SEX AND DRUGS AND ROCK 'N ROLL (AND TELEVISION - PART 6)
FENCE SITTING?
The received wisdom is that since the late 1990s, there have been no decent music shows on TV: certainly not shows which feature good new music from across the genres.
The contrarian might say that, actually, there is more music exposure on TV than ever before: an embarrassment of riches, undreamt of in the era of two-channel telly.
These two statements can't both be right, can they?
In this, the final chapter of my series exploring the history of music on UK television, I do my best to find out. The musical landscape is a lot more complex, a lot more splintered and a lot more changeable today as satellite and digital television dominates the airwaves. I'll do my best to make sense of it all, but as always, it can only ever be an overview and feedback and comments are always most welcome.
Your can catch the first five instalments right here:
So, please join me as we head back to the green room where the final acts are readying themselves, the audience is all a-buzz and we're preparing for the dawn of a new century.
Your can catch the first five instalments right here:
- Part 1 - In The Beginning
- Part 2 - From Out Of The Darkness
- Part 3 - The End...And A Rebirth
- Part 4 - Here Today - Gone Tomorrow
- Part 5 - Feeding The World
So, please join me as we head back to the green room where the final acts are readying themselves, the audience is all a-buzz and we're preparing for the dawn of a new century.
ALL CHANGE!
It was only an arbitrary thing, the culmination of how we choose to record and document the passage of time.
But, there's no doubting that as the 1990s progressed, there was this huge mountain up ahead, a mountain in an undiscovered land and one that threatened radical change and anxiety - if the popular press were to be believed. They even gave it a name, a handy piece of shorthand which very quickly palled and became an irritant every time it was used.
Welcome to the future that was going to be Y2K.
And although we inituitively knew that the world wouldn't come to an end on 31st December 1999, we did - for a time - feel uncertainty. The 1990s themselves had seen a musical rebirth in many ways, particularly with Britpop ruling the world and making the UK fashionable again: even the politicians got in on the act, hob-nobbing with the likes of Oasis at Downing Street, an event which, with the benefit of hindsight, was bound to end in tears. Cool Britanna, indeed.
Television changed too.
We left it in the last chapter with just two regular music shows on what we then called "terrestrial TV" - BBC1's Top Of The Pops and over on BBC2, the new kid on the block, Later With..... Jools Holland. Satellite broadcasting was controlled largely by Sky TV whose musical content, though extensive in frequency, was limited in range. Music videos and packaged programmes were the main bill of fayre. And further changes were afoot.
Top Of The Pops had launched in 1964 with a simple brief - play the songs that were in the Top 20. Everybody wins. By the early 90s, its audience had fallen in the face of musical fragmentation and a failed radical revamp in 1991. A new producer in 1997 - Chris Cowey - was charged with the responsibility of restoring the show to some semblance of credibility. His first action was to phase out celebrity presenters and bring back a rotating team of Radio 1 DJs and music magazine writers: Jo Whiley and Zoe Ball joined Jayne Middlemiss and Jamie Theakaston. Next, the theme tune was revamped once again - but this time, reverting to a (remixed) version of the classic TOTP theme "Whole Lotta Love", based on the Led Zeppelin number but actually taken from a later cover by CCS. The logo and show intro were also subject to this retro-feel - and the changes were completed when production and broadcast moved back to its original home at BBC TV Centre.
So, Top Of The Pops' approach to the impending Year 2000 was to look to the past and build on the traditions in an effort to keep the show afloat. And for a while, it succeeded. A Top Of The Pops Magazine - aimed at the teen market - was launched in 1995 and in an attempt to "build the brand", the show itself was adapted into German, French and Italian versions. The brand promotion expanded into the music side as well with a tie-up agreed with Columbia Records to release a series of Top Of The Pops themed compilations, a sort of companion to the label's then continuing Now That's What I Call Music releases.
Audience figures stabilized initially, although once the new millenium had arrived, they started a long, slow drift downwards. In some ways, it was only to be expected. A chart show depends upon record sales - and with singles sales falling and Top 40 acts spending less time in the charts, it was inevitable that with a more rapid turnover of music, the show's traction was going to suffer.
We'll return to look at the fate of Top Of The Pops shortly.
Over on BBC2, Later With.....Jules Holland was experiencing the reverse of its older sibling on BBC1 with increasing reputation and audience figures. As noted last time, Later was created in 1992 out of the The Late Show, the nightly arts programme which itself was cancelled in 1995, thus leaving Later to survive its progenitor. Let's take a look at the show's format and see how it's managed to remain consistently interesting and popular across the years.
Firstly, it didn't try to be fashionable. It opted for a live format and encouraged the exposure of a wide range of musical genres, be it pop, rock, country, alternative or whatever *looked right* in its mix. Each show ran to an hour and gave exposure to five or six acts, all of whom had set-ups within the large studio that was used. This gave a unique perspective for the host Jools Holland, allowing him to wander between the acts in real time and keep the momentum going. Of the acts chosen, a couple would be well known and established, some more esoteric and niche - and at least one, a new act seeking to make a break through. Holland may not be a professional TV presenter, but as he showed on The Tube, he gains the trust of the bands and artists and this makes for some interesting television. His obvious love for music and its heritage combined with his own keyboard skills has seen him duet and sit-in with a wide range of artists, often creating some magical moments. It must be said that he can be criticised for over-doing this musical camaraderie on occasions, there being a fine border-line between him supporting an act and helping them blossom - and it being all about Jools. Usually, he stays the right side.
Other key elements were the presence of an audience,some sitting, some standing - but never intrusive - and Holland's interviews and chats with all sorts of musicians and celebrity fans. There's no doubt that the show has broken many artists in its time, none more so than perhaps Seasick Steve and singer songwriter K T Tunstall. What it has also done, though, is to rehabilitate much older acts and artists and introduce them to a new audience. Thus Glen Campbell can find space as can Leonard Cohen, Buddy Guy, Johnny Cash and a host of others. Its longevity has proven to be a real bonus in creating a massive archive of often excellent live TV performances, many of them by artists now sadly no longer with us.
As with TOTP, the Later brand has been *managed* to ensure that it projects the right musical values. There have been one-off specials (as with The Tube) as well as the annual Hootenanny on New Year's eve which has now reached its 21st show. Compilation DVDs and CDs have been released and although the show only runs for two eight week seasons each year, there is a massive waiting list for both artists to be chosen for exposure and for music fans to make it on board as an audience member.
We'll come back to Later, well, later on.
LOOK TO THE SKIES
We saw last time how satellite television exploded in the UK in the early 1990s.
Suddenly, everyone who wanted to pay The Murdoch Shilling could have a satellite dish on their roof-top and have hundreds of channels beamed into their homes. The driver for this expansion was Sky TV's involvement with the setting up of the FA Premier League and its subsequent acquisition of exclusive live broadcasting rights for all the games. Subscriptions poured in and Sky was now the broadcaster who was calling the shots.
Its platform allowed those hundreds of channels to be available, but of course, the viewing audience for all but a handful could almost be measured on the fingers of one hand. This meant that although there were several all-music channels, few had the funding to invest in original programming, relying mainly on back-to-back music videos. But, there were the odd few shows that cropped up that despite their low audience figures, are worthy of mentioning. Sky itself rarely made its own shows, choosing to buy its programming in from elsewhere, but it did allow MTV and VH1 to access the potential provided by the ever-rising number of Sky subscribers.
VH1 - which is itself part of the MTV stable - does have one long-running show, Behind The Music. This started in 1997 and has run to well over 200 episodes since. Each broadcast specialises in one particular artist or band and includes interviews, archive footage and videos in the mix. It's an American show, produced by Columbia TV and runs to ninety minutes, although by the time the commercials have been stripped out, it's just over an hour long. It has covered a huge range of artists from across the past 50 years and selects them on the basis that they were either significant in the world of rock or, are no longer involved but "had their day". Thus The Animals rub shoulders with Pink Floyd, Oasis with The Bay City Rollers, Jefferson Airplane with The Pixies and so on. Behind The Music is interesting, but the shows themselves tend to be fairly uncritical biographies, although I can't knock the wealth of archive footage included.
The other show is a more typical satellite channel production, a series of music videos and some informative captions. It was called 120 Minutes and broadcast on MTV2 here in the UK and was a variant of an existing American show on MTV across the Atlantic. When MTV started, one of the criticisims levelled at it was that it barely recognised any type of music other than pop and rock. It ignored urban music, new wave and all other such genres. MTV2 was aimed at plugging the gap and the 120 Minutes acted as a showcase for what they called the "real alternative". The UK version included indie, electronica, hip-hop and all manner of videos and, in some instances,provided the first TV exposure to acts such as The Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand. It started in 1990 and was initially broadcast at 1am on Sunday morning with repeats on Thursdays, not the most promising slot for a large audience - but it did play to those returning from clubs and gigs. Uniquely, there were no commercial breaks in the two hour show, just station "idents" to remind viewers what they were watching.
By the time it came to an end in 2009, it had been shunted to a 3am slot on Wednesdays with regular repeats on the other week-days.
One promising satellite show is Dial M which started broadcasting in November 2012 on Loaded, a channel based on the magazine of the same name. It's a half-hour show which features live acts, sessions, interviews and live links to concert venues. The focus is mainly on contemporary rock and indie acts, although time has been found for the occasional retrospective such as one for The Jam and another for Stiff Little Fingers.
As with the smaller. niche satellite channels, audience figure are small and whilst it may have a loyal following, it won't have much influence on the broader music scene.
BACK TO EARTH
The Millennium bug, the big scare story of 1998 and 1999, turned out to be a damp squib. Despite the computer systems of the world apparently not being able to cope with a date file that didn't start with 19, there was no melt-down, anarchy did not break out - and we lived to breathe another day.
And it was another technological deadline that had a rather more beneficial effect on the viewing audience, although not everyone saw it quite like that initially. The big benefit that Sky had was the opportunity to broadcast (and host) hundreds of TV channels. The downside was that they could only be seen in homes who subscribed and had a satellite dish. The terrestrial channels could enjoy large audience figures, but were hamstrung in terms of their range by the limitations of broadcast TV. The last terrestrial channel to launch - Channel 5 in 1997 - was even more awkwardly placed in that it required a re-tuning of the nation's TV sets. Not only that, capacity on the UK's network of transmitters meant that only 65% of the population could receive the new service. Something had to change, something that could provide an alternative to the BSkyB satellite monopoly.
The government felt it was important too and it agreed to promote what became known as the Digital Switchover (or, depending upon your viewpoint, the analogue switch-off). Essentially, a plan was developed - to be managed by the BBC - to cease broadcasting via traditional analogue signal and switch the whole UK viewing population across to a digital basis (Digital broadcasting enabled far more "information" to be broadcast in a signal). The key benefit, of course, was the potential access (through a set-top box) to many more channels, all without the need to subscribe to BSkyB. The basic system - known as Freeview - was still able to be picked up by existing TV aerials and enabled such channels as BBC3, BBC4, Channel 5 and some 40-50 others to be available to all.
For the world of music on television, this was a bit of a double-edged sword: more people had more access to more channels, but such access would inevitably eat into the viewing figures for the former terrestrial channels. Still, it was an opportunity, so let's take a look at the pre and post switch-over period in a bit of detail.
Digital switchover was phased across five years to give viewers a chance to pre-plan what they needed to do. Without upgrading to digital TV, viewers would no longer have a television service. It used the ITV regions as a template and the whole job, started in October 2007 was completed on October 24th 2012 when Ulster TV in Northern Ireland was the last to make the change.
Before the digital switch-over, back In the millenium year itself, the BBC was still broadcasting both Top Of The Pops and Later With Jools Holland. As we have seen before, TOTP was losing audience figures as music buying and consuming underwent a radical change and the charts had less of a majority appeal. Viewing figures fell to less than 3 millions and what was regarded as the final throw of the die took place in 2003. The format was completely changed, from top to bottom. A new host Tim Kash - recruited from MTV - was brought in and the focus changed from chart entries to up and coming acts. Interviews were also brought in and the whole raison d'etre of the show seemed to be up for grabs: there was a danger that this new direction would be too similar to the less well funded competition on MTV and VH1.This fear was well founded. Viewing figures went through the floor and the critics were scathing in their commentary of the changes. Kash was dispensed with and the BBC, concerned that the whole future of the show was at stake, tried one final move. And it was a move - from Thursdays on BBC1 to Sunday nights on BBC2. The rationale was that it now followed on from the broadcast of the Top 40 charts on Radio 1 and was thus more current and *fresh*. The reality was that Sunday night was not a good time-slot and numbers fell further. The first Sunday show went out in July 2005 and was hosted by Fearne Cotton.
A year later, the axe fell and the last show went out on July 30th 2006. Forty-two years of a musical tradition had come to an end and, apart from occasional Christmas and New Year specials, that was it for Top Of The Pops.
There was - in spite of the gaps - a massive archive of shows and these were ripe for further exploitation. In fact, this process had already started in 1994 when Top Of The Pops 2 was launched, a packaged show with videos and performances from the archive, suitably captioned and with the occasional bit of new material too. The shows varied in length from thirty to sixty minutes and were frequently repeated and are still being broadcast today. In addition to that, the BBC announced that the original shows from the mid-70s onwards (all of which still survive) would be repeated on a transmission date equivalent to the month and date of their first broadcast. A noble idea, but with the Jimmy Saville scandal, this was adjusted for fear of showing the episodes he had hosted. With the still unresolved Dave Lee Travis court-case, there may yet have to be a further adjustment.
In an odd way, with the rapid take-up of digital downloading from such as iTune and Amazon, more and more singles are being bought all the time. There's an argument that the charts are possibly more important than ever containing CD singlers, donwload singles - and soon, following a recent announcement from The Official Chart Company, allowances will be included for songs streamed on such services as Spotify. Maybe yet, something will emerge to replace Top Of The Pops.
Turning to Later With Jools, the show continued to be popular and respected. Yes there were some categories of music that didn't get much of a look in (Hip-hop, dance - and oddly enough, out and out pop), but it did nurture the new and cherish the old. In 2008, its format changed so that on Tuesday nights, a half-hour live edition went out - and then on Friday an expanded hour-long recorded show was broadcast. Shows were now broadcast in 5.1 sound and in 2013 as the BBC Television Centre was being readied to be closed and sold-off, production moved to The Maidstone Studios in Kent, the former home to the ITV regional broadcaster, Meridian TV. The main studio was much larger than that at Television Centre and full advantage is being taken of it. As at February 2014, over 300 editions have been broadcast, all hosted by Jools Holland.
COMMERCIAL REBIRTH?
Over at the commercial broadcasters (pre-digital switch), ITV hadn't bothered too much with regular music shows on its network and it had been left to Channel 4 to keep the flag flying.
ITV had branded itself nationally simply as ITV, the regional stations such as Granada and Yorkshire and Carlton now being one combined operator. Would this make any difference to their approach? Ever since the first commercial service had started in 1955, ITV had generally taken a more populist approach to the provision of music shows and in some ways, this policy still exists. It has focused more on music
*specials* rather than a long-running series and there are a couple of these that are worth mentioning. In 2008, ITV Music Specials was launched, an occasional series of live shows devoted to specific artists and running for an hour to ninety minutes in length. The artists included demonstrate the popular approach: Phil Collins, Simply Red. Bon Jovi, Girls Aloud, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tom Jones, for example. There have been 39 shows broadcast so far and it looks as if it will continue for the foreseeable future.
Alongside that, there has been a more infrequent series of specials broadcast under the banner of The Nation's Favourite. Launched in 2010, eight shows have been shown so far, each concentrating on either a specific artist or aspect of the world of music. Viewers could join in via the ITV website and vote for their favourite artist or single or song, depending upon the subject of the particular show. Hosts have included Zoe Ball and Liza Tarbuck and the programmes usually run to ninety minutes. Artists featured have included Abba, Elvis Presley and The Bee Gees - with other shows looking at subjects such as Christmas songs and Number One hit singles..
So, what was Channel 4 doing pre-digital?
Unlike the ITV companies, Channel 4 has a greater remit for providing public service broadcasting. It has generally taken a more left-field approach to music which has often been a good thing, although as with all radical works, some of them do date terribly. Chris Evans' Don't Forget Your Toothbrush came to an end in 2000 and for its next show, the network took a different approach. This was a twist on the video-package shows that had become a staple of the satellite channels and it had the less than captivating name of Karaoke Fishtank. Hosted by a CGI animated fish, one Vince Finn, it ran a sequence of videos with said fish commenting humorously about them. The song lyrics also ran across the foot of the screen. Quite who it was aimed at is difficult to say: it went out late on Friday nights as part of the 4Later segment and so presumably, had an audience of viewers who'd just got back from the pub. The videos themselves were a mix of pop and indie, so it wasn't all bad.
At the other end of the broadcast day, Channel 4's next music-related show was Freshly Squeezed which went out five times a week as part of the breakfast sequence of programming. It was presented by Robyn Bright and Matt Edmondson amongst others and featured recorded interviews, live studio performances and a sprinkling of videos. This was quite a change for musical exposure, an early morning start and one possibly seen as an alternative to broadcast radio. It met with some success and ran for nearly six years, coming to an end in December 2012.
The most interesting and ambitious show from Channel 4 was probably Live From Abbey Road. This is a series of hour-long shows, part-documentary and part-performance, that were recorded at EMI's legendary Abbey Road Studios in north London. It's a mix of the Old Grey Whistle Test (live performances are filmed without an audience) and some of the more professional promotional items filmed by record labels and production companies. Produced by an independent company (as most of Channel 4's shows are), the aim was to showcase two or three acts in each programme and provide a high quality platform for them through filming in High Definition and using 35mm filmstock. The shows were recorded in blocks of twelve and then broadcast as a weekly series on both Channel 4 and its new digital (and more highbrow) channel, More 4. The first shows went out in 2007 and thus far, five seasons have been broadcast, the most recent in late 2012 and early 2013. The range of artists involved is like a roll-call of the most interesting rock and indie acts around - both from the States and here at home in the UK: Snow Patrol, The Zutons, Dr.John, Stereophonics, Martha Wainwright, The Killers, Counting Crows, P.J.Harvey and Greg Allman being just a sample of the range. It may not have the profile of Later...With Jools, but it has been instrumental in promoting some decent acts and one hopes that a sixth series is on its way.
Mention here of More 4 reminds us that digital switchover was gradually happening around the UK between 2007 and 2012. It's important to remember that viewers didn't have to wait for switchover to access digital TV: other providers had come into the market such as the BBC/ITV joint venture Freeview and, as digital broadband spread round the country, British Telecom (BT) also entered the fray. Digital broadband - and especially the increasing adoption of fibre-optic networks with their massive broadcast capacity - has meant that in the last few years, BT Television and Virgin TV have grown to become significant players and are now giving Sky TV (still broadcast via satellite) a run for it money. It should be noted that with all this change going on in the background, allied to a sometimes bewildering launch of many new TV channels (and the frequent rebranding of existing ones), didn't always create the most stable market for music programming. Whilst the BBC share of total television viewing is still the highest of any broadcaster, its market-share has fallen as multi-channel households have proliferated.
One of the relaxations that the government made when the digital switch-over was underway was to allow commercial broadcasters to introduce sponsored shows. These had long been part of the TV landscape in America, but had been frowned upon here, probably through a worry that they might simply turn into an extended PR exercise for the sponsor. Many shows on ITV now have sponsor announcements at the start and close of the programme, as well as at the end of each set of ad breaks. But, music programming took it a stage further. Live From Abbey Road's fifth season was sponsored by Volkswagen, but earlier than that, mobile phone company Nokia had got in on the act. Channel 4 launched the Nokia Green Room in April 2008. It was a series of 16 shows, each a live performance by up and coming bands and acts such as The Feeling, Guillemots, Mystery Jets and Alesha Dixon. Most of the show was given over to the live performance, but backstage, the producers installed an array of hidden cameras and selections of this footage showing the bands "off-stage" were mixed in to provide further viewer interest.
It's interesting to see that most of these Channel 4 shows were concentrating on indie and alternative artists - rather like Later - but unlike Later, there didn't seem to be much room for genre artists, those from the folk, roots and country arena. For that content, we need to look elsewhere.
ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE
Back in 1995, the BBC teamed up with an independent production company in Scotland called Pelicula Films. Their aim was to provide exposure to folk, roots and country music and the resultant project was called The Transatlantic Sessions. It was a series of seven programmes broadcast from a country-house hotel in Ayrshire, Scotland and featured live performances from a number of genre acts from both the UK and North America. A *house band* led by Scots folk artist Aly Bain provided support to the visiting performers. The setting encouraged collaborative working and thus different artists got the chance to sing and play together, a chance that wouldn't normally arise. The residency at the hotel enabled a degree of continuity with the house band and the whole atmosphere presented an intimate series of sessions with no audience, just the musicians at work. Occasional voice-over interviews added to the warmth of the show.That first season starred such diverse artists as Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Emmylou Harris, John Martyn, Dick Gaughan and Davey Spillane. It was well received, but at that stage there were no plans for more.
It was revived in 1998 for a further residency of seven shows and since then, it has appeared from time to time, although in the past few years, it's been broadcast bi-annually. Irish broadcaster RTE also became a partner with the BBC and Pelicula Films from the second season onwards and although viewing figures have been modest, it is highly regarded and the participants themselves see it as a "must do" gig. The most recent series - number six - was shown in 2013 on BBC4 and included Mary Chapin Carpenter, Karen Matheson, Cara Dillon and Teddy Thompson amongst the guests artists. It's clear from the comments made by the performers that the mix of North American and UK/Irish artists is very attractive indeed.
Another series that focused on artists from both sides of the Atlantic brings us to another strand of musical entertainment - the documentary. The series is Classic Albums which, as the title suggests, takes a detailed look at the creation and recording of a classic album from years gone by. It was originally launched in 1992 by Isis Productions to take a look at "The Making Of Sergeant Pepper" in celebration of its twenty-fifth anniversary since first release in 1967. The show was picked up by Eagle Rock, a London-based distribution company, and this first episode was shown as part of the much-missed South Bank Show on London Weekend Television. The programme covered not just the tracks themselves but also how they were recorded, the sessions that took place - and it featured some of those who had actually worked on the production and engineering of the Beatles masterpiece. This insight to the creative process was new and fascinating and although intended as a one-off, it was picked up some years later and has since run to 37 albums. Many of the shows have been broadcast by the BBC, but some have also seen airings on ITV (occasionally) and more recently, on Sky Arts and VH1. They may not be the most critically forensic documentaries made (as they do rely on the good will of the performers and studio personnel), but there's no doubt that they have been welcomed by the viewing public.
Mention of music documentaries opens up a whole new avenue of research, an avenue that I hope to explore in some detail later this year: but, we cannot ignore the impact that they are having on the UK music scene, especially since the launch of BBC4, the Beeb's digital channel devoted to the arts and drama. Some have criticised what they call the "ghetto mentality" of putting most of the musical output onto a niche and highbrow channel, but there's no doubt at all of the energy and enthusiasm that BBC4 has brought to documentaries, live concerts and celebrations of music.
It was originally a cable - and then satellite - channel that was launched in 2002 as a replacement to BBC Knowledge. It broadcasts from 7pm until 4am, the rest of the airtime being shared with one of the BBC's children's channels. Since digital switch-over, it's available to all UK viewers and although audience figures are at best modest, it does serve its viewers pretty well. The real innovation as regards music arrived in 2005 with the broadcast of Jazz Britannia. This was a series of three hour long programmes that explored the history of jazz in the UK. It used much archive material from earlier series such as Jazz 625, but also drew on the archives of many other shows and films where there was jazz content, even if the programme was (for example) a variety or some other sort of cultural broadcast. New interviews and features linked all the pieces together into a coherent and fascinating trio of documentaries.
This successful start has been followed by 22 other themed sets of programmes, most about the UK (although one focused on the States and one on Ireland) and often, to complement the documentaries, repeats of archive shows were broadcast alongside them. Most genres have been covered including Folk, Soul, Blues, Punk, Rock and Reggae as just some of the more obvious ones. Whilst the very nature of the programming is backwards-looking, the strand has provided a much wider expanse of televised music and for that, I for one an very grateful.
There have been many other documentaries - some worthy and insightful, others just cut-and-paste screen fillers - and in some ways, they make perfect viewing in the multi-channel digital and download age. They don't date in as much as they are already looking at an historical perspective. They can be repeated and still find a new audience. Their soundtracks can be released as CDs, the whole shows on DVD and clips can crop up on You Tube and elsewhere.
A landmark American documentary was Blues, a seven part exploration of this fascinating genre written, presented and directed by Martin Scorsese for the PBS network. It was shown over here, but as it's primarily an American production, so I'm not delving into it in this series. But, it did spawn other works, one of which is of interest to us - The Seven Ages Of Rock. This was produced by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, and was a detailed history of the rock genre and was not only shown on BBC2 but also on satellite channel VH1 as it had part-funded the production. Seven Ages Of Rock was a series of 6 hour-long shows and a final ninety-minute show that took its starting point as bands such as The Who and The Animals. As is the norm, archive footage and interviews interspersed with new content was the order of the day and seen as a whole, it's a useful guide. There are lots of bits missed out - partly through editorial and time constraints, but also (one assumes) through the lack of relevant archive material. The VH1 one broadcasts of Seven Ages Of Rock had to contend with commercial breaks, so the shows were edited down to just 48 minutes to enable them to fit the scheduled time-slot. This editing was quite brutal in some parts - indeed, the first episode as shown by VH1 doesn't even mention The Beatles.
Documentaries will continue to flourish, just as long as there's musical content to harvest and curate - and that is something we hope very much will be the case.
So, where does all this leave us? It's clear that there is perhaps more music around on television than ever before but you do need to know where to look. It's more fragmented, it's more niche and there's little room for the mass audience music TV show of years gone by. I started this last chapter in this series by saying that there's a received wisdom that there're no decent music shows on TV at all now, just Later...With Jools Holland. In some ways, if referring to regular series that feature current musical trends, then that might be a sound argument. But as with the music business itself, it is more diverse and splintered than ever before - so why wouldn't television just reflect that?
Before I conclude, we need to consider one more aspect of music on TV, music that is reflective of contemporary bands from a wide range of genres. Admittedly, these aren't shows made for television but television being used to open up worlds that might not always be available to all viewers - and that is something that television is still good at delivering.
PILTON IS GLASTONBURY
The very first festival at Glastonbury took place on 19th September 1970. It wasn't actually in Glastonbury, but a few miles to the east in the village of Pilton (a site that is still used today, some 44 years later). That first festival had something over 1500 attendees and the headline act was T.Rex, just on the verge of becoming one of the UK's biggest bands with the release of the album Electric Warrior the following year. Today, Glastonbury attracts 135,000 fans to its five days of music and events across its many stages. It's a global phenomenon, a major *brand* and one that sees tickets sell out within hours of being released - even before any acts have been announced. And that's part of the mystique of the festival: it's the event itself that is the attraction, safe in the knowledge that the organisers will pull sufficient rabbits out of the hat to make it all worthwhile. Major bands - such as last year's headliners The Rolling Stones - are on the same bill as hundreds of others, some new, some old, some left-field, some quirky. The original *alternative* vibe of the early days still survives, even if it is wrapped up in the cotton-wool of health and safety and necessary corporatism. It has been brave enough to miss years out to avoid becoming stale and, crucially, has built supportive relationships with local residents. Not only that, it remains focused on fund-raising for worthy causes which perhaps helps justify an increase in ticket prices from £1 in 1970 to something over £200 in 2013.
And, the BBC television has been avidly following it since 1994. Initially, it was a few interviews and clips of smaller bands performing, presenters such as John Peel clearly being in their element. Since then, it has mushroomed into a mutli-channel broadcast and one which takes full advantage of digital technology. Simultaneous performances can be seen on the BBC website, on the Red Button, on BBC4 and BBC2; they can be viewed on mobile phone, tablet, iPad and all manner of portable devices. And by doing all this, a mutliplicity of acts playing live can be viewed either in real time - or via the Red Button or iPlayer, at a later date of the viewer's choosing. This is true time-shifting broadcasting and provides a broader and more immersive experience than anything that existed back in the black and white sixties.
So, yes, traditional music TV shows are few and far between, but with music festivals such as Glastonbury, T In The Park, The V Festival and so forth getting regular airtime, new and established bands are getting airplay. Smaller festivals too can benefit: Fairport's Cropredy Convention, the annual 20,000 fan get-together each August is a case in point. Last year's festival was filmed by an independent production company run by Bob Harris - and was then subsequently aired on BBC television. And, this year, in fact this very month, the BBC themselves are putting on a two day music festival in Manchester - the 6Music Festival. It's just another in a recent line of such BBC run events from its various radio networks (Radio 1 and Radio 2, for example) which see outdoor live events broadcast on radio and visually via live internet stream on the BBC website. Indeed, although we're not here to talk about radio, it has been the recent dramatic growth in popularity and importance of 6Music that gives me hope for music on television, on-line and iPlayer. The past two years alone have seen an array of live sessions at the BBC's Maida Vale studios broadcast on radio and on-line: some acts are well known (Paul Weller), some are up and coming (Poliça) and others are acts just starting out.
What it demonstrates, I'd argue, is like the music business has had to do, we need to think differently about consuming music on television. The days of millions of viewers tuning in to Top Of The Pops or Ready Steady Go have been replaced by a diverse set of channels and platforms upon which we pick and choose what's available. Television will always have a large part to play in providing a core basis on which to broadcast - and it is clear that there's still scope for a regular, weekly show devoted to music. I'm no expert in determining what that should be, but Radio 1 is already committed to providing more visual content on-line in future and that could be the basis of a show. Equally, something more focused on the 6music audience has got a place too: part of it is fulfilled by Later...With Jools Holland, but any additional programme should focus on the huge amount of new material coming out - and the continuing re-issues of back catalogue albums. The line between TV and Radio may become increasingly blurred in future, but I remain optimistic.
Have I answered my conundrum about there being less decent music on TV at the very time there seems to be more music than ever?
Not entirely, but as always, I'd welcome your views and comments.
What next?
Well, I'm working on converting this series of linked blogs into a six-part radio documentary, which although pretty ironic in view of the subject matter, will certainly allow scope for audio input and a broader feel to the subject matter. And then? The blog series is already being readied and expanded into my next book. I'll be including detailed appendices providing a chronology of all the shows as well references to other source material. So, if you've enjoyed this overview, then I am most gratified.
As always, many thanks for reading.
Alan Dorey
25h February 2014
It was only an arbitrary thing, the culmination of how we choose to record and document the passage of time.
But, there's no doubting that as the 1990s progressed, there was this huge mountain up ahead, a mountain in an undiscovered land and one that threatened radical change and anxiety - if the popular press were to be believed. They even gave it a name, a handy piece of shorthand which very quickly palled and became an irritant every time it was used.
Welcome to the future that was going to be Y2K.
And although we inituitively knew that the world wouldn't come to an end on 31st December 1999, we did - for a time - feel uncertainty. The 1990s themselves had seen a musical rebirth in many ways, particularly with Britpop ruling the world and making the UK fashionable again: even the politicians got in on the act, hob-nobbing with the likes of Oasis at Downing Street, an event which, with the benefit of hindsight, was bound to end in tears. Cool Britanna, indeed.
Television changed too.
We left it in the last chapter with just two regular music shows on what we then called "terrestrial TV" - BBC1's Top Of The Pops and over on BBC2, the new kid on the block, Later With..... Jools Holland. Satellite broadcasting was controlled largely by Sky TV whose musical content, though extensive in frequency, was limited in range. Music videos and packaged programmes were the main bill of fayre. And further changes were afoot.
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| The new Top Of The Pops Logo introduced in 1998 |
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| Top Of The Pops Magazine Launched 1995 |
Audience figures stabilized initially, although once the new millenium had arrived, they started a long, slow drift downwards. In some ways, it was only to be expected. A chart show depends upon record sales - and with singles sales falling and Top 40 acts spending less time in the charts, it was inevitable that with a more rapid turnover of music, the show's traction was going to suffer.
We'll return to look at the fate of Top Of The Pops shortly.
Over on BBC2, Later With.....Jules Holland was experiencing the reverse of its older sibling on BBC1 with increasing reputation and audience figures. As noted last time, Later was created in 1992 out of the The Late Show, the nightly arts programme which itself was cancelled in 1995, thus leaving Later to survive its progenitor. Let's take a look at the show's format and see how it's managed to remain consistently interesting and popular across the years.
Firstly, it didn't try to be fashionable. It opted for a live format and encouraged the exposure of a wide range of musical genres, be it pop, rock, country, alternative or whatever *looked right* in its mix. Each show ran to an hour and gave exposure to five or six acts, all of whom had set-ups within the large studio that was used. This gave a unique perspective for the host Jools Holland, allowing him to wander between the acts in real time and keep the momentum going. Of the acts chosen, a couple would be well known and established, some more esoteric and niche - and at least one, a new act seeking to make a break through. Holland may not be a professional TV presenter, but as he showed on The Tube, he gains the trust of the bands and artists and this makes for some interesting television. His obvious love for music and its heritage combined with his own keyboard skills has seen him duet and sit-in with a wide range of artists, often creating some magical moments. It must be said that he can be criticised for over-doing this musical camaraderie on occasions, there being a fine border-line between him supporting an act and helping them blossom - and it being all about Jools. Usually, he stays the right side.
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| K T Tunstall - made her mark on Later |
As with TOTP, the Later brand has been *managed* to ensure that it projects the right musical values. There have been one-off specials (as with The Tube) as well as the annual Hootenanny on New Year's eve which has now reached its 21st show. Compilation DVDs and CDs have been released and although the show only runs for two eight week seasons each year, there is a massive waiting list for both artists to be chosen for exposure and for music fans to make it on board as an audience member.
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| Jools's Hootenanny - Out with the Old, in with the New |
We'll come back to Later, well, later on.
LOOK TO THE SKIES
We saw last time how satellite television exploded in the UK in the early 1990s.
Its platform allowed those hundreds of channels to be available, but of course, the viewing audience for all but a handful could almost be measured on the fingers of one hand. This meant that although there were several all-music channels, few had the funding to invest in original programming, relying mainly on back-to-back music videos. But, there were the odd few shows that cropped up that despite their low audience figures, are worthy of mentioning. Sky itself rarely made its own shows, choosing to buy its programming in from elsewhere, but it did allow MTV and VH1 to access the potential provided by the ever-rising number of Sky subscribers.
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| Hundreds of Channels - but, any good music shows? |
By the time it came to an end in 2009, it had been shunted to a 3am slot on Wednesdays with regular repeats on the other week-days.
As with the smaller. niche satellite channels, audience figure are small and whilst it may have a loyal following, it won't have much influence on the broader music scene.
BACK TO EARTH
The Millennium bug, the big scare story of 1998 and 1999, turned out to be a damp squib. Despite the computer systems of the world apparently not being able to cope with a date file that didn't start with 19, there was no melt-down, anarchy did not break out - and we lived to breathe another day.
And it was another technological deadline that had a rather more beneficial effect on the viewing audience, although not everyone saw it quite like that initially. The big benefit that Sky had was the opportunity to broadcast (and host) hundreds of TV channels. The downside was that they could only be seen in homes who subscribed and had a satellite dish. The terrestrial channels could enjoy large audience figures, but were hamstrung in terms of their range by the limitations of broadcast TV. The last terrestrial channel to launch - Channel 5 in 1997 - was even more awkwardly placed in that it required a re-tuning of the nation's TV sets. Not only that, capacity on the UK's network of transmitters meant that only 65% of the population could receive the new service. Something had to change, something that could provide an alternative to the BSkyB satellite monopoly.
For the world of music on television, this was a bit of a double-edged sword: more people had more access to more channels, but such access would inevitably eat into the viewing figures for the former terrestrial channels. Still, it was an opportunity, so let's take a look at the pre and post switch-over period in a bit of detail.
Digital switchover was phased across five years to give viewers a chance to pre-plan what they needed to do. Without upgrading to digital TV, viewers would no longer have a television service. It used the ITV regions as a template and the whole job, started in October 2007 was completed on October 24th 2012 when Ulster TV in Northern Ireland was the last to make the change.
Before the digital switch-over, back In the millenium year itself, the BBC was still broadcasting both Top Of The Pops and Later With Jools Holland. As we have seen before, TOTP was losing audience figures as music buying and consuming underwent a radical change and the charts had less of a majority appeal. Viewing figures fell to less than 3 millions and what was regarded as the final throw of the die took place in 2003. The format was completely changed, from top to bottom. A new host Tim Kash - recruited from MTV - was brought in and the focus changed from chart entries to up and coming acts. Interviews were also brought in and the whole raison d'etre of the show seemed to be up for grabs: there was a danger that this new direction would be too similar to the less well funded competition on MTV and VH1.This fear was well founded. Viewing figures went through the floor and the critics were scathing in their commentary of the changes. Kash was dispensed with and the BBC, concerned that the whole future of the show was at stake, tried one final move. And it was a move - from Thursdays on BBC1 to Sunday nights on BBC2. The rationale was that it now followed on from the broadcast of the Top 40 charts on Radio 1 and was thus more current and *fresh*. The reality was that Sunday night was not a good time-slot and numbers fell further. The first Sunday show went out in July 2005 and was hosted by Fearne Cotton.
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| 42 Years Of TOTP - A Year-by-Year CD Collection |
There was - in spite of the gaps - a massive archive of shows and these were ripe for further exploitation. In fact, this process had already started in 1994 when Top Of The Pops 2 was launched, a packaged show with videos and performances from the archive, suitably captioned and with the occasional bit of new material too. The shows varied in length from thirty to sixty minutes and were frequently repeated and are still being broadcast today. In addition to that, the BBC announced that the original shows from the mid-70s onwards (all of which still survive) would be repeated on a transmission date equivalent to the month and date of their first broadcast. A noble idea, but with the Jimmy Saville scandal, this was adjusted for fear of showing the episodes he had hosted. With the still unresolved Dave Lee Travis court-case, there may yet have to be a further adjustment.
In an odd way, with the rapid take-up of digital downloading from such as iTune and Amazon, more and more singles are being bought all the time. There's an argument that the charts are possibly more important than ever containing CD singlers, donwload singles - and soon, following a recent announcement from The Official Chart Company, allowances will be included for songs streamed on such services as Spotify. Maybe yet, something will emerge to replace Top Of The Pops.
Turning to Later With Jools, the show continued to be popular and respected. Yes there were some categories of music that didn't get much of a look in (Hip-hop, dance - and oddly enough, out and out pop), but it did nurture the new and cherish the old. In 2008, its format changed so that on Tuesday nights, a half-hour live edition went out - and then on Friday an expanded hour-long recorded show was broadcast. Shows were now broadcast in 5.1 sound and in 2013 as the BBC Television Centre was being readied to be closed and sold-off, production moved to The Maidstone Studios in Kent, the former home to the ITV regional broadcaster, Meridian TV. The main studio was much larger than that at Television Centre and full advantage is being taken of it. As at February 2014, over 300 editions have been broadcast, all hosted by Jools Holland.
COMMERCIAL REBIRTH?
Over at the commercial broadcasters (pre-digital switch), ITV hadn't bothered too much with regular music shows on its network and it had been left to Channel 4 to keep the flag flying.
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| ITV Logo In... |
ITV had branded itself nationally simply as ITV, the regional stations such as Granada and Yorkshire and Carlton now being one combined operator. Would this make any difference to their approach? Ever since the first commercial service had started in 1955, ITV had generally taken a more populist approach to the provision of music shows and in some ways, this policy still exists. It has focused more on music
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| Granada Logo Out... |
Alongside that, there has been a more infrequent series of specials broadcast under the banner of The Nation's Favourite. Launched in 2010, eight shows have been shown so far, each concentrating on either a specific artist or aspect of the world of music. Viewers could join in via the ITV website and vote for their favourite artist or single or song, depending upon the subject of the particular show. Hosts have included Zoe Ball and Liza Tarbuck and the programmes usually run to ninety minutes. Artists featured have included Abba, Elvis Presley and The Bee Gees - with other shows looking at subjects such as Christmas songs and Number One hit singles..
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| ITV - The Nation's Favourite Number 1 Single |
So, what was Channel 4 doing pre-digital?
Unlike the ITV companies, Channel 4 has a greater remit for providing public service broadcasting. It has generally taken a more left-field approach to music which has often been a good thing, although as with all radical works, some of them do date terribly. Chris Evans' Don't Forget Your Toothbrush came to an end in 2000 and for its next show, the network took a different approach. This was a twist on the video-package shows that had become a staple of the satellite channels and it had the less than captivating name of Karaoke Fishtank. Hosted by a CGI animated fish, one Vince Finn, it ran a sequence of videos with said fish commenting humorously about them. The song lyrics also ran across the foot of the screen. Quite who it was aimed at is difficult to say: it went out late on Friday nights as part of the 4Later segment and so presumably, had an audience of viewers who'd just got back from the pub. The videos themselves were a mix of pop and indie, so it wasn't all bad.
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| Music - at breakfast |
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| Paul Weller - One of many indie artists on Live From Abbey Road |
Mention here of More 4 reminds us that digital switchover was gradually happening around the UK between 2007 and 2012. It's important to remember that viewers didn't have to wait for switchover to access digital TV: other providers had come into the market such as the BBC/ITV joint venture Freeview and, as digital broadband spread round the country, British Telecom (BT) also entered the fray. Digital broadband - and especially the increasing adoption of fibre-optic networks with their massive broadcast capacity - has meant that in the last few years, BT Television and Virgin TV have grown to become significant players and are now giving Sky TV (still broadcast via satellite) a run for it money. It should be noted that with all this change going on in the background, allied to a sometimes bewildering launch of many new TV channels (and the frequent rebranding of existing ones), didn't always create the most stable market for music programming. Whilst the BBC share of total television viewing is still the highest of any broadcaster, its market-share has fallen as multi-channel households have proliferated.
It's interesting to see that most of these Channel 4 shows were concentrating on indie and alternative artists - rather like Later - but unlike Later, there didn't seem to be much room for genre artists, those from the folk, roots and country arena. For that content, we need to look elsewhere.
ACROSS THE GREAT DIVIDE
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| Transatlantic Sessions - BBC & RTE co-production |
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| Transatlantic Sessions Season 6 - including Mary Chapin Carpenter (right) |
It was revived in 1998 for a further residency of seven shows and since then, it has appeared from time to time, although in the past few years, it's been broadcast bi-annually. Irish broadcaster RTE also became a partner with the BBC and Pelicula Films from the second season onwards and although viewing figures have been modest, it is highly regarded and the participants themselves see it as a "must do" gig. The most recent series - number six - was shown in 2013 on BBC4 and included Mary Chapin Carpenter, Karen Matheson, Cara Dillon and Teddy Thompson amongst the guests artists. It's clear from the comments made by the performers that the mix of North American and UK/Irish artists is very attractive indeed.
It was originally a cable - and then satellite - channel that was launched in 2002 as a replacement to BBC Knowledge. It broadcasts from 7pm until 4am, the rest of the airtime being shared with one of the BBC's children's channels. Since digital switch-over, it's available to all UK viewers and although audience figures are at best modest, it does serve its viewers pretty well. The real innovation as regards music arrived in 2005 with the broadcast of Jazz Britannia. This was a series of three hour long programmes that explored the history of jazz in the UK. It used much archive material from earlier series such as Jazz 625, but also drew on the archives of many other shows and films where there was jazz content, even if the programme was (for example) a variety or some other sort of cultural broadcast. New interviews and features linked all the pieces together into a coherent and fascinating trio of documentaries.
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| BBC4 - Prog Rock Britannia - 2009 |
This successful start has been followed by 22 other themed sets of programmes, most about the UK (although one focused on the States and one on Ireland) and often, to complement the documentaries, repeats of archive shows were broadcast alongside them. Most genres have been covered including Folk, Soul, Blues, Punk, Rock and Reggae as just some of the more obvious ones. Whilst the very nature of the programming is backwards-looking, the strand has provided a much wider expanse of televised music and for that, I for one an very grateful.
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| Martin Scorsese's Blues |
A landmark American documentary was Blues, a seven part exploration of this fascinating genre written, presented and directed by Martin Scorsese for the PBS network. It was shown over here, but as it's primarily an American production, so I'm not delving into it in this series. But, it did spawn other works, one of which is of interest to us - The Seven Ages Of Rock. This was produced by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, and was a detailed history of the rock genre and was not only shown on BBC2 but also on satellite channel VH1 as it had part-funded the production. Seven Ages Of Rock was a series of 6 hour-long shows and a final ninety-minute show that took its starting point as bands such as The Who and The Animals. As is the norm, archive footage and interviews interspersed with new content was the order of the day and seen as a whole, it's a useful guide. There are lots of bits missed out - partly through editorial and time constraints, but also (one assumes) through the lack of relevant archive material. The VH1 one broadcasts of Seven Ages Of Rock had to contend with commercial breaks, so the shows were edited down to just 48 minutes to enable them to fit the scheduled time-slot. This editing was quite brutal in some parts - indeed, the first episode as shown by VH1 doesn't even mention The Beatles.
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| The Seven Ages Of Rock - The BBC says so. |
Documentaries will continue to flourish, just as long as there's musical content to harvest and curate - and that is something we hope very much will be the case.
So, where does all this leave us? It's clear that there is perhaps more music around on television than ever before but you do need to know where to look. It's more fragmented, it's more niche and there's little room for the mass audience music TV show of years gone by. I started this last chapter in this series by saying that there's a received wisdom that there're no decent music shows on TV at all now, just Later...With Jools Holland. In some ways, if referring to regular series that feature current musical trends, then that might be a sound argument. But as with the music business itself, it is more diverse and splintered than ever before - so why wouldn't television just reflect that?
Before I conclude, we need to consider one more aspect of music on TV, music that is reflective of contemporary bands from a wide range of genres. Admittedly, these aren't shows made for television but television being used to open up worlds that might not always be available to all viewers - and that is something that television is still good at delivering.
PILTON IS GLASTONBURY
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| That first Glastonbury 1970 (The Kinks were replaced by T.Rex: whatever happened to them?) |
And, the BBC television has been avidly following it since 1994. Initially, it was a few interviews and clips of smaller bands performing, presenters such as John Peel clearly being in their element. Since then, it has mushroomed into a mutli-channel broadcast and one which takes full advantage of digital technology. Simultaneous performances can be seen on the BBC website, on the Red Button, on BBC4 and BBC2; they can be viewed on mobile phone, tablet, iPad and all manner of portable devices. And by doing all this, a mutliplicity of acts playing live can be viewed either in real time - or via the Red Button or iPlayer, at a later date of the viewer's choosing. This is true time-shifting broadcasting and provides a broader and more immersive experience than anything that existed back in the black and white sixties.
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| The BBC Red Button and Glastonbury 2009 |
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| Is this the dreamt of pocket television? BBC iPlayer on a range of platforms |
Have I answered my conundrum about there being less decent music on TV at the very time there seems to be more music than ever?
Not entirely, but as always, I'd welcome your views and comments.
What next?
Well, I'm working on converting this series of linked blogs into a six-part radio documentary, which although pretty ironic in view of the subject matter, will certainly allow scope for audio input and a broader feel to the subject matter. And then? The blog series is already being readied and expanded into my next book. I'll be including detailed appendices providing a chronology of all the shows as well references to other source material. So, if you've enjoyed this overview, then I am most gratified.
As always, many thanks for reading.
Alan Dorey
25h February 2014
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