring and they'd be doing the same thing every week, and nobody watching at 9.30 cared about all the cool bands they'd got on.


Congrats on posting this dead on 9:25am 😉

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