Top of the Pops

Slightly off topic, but does anyone look at the Missing Episodes Forum, the Music section? (I used to be a member years ago, but stopped when they prevented me from using 'Westy 2' as a login. *******! I behaved on there, unlike these buggers on there now!)

http://missingepisodes.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=totp

I do hope the site doesn't go down, as there is interesting information on there most of the time.

What happened to the 45min shows?

Apparently most of the recent eps were 30 mins when transmitted so the late showing have mostly been identical.

up until 1977 it was 45mins, then after it was 30mins?

Thought it was a mixture mainly of 35 & 40 mins from the start of the April 1976 rerun.

The most recent weeks, with the exception of the Tony Blackburn rerun shown 2 weeks ago(45 mins) have been 30 mins, as mentioned.

With the exception of the Xmas shows, any idea when we go back to regular 35/40 mins shows, so we can play 'Spot The Edit' with the 730 transmission?

Must admit I'll be intrigued to know if & when we get to the mid to late 80's shows, where they use a video as a playout, whether the video exists in its entirety after the point it was faded out on original transmission?

Anyone from 'Popscene' floating by?

Those videos are probably the same as those you'd see on MTV, which had already launched in America by that point. So yes, they probably do exist in full.

The rest of the 1977 episodes AFAIK, apart from the Christmas shows, are thirty minutes long, so no chance for "Spot the Edit' until next year.

The best way of working out the length of episodes is checking how many tracks are billed in the show line-ups on Popscene or other places they're available. Or you can always check the listings week-by-week in the Glasgow Herald or Glasgow Evening Times via Google Newspaper.

In terms of video playouts, I have an n-th generation contributor copy of a TOTP from 1990 where the video playout is in full - I assume on transmission it would have been faded out any time after the end credits finished.

Of course "music videos" had been around long before MTV came along. The Beatles were doing them as early as 1965.

Their existence, if not enshrined by their use in some other material (such as key Doctor Who moments being used in Blue Peter) must be excellent as it props up MTV Classic and what used to be VH1 Classic.