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I am disgusted by this news, it is just what the industry did not need at the moment.
The whole business, is at a point of uncertainty, and the last thing we need, is the pinnacle of UK sales and showcasing removed.
Well done BBC, slow hand clap, exit stage left.......

I broke this story to the tip sheet back in August last year so why the surprise.

Cilla my love, Step Inside... the story has been around for years but now it's actually happened.
We all knew it would but it doesn't make the inevitable any better.

No I first broke the story to the tip sheet that TOTP would go to bbc 2 then be scrapped.true JK,the scrapping
rumour was around for ages.but I put first on tip sheet when it finally was happening and not a rumour anymore.

First or not Cilla it was certainly on the cards.

It's a shame but to be honest TOTP has become irrelevant. It used to be the kids weekly dose of pop, now pop is on tap 24/7.

The industry has done it to itself once again, what a great name "Pop Will Eat Itself" was eh?!

Still onwards and upwards.

Any less music exposure on TV is a nightmare but they've screwed it around so much that it was definitely a case of when not if. It seems amazing that they couldn't adjust the format to work in today's new market even given all the other options out there now.

For the last couple of years TOTP has not reflected sales and popularity, hence no one watched it. Disgraceful.
Where does this leave the 'official' charts now?

No-one in this day and age of genre specific music channels is going to sit through performances of artists they don't like in order to find out who is number one in a chart that no longer matters.

More live music shows like Jools Holland would be a much better idea. Maybe half an hour a week dedicated to one current artist who play four or five live songs before a quick news section about the chart.

too many shows that are successful don't change or adapt.
It is perfectly possible to update a show as executives should have done when the chart began to reflect major label priorities instead of popularity.
That was 20 years ago.
Alan Yentob, then boss of BBC1, wanted to scrap Eurovision when the ratings collapsed.
I was brought in to save it.
My method was by selecting UK entries that broadened the appeal - Love City Groove to start with; then Gina G; then Katrina and the Waves.
By the time we hosted it in Birmingham in 1998, the ratings were the biggest of the year.
And the show has survived ever since.
Top of the Pops could have been saved too.
But useless wankers like Andi Peters destroyed it.
Very sad and very odd.

Godiver wrote:
No-one in this day and age of genre specific music channels is going to sit through performances of artists they don't like in order to find out who is number one in a chart that no longer matters.

That's a bit circular. Channels may be genre specific, but IMHO only a small section of music buyers are. Your monoculture goth or punk is a tiny minority... even the high street clubster is a small part of the whole market. And it has often been good for an act with its roots in one genre to broaden out (or sell out as their original fans often say).

By serving micro-genre fare, these channels are precluding the possibility of mass appeal. That doesn't mean nothing could have mass appeal any more.

It seems to me the complexity of social and technical developments right now means we can't see the wood for the trees. I'm sure we'll look back in 10 years and get that "Ah! now I see..." moment.

I do think the 20th century may turn out to be a blip in relation to audio. Music has been around for millenia but only sold as a fixed audio product for about 100 years. It may be that (sadly) we've seen the back of "records" as such. But popular songs have been around for much longer...

Am I wrong in thinking that it might be a good thing that TOTP has gone?
Now that offically the chart doesn't matter maybe majors will stop trying to push false hits into the charts?
Hopefully we will see a revival in real music, you never know!

Unbelievable. 42 years of a national institution and it gets cocked up so badly it's ditched.

It goes to show though, that with the rise of the internet as a music market and the diversity of product available and in demand, the actual singles chart is becoming increasingly irrelevant IMHO. Music is going underground, for both good and bad reasons-a definite sense of change is in the air.

as Jk will tell you, you had to be on the up to get on or at least your peak position in the charts. Recent years have seen the same old tripe thrown out week after week and something having gone down to number 11, 6 weeks after its peak getting prime billing. It was dying in the 80s until a certain big mouthed guy used to bring us the USA news once a month.

TOTP's selling point for years has been that it's based around the official chart. That being the case, move it to Sunday nights, make it two hours long, and run it side-by-side with the Radio 1 rundown. While 21-40 is being announced on the radio, show live performances or videos of choice high climbers/new entries, maybe a bit of album chart coverage, and then run down the top 20 in full, skipping over those that've already been played. Book live performances where appropriate, but I'd have no arguments about 3/4 of the music on the show coming from promo videos. Sunday teatime is a time when families are often to be found in front of the box, so you'll get mums and dads moaning about how none of the stuff before them is as good as the TOTPs of the 70s, and kids plotting next week's purchases based on how little their parents approve.

People still want to know what's number 1, so why not make the official announcement a visual spectacle as opposed to merely an aural one? Obviously you'd get a high point in terms of viewing figures towards the end of the show as you get towards number one, but I think moving the likes of Songs Of Praise and Antiques Roadshow back an hour to accommodate it on BBC1 would be a masterstroke. BBC1 would basically have Sunday locked down in viewing terms.

Then obviously it can be edited down to half an hour or an hour and shown again later in the week. Potentially three hours of culturally relevant television per week, most of which consists of freebie/cheaply acquired promo videos. If the alternatives are another f*cking hospital drama or a dancing-based reality TV show, I know where I'd prefer my license fee to go.

..loads more football on TV but this programme is still successful - shows the top matches with a decent production team. The problem TOTP has is the same with most of the BBC - too much thought, too much interference. Everyone knows all they had to do was keep it on thursdays, keep the acts miming, an keep playing the most popular hits of the day. It was a winning formula. I'm vry sad its going.

It'll be interesting so see what happens now with the christmas No1.a british only tradition.with no TOTP it won't have the same impact.

wasn't it scrapped a few years ago then brought back? I want Ready Steady Go and Old Grey Whistle Test back.