Just two days before the broadcast of the 2000th edition
of Top of the Pops, rare audio recordings of lost shows have been returned
to the BBC.
The recordings - dating from early 1974 - were made
by fan, Les Chittenden, pointing his tape recorder to the TV set. Despite this crude
method, the quality is remarkable good. Finally we have a record of
classic live performances by the likes of T-Rex, Slade and many others.
What happened to these lost editions of the show? The
episodes weren’t necessarily junked or destroyed - many of them
were taped over. At the time, videotape was extremely expensive and
the BBC had a policy over recycling tapes. In addition, it was costly
to repeat old performances. In the ‘60s and early '70s, if a song
was No.1 for more than a few weeks, TOTP would just show pictures of
the audience dancing to the song! With programme makers having to stick
to a set budget, they may have had no choice but to tape over the old
episodes. Luckily, film copies of the shows were often made, to be sold
abroad. Though inferior in quality, they did at least offer another
permanent record of a transmitted show.
By the mid to late ‘70s, sales to overseas TV companies
had almost dried-up for the old black and white recordings.Agreements
with performers and the Musicians' Union meant that repeating the programmes
in the UK would be costly. With the space limited in the BBC Film archive
and BBC Enterprises, the episodes would ultimately be junked.
Only four episodes exist from the '60s and the archive
is pretty patchy up to 1977. Hopefully, other fans may have made audio
recordings of the show. Perhaps there are domestic video recordings
of lost episodes out there?
Unfortunately,
copyright restrictions prevent us from letting you hear more than 30
seconds of each song, but we are in negotiations with record companies
to feature longer clips.
