Top of the Pops set to return?

I think AJ is saying Dermot won't be presenting the CBBC show.

The Miror printed virtually the exact same story in January and I'm pretty sure there's no chance this will happen. There's not one fact in that article. There may have been a chance it could have returned in 2012 when we had the hoopla over the rediscovered clips and the anniversary of the charts and Savile's death, when the Beeb were announcing that stage show based on it, but certainly not now. Yes, it'll come back at Christmas, but not weekly.

Just to clear things up,the CBBC presenter will be Cel Spellman

Recycled story either driven by a bored journalist, an agent (as Piers on GMB alluded to the practice being quite common for out of work presenters) or the BBC themselves. There's a lot of goodwill towards TOTP but surely everyone at the BBC realise that it's a chart based show, so needs a younger demographic and they're busy consuming music when they want - not waiting for some 'prestigious' Friday night slot. They would be better bringing music acts into established shows (say The One Show) or one off specials throughout the year.

I had the same thoughts, but with the presenters' names swapped.

I don't care much for either of them. Fearne still thinks she's 18, and despite liking Dermot O'Leary when he did BBLB, his work on a show I absolutely loathe has tainted my opinion of him. Who was once a laid-back casual presenter is now, in my opinion, somebody who always presents something like a first rehearsal the morning after a hard night's partying. I hope now that he's gone though that he can change that opinion of mine.

The new CBBC show is not really like TOTP at all. Cel (properly future star on radio 1) will present the show from a radio 1 studio using the guess that Radio 1 use. So it's less like TOTP and more like the top 40 show CBBC use to have when the channel first launched.

In terms of TOTP it all depends on how they style it. If Dermot goes back to how he presented BBLB and TOTP was relaxed to do that then it could work. I always think that TOTP is a young show so they should go for presenters who connect to a young audience. You could say that after May both Fearne and Dermot are Radio 2.

I agree with Asa it properly better for BBC to find a different way of having music performances in shows. Not sure TOTP will work. All depends on how it's styled. Let's hope that last producer of the last rebrand does not get there hands on it.

Wasn't that Andi Peters?

What about having a proper live music show on a Saturday Teatime? around 6pm?

Thinks so.

Considering the BBC have just ditched live music sessions on Radio 1 by about a third I can't see them introducing a weekly TV show based around live performances. The licence fee payer would be better served by an extra Live Lounge session every week.

If they were planning to bring back ToTP or launch a new live music based show, early Saturday evening would be a better choice of timeslot than any part of a Friday evening line up.


Why wouldn't it fit in on a Friday evening? Well, lets see now . . .
7pm? No. Unless they plan on getting rid of Friday's edition of The One Show, which I think is highly unlikely to happen.
7:30pm?. No. It'll clash with Corrie on ITV. They did that with Doctor Who in the 80's and look what happened there.
8pm? No. Unless they plan on getting rid of Friday's edition of EastEnders, which TBH is never going to happen.
8:30pm? No. It'll clash with Corrie on ITV. Again. Same as if it was on at 7:30pm.
9pm? Maybe ... although this timeslot is usually reserved for comedy shows.

No, I think a better idea for any relaunched ToTP or similar would be to put in a 6-6:30pm timeslot on a Saturday evening, so other shows are a lot less likely to get pushed aside, and it could be a good lead in for other well established BBC One Saturday evening shows (depending on the time of year) like The Voice, Doctor Who and Strictly Come Dancing.