Pop and Easy Listening Story of Light Entertainment

What is it? What is it? What is it?

Good evening and welcome once again to another section of Juke Box Jury.

-..To see you, to see you...

-NICE!

Our next group, I'm not allowed to introduce...

MUSIC: "Pop Muzik" by M

Light entertainment on television has always relied heavily on music.

For me, music has always been the heart of light entertainment. I mean, that's how I started!

But when pop burst onto the scene, it blew everything apart.

Suddenly, kids didn't want to watch the same programmes as their parents.

You just went, "This is exciting!

"Wow, I've gotta do this for a living! Wow, this is amazing!"

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Top Of The Pops.

People lived and breathed that show, you know.

And you could just see that in people's eyes, they were singing along with everything.

My trouble was that I loved them all, I loved all the groups, because it was such a heady atmosphere.

Pan's People were there to cover for the mackintosh parade,

the rather naughty gentlemen who liked to watch them, and we played to that.

However entertaining,

pop on television has always been unashamedly about selling a product.

We weren't allowed to record, or write songs,

-or choose the songs.

-It makes money for the record label,

and for the people who own the merchandise

and if a million kids enjoy it, good luck to them.

It is as simple as that.

However, some pop shows refused to cater for a mass audience.

That was the brief - make it live and give it balls.

It's Friday, it's 5.30 and that means spotty Herberts coming through the door!

In the '80s, a lot of the kind of trendy bands,

or the credible NME-type bands, they didn't wanna be seen on the light entertainment shows.

It wasn't good for their image.

We really wanted it to be very much, "Your mother wouldn't like this!"

Just to feel that vibe, you know, make you feel like,

"I'm living now and this is a great time to be alive!"

That sends a tingle through me. Then again, it could be that cystitis again, couldn't it?

MUSIC: "Superstar" by Jamelia

I'm sure the tune was in there somewhere(!)

Now, after years in the wilderness, pop has made a triumphant return to Saturday night TV screens.

It was like the lions and the Christians.

You know, it's that or that.

More that!

It's about time that we put the razzle-dazzle back in.

What Idol and X Factor have done in the UK is bring music back.

Will! CHEERING

You come up with a format as old as the hills -

light entertainment - and you've got 21 million viewers.

Tonight, we tell the story of pop music's journey back to the heart of light entertainment.

The popular musical landscape in post-war Britain played it very safe,

ignoring the rapidly changing and increasingly sophisticated tastes of the nation's youth.

We came out of the war and I think that...

suddenly there was a real problem in Britain.

And I mean that for the first time, you had

a lot of guys coming back from the forces that had been exposed to lots of other sorts of music.

Girls that had gone out with GIs during the war wanted to bebop,

and guys who had been in Germany and France

and been exposed to jazz and came back.

And so, suddenly, you had this...slightly uneasy situation,

particularly at radio, where they weren't happy with Victor Silvester any more.

You know, there was a little bit of...

"Well, we want a bit of what was going on in the war now, we want it a bit more risque."

They certainly weren't getting anything risque on the BBC's Light Programme,

THE family entertainment radio show of the early 1950s.

The kind of music played on the Light Programme in the '50s was...

a kind of very light sort of almost like classical-type music.

There would have been a little bit of jazz maybe, but a tiny bit.

That only came much, much later in the '50s.

But from 1949, and throughout the 1950s,

one radio show did manage to unite old and young generations alike,

with a lively sense of fun

and a musical style that appealed to everyone.

There was no television and the biggest highlight of your week

was Sunday lunchtime.

Go to church, take Holy Communion,

come back and have your, your finnan haddie.

But they had to have roast beef, Yorkshire pud and then,

also, you would be listening to possibly Family Favourites.

Followed by The Larkins, The Huggetts, the Navy Lark, Round the Horne...

And then, the radio, "Wakey, wa...key!"

"Wakey, wa...key!"

BILLY COTTON: Wakey, wa...key!

APPLAUSE

They were good songs, it was knock-about fun

and Billy Cotton himself, although, obviously at this point, I'd never seen him, you thought was your mate!

All right. Hello, everybody!

This is Billy Cotton introducing another Billy Cotton Band Show.

His show was very listenable to during lunch.

I mean, you didn't have to listen carefully,

like the comedy shows or anything like that.

It just kind of rolled over you, you know.

And he, erm, unquestionably, he... he became a sort of institution.

BILLY COTTON: 'Ere, what's that you've got there, Kate?

Well, I had a bit of a throat today, Bill,

so Breezie fixed me up with his throat spray.

He says it'll keep the germs away.

I should think it would too.

He's attached it to a bottle of Scotch!

You give me that 'ere! LAUGHTER

People still stop me in the street, because I look like him,

and say, "Whenever anybody speaks about your father,

"I can smell roast beef and Yorkshire pudding."

In 1956, Billy Cotton was given a whole new bandstand when his show made the leap from the wireless

to the brand-new medium of television.

# Who's got the finest food and quite the finest vino?

# Poppa Piccolino! Poppa Piccolino!

# Whose round and offers quite the finest cappuccino?

# Poppa Piccolino from sunny Italy! #

He entertained you all the time.

There was jokes, there was, there was...great songs.

He'd always do an instrumental number, where the band would jump about.

And it was just half an hour or 40 minutes, whatever it was, of just amazing entertainment.

BIG BAND MUSIC PLAYS

When they put that show on television, it was just as exciting, and probably even more so.

Because of Billy Cotton particularly,

because he was such a big, happy man, with a big florid face,

you know, bald head and glasses.

Damen und herren!

Ladies and gentlemen...

Presenting the cabaret a la Cotton!

MUSIC PLAYS

# Here's a little German song everyone knows

# I-diddle-diddle I-diddle-up-pop!

# How's that? #

BILLY LAUGHS

We can only class him as the Churchill of light entertainment, cos that's what he was.

As Churchill had got you through the war, Billy Cotton had introduced you to music.

# Honey, get your bopping shoes!

# Before the jukebox blows a fuse!

# Everybody hopping!

# Everybody bopping! Bopping at the high school hop... #

Although Billy Cotton was popular with the whole family, television, like radio before it,

had problems adapting to the arrival of rock-and-roll

and to a new phenomenon - the teenager.

# ..Come on, little baby Let's rock a little bit tonight... #

They thought it was, er, leading all the young kids astray.

Um... I remember, I was 13 years of age when I went to the cinema

to see Bill Haley and Rock Around The Clock.

Then, all of a sudden, these kids got up and danced in the aisles,

you know, to Rock Around The Clock, and we thought, "Wow!"

I mean, that was a big deal to do.

"Oh, you know, we're really being naughty here, we are actually...

"not sitting in our seats, but dancing in the aisles!"

-MUSIC: "Rock Around The Clock" by Bill Haley and His Comets

-When pop music first started,

real pop music with The Screamers and the...and the rock-and-roll, or maybe just prior to rock-and-roll,

I don't think the TV companies did really know how to handle it.

They didn't. And I think the Six-Five Special really showed that.

# The Six-Five Special steaming down the line

# Six-Five Special right on time... #

Six-Five Special, launched in 1957, was the BBC's

first rather well-mannered attempt at a rock-and-roll show.

Six-Five Special was way ahead of anything, it was a sort of much more varied style of music.

You had every kind of music on.

But basically, it was rock-and-roll,

but there was also jazz of all descriptions,

modern or otherwise.

Big band jazz as well.

It was the first programme to actually incorporate the audience into the show.

Really made it quite exciting too, you know.

People love to see other...see the public, if you like.

In 1958, ITV poached Jack Good, the producer of Six-Five Special and hit back with Oh Boy!,

which quickly established itself as the must-see pop show for the cooler crowd.

OK, come and get it! It's Oh Bo-o-o-o-oy!

I used to tremble, because the thing was going out live

and there was such a pace to the show.

It was like... It wasn't, you know...

The Six-Five Special was more like, "Hello, ladies and gentlemen, here's the Six-Five Special."

The other one, "Here's the Oh Boy show!"

It slammed into you and it hit the audience for six.

I think my greatest memory, as far as television is concerned,

is Oh Boy! The Jack Good Oh Boy! show,

which gave me my first ever really big break,

and when I say big break, it was really big.

When I look back at Oh Boy!, it's still one of the most

innovative shows that's ever been, musically speaking.

# ..Oh, when the saints...go...

# Mar-ching...in... #

Producer Jack Good was the eccentric genius behind both shows and became legendary.

His mastery of the medium and ability to manipulate the acts set the standard for TV pop shows

for decades to come.

# Five, four, three, two, one... #

Finally, one August night in 1963, ITV managed to capture

some of pop music's energy and danger with the arrival of Ready Steady Go!

This stripped the pop show to basics and enticed viewers with a sense of genuine excitement.

I just remember, everybody did, everybody, the whole country,

the whole teenage population, the whole...

You know, it just blanketed the whole nation, and... with those immortal words...

"The weekend starts here!"

Just exploded on the screen like...

an atomic bomb.

And I remember being pinned back in my mum's sofa, watching...

this programme, which just seemed to come out of nowhere.

To have the opportunity to see the likes of Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding,

names that you read about, singing and performing live

in front of a studio audience was just the most revolutionary thing.

And I remember, week after week, having the hairs on the back of my neck raised and going straight out

the next day to Finlay's, which was the only place that we could buy these kind of records.

And, you know, waiting for the shop to open to, you know, go in there

and buy, you know, Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay or whatever it was.

Dismayed by the popularity of Ready Steady Go, in 1964,

the big guns at the BBC launched a counter-attack with a simple format based on the pop charts.

It was to run for the next 42 years!

Wednesday, January 1st, 1964, 6.30 in the evening live.

First band, Rolling Stones.

# Oh, I feel so strong I can't disguise

-# Oh, my!

-Let's spend the night together... #

In the early days, it was a party every time.

And I insisted that the audience was as important as the groups.

And so, I would get a bundle of records and gave a bundle of records away for the best dancers,

er...or the best outrageous clothes.

'I declared them in. The audience felt part of it and all the teenagers felt part of it.'

..Our good friends from Islington Green Secondary Modern School, it's all marvellous.

She's shy, this one. You're not shy, say hello to your mum!

-Hello, Mum! That's it, you say hello to your mum.

-Hello, Mum!

For everybody at home, ladies and gentlemen, how about the Alan Price Set?

By 1966, Ready Steady Go had gone, and Top Of The Pops was really

the only sort of pop show on television.

Cos don't forget, there were still only the BBC, ITV and I think maybe BBC Two.

So any discerning youngster who had any interest in music...would sit

on a Thursday night and watch Top Of The Pops.

# Bend me, shake me anyway you want me

# As long as you love me it's all right... #

# Some people live within the world and some people live without it!

# Some people gotta whisper their love

# And some, they gotta shout it... #

# When I look up to the sky I see your eyes

# A funny kind of yellow... #

I didn't know whether it would last a day or 100 years.

I hadn't the faintest idea.

But I knew the logic of it was that if somebody bought a record,

of course they'd want to see the person who's...

They've got his record and there he is. "Oh, fantastic!"

MUSIC: "Itchycoo Park" by Small Faces

By the late 1960s, music was becoming divided.

The showbiz world had abandoned the counter-culture and sex and drugs and rock-and-roll

was the last thing that was going to be featured on TV shows.

# ..It's all too beautiful It's all too beautiful... #

What was acceptable on television was easy listening, a gentler non-threatening style of music,

which provided TV producers with a much safer route for programming.

Because easy listening is so difficult to define,

it's very difficult to find a starting point for it.

If you want, you can trace it back to the crooners,

but that's not quite right. It was...

It's sort of American, it's sort of a response to rock-and-roll,

but it was something that was seen as, as clean-cut,

something that was seen as, as quite bland, as quite inoffensive,

which denigrates an awful lot of easy listening.

# ..Yester-me. Yester-you Yesterday... #

There's a point in the '70s, I know for a fact, when Engelbert Humperdinck

had almost as many gold albums to his name as Elvis and Frank Sinatra.

He was something like the third biggest.

Andy Williams was right up there as well. These artists were massive, that's how big it is.

Unfashionable maybe, but millions love it.

TV bosses lost no time in exploiting the popularity of easy listening.

And in 1969, gave Engelbert Humperdinck,

an exotically named former engineer from Leicester, his own show.

When I had my show, we would bring major stars on to the show

and we'd do sketches,

you know, comedy sketches with them.

Cut!

Vilma, Ricardo, it's finally happened! They've invented talking pictures.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

DEEP VOICE: At last, you shall hear my voice!

HIGH-PITCHED VOICE: Yes, I'll be a big star!

It was just a great experience in the early days.

And I felt really - I'll be honest with you - I felt really...

inadequate when I, when I was with them, because I felt I wasn't of the same calibre.

By the start of the '70s, a queue of pop stars were following Engelbert's lead and trying to secure themselves

the most coveted trophy in showbiz - their very own television show.

When I was offered my own series,

I thought, "Oh, I don't think I want to do this."

You know, "I don't wanna be like Billy Cotton!"

And I just thought, "I don't wanna be family entertainment, I wanna be rock-and-roll."

# Step inside love!

# And say, step inside love... #

APPLAUSE

Of course, I caved in and I did the show.

And it went through the roof. You know, we'd have 20 million viewers.

-# Oh, the joy of living!

-Oh, yeah!

-# Sweeter music they're giving

-Oh, yeah!

# When they're singing what you heard before

# Come on! Come on! Come on!

# Oh, the joy of living... #

We had so much fun,

because you weren't just singing, which is what people expected, but you were hosting the show.

We were involved in comedy sketches, with great comedy actresses like Dandy Nicholls.

And we had Aretha Franklin guesting on it.

You know, it was just stunning.

So since you've been here, have you managed to see any of our ancient sites?

Why yes, I bumped into Hank Marvin just a moment ago!

-LAUGHTER

-She catches on fast!

MUSIC: '70s theme to "Top Of The Pops"

As the pop stars of the '60s became

the family friendly TV hosts of the '70s, the ultimate pop entertainment show, Top Of The Pops,

became increasingly theatrical and sparkled and shone like never before.

-THEY SING OUT OF TUNE

-That's the Top Of The Pops choir.

There was supposed to be a siren, because the number one record is Sweet and "Blockbuster,"

-and how about that, then?

-SIREN BLARES

MUSIC STARTS: "Blockbuster" by Sweet

# Aha...

# Aha... #

In the '70s, when I was a child, watching Top Of The Pops,

everyone looked like they were having a good time, it was like an enormous party.

And the clothes were very, very flamboyant.

Things like... I remember, you know,

vividly watching Sweet doing Blockbuster.

I mean, it was just, you know, like I said, a sort of light show and might even have had fireworks!

I can't quite remember. And, you know, The Osmonds were doing Crazy Horses and stuff like that.

-It was very upbeat.

-# Crazy Horses!

# Crazy Horses!

# Never stop and they never die

# They just keep on puffin' How they multiply... #

'I remember, I was quite young, I loved Top Of The Pops.

-'And there's something about British fans, they have so much energy.

-Oh, yeah.'

They love music and, you know,

we had performed many times on many different shows in America

and other countries,

but there was not the kind of energy that was there when you were at Top Of The Pops.

-Yeah.

-It was THE show.

-Yeah.

The early '70s saw a schism begin to appear in TV pop programmes.

Whilst shows such as Top Of The Pops were happy to be seen as pure entertainment,

the more earnest offerings, like BBC Two's Old Grey Whistle Test, took music seriously,

and found the connection with showbiz to be utterly abhorrent.

Hello again, welcome to Whistle Test.

This week, from Cardiff, the last of our regional programmes, and music from some of the best Welsh bands

during the next 30 minutes, with sessions from Budgie and Sassafras,

Film of Man, along with a track from the new album from The Neutrons.

The name of The Old Grey Whistle Test comes from an old Tin Pan Alley

saying that a song was going to be a hit if it could be readily

whistled by the "old greys", who were presumably the elderly people

who swept up around the place, and the janitors and so forth - that that was the test of a hit.

And so this name, for reasons I can't possibly explain any further,

somehow became adopted, which is very strange, because if ever there was a programme

that wasn't about tunes you could whistle, it was The Old Grey Whistle Test!

The sort of war horse at that time was The Old Grey Whistle Test,

which was more for, um,

university graduates in a way, than it was for youth, really.

It was sort of... Its pace was slow and it belonged to another era.

If you're on BBC Two and you're on late at night, you've got a much more

immediately dedicated, um, following probably.

So you haven't got the pressure of something like Top Of The Pops, which has gotta deliver X million

of viewers every week, and it's on prime time.

So that was why the two went very well together.

Top Of The Pops would reflect what's in the charts and what is popular,

whereas we could be more, you know, weird, left-field and stuff like that.

It's impossible to remember how dull the mid-'70s were.

Anyone who claims that the mid-'70s were somehow interesting,

in particular people who put together Old Grey Whistle Test compilations,

should be shot, basically.

Cos it was a dreary, dreary period of culture.

The Old Grey Whistle Test was still featuring artists like The Eagles and Jackson Browne,

when the Sex Pistols and The Jam and The Ruts and Penetration

were packing out the clubs across the country!

And I'd been a fan of The Whistle Test for many years, huge fan,

cos they had, you know, David Bowie and Roxy Music.

But for some reason, they really got stuck up their own backsides and,

for whatever reason, couldn't embrace what was going on.

# God save the Queen She ain't no human being!

# And there's no future In England's dreaming! #

Punk was one of those great musical revolutions that comes along

every other generation that involves not only great music,

but involves a culture, a look, a politics with a small P, a drug.

In the case of punk, it was alcohol and speed, I seem to remember!

Punk rock and the ethic of punk rock was not to do

anything establishment, or if you did it, like The Pistols

doing the Bill Grundy Show,

you really messed it up and made sure it never went on air again.

When punk came along, I had to use all my heavy-handedness to make sure

that they behaved themselves in the studio, because they were, I mean,

part of the punk act was to be naughty and things like that.

So that is where I had to say, "Well, if you don't behave,

"you'll be out and you won't be included in the show."

# Scrub away! Scrub away! Scrub away!

# The SR way! #

It created such a schism that pop music and light entertainment sort of just fell apart from each other.

There was your light entertainment, but there was something over here

that was a bit more dangerous, it had a kinda meaning.

By 1982, pop and light entertainment had gone separate ways.

The days when families would gather round to watch Cilla on a Saturday night,

or Dad would peer at Top Of The Pops over his newspaper, were long gone.

A new generation demanded a music show aimed only at them,

and the brand new Channel Four was more than happy to oblige.

That was the brief - "Make it live and give it balls.

"By the way, there's a cheque for two million quid!" Extraordinary!

We deliberately tried to evoke a sense of "your parents wouldn't like it,"

because a lot of music programmes

and lot of youth programmes had got sucked into that early area,

which kind of implies universal acceptance, it implies families sitting around watching it.

And we wanted to go the opposite way with The Tube.

So much so that we had this mythical family that we

called The Scrotes, who were waxworks, you know.

It was a family sitting round watching the show at the start.

And the television explodes - we really wanted it to be very much, "Your mother wouldn't like this."

# Relax! Don't do it! When you wanna go to it!

# Relax! Don't do it!

# When you wanna come!

# Relax! Don't do it! When you wanna suck it to it!

# Relax! Don't do it! When you wanna come! #

It captured the new pop music, because this was massive music, you know. Altered Images,

a band like that, will come up, they'd be on the alternative scene and next they'd be

on Top Of The Pops and in the Top Ten, and The Tube would catch them at the right moment.

# If we took a holiday

# Took some time to celebrate

# Just one day out of life

# It would be...

# It would be so nice! #

It was the first time I saw presenters who were completely

oblivious to the politics of behaving well on television!

Our next group I'm not allowed to introduce because you might think the lead singer had given me one!

Whereas, the lead singer, the lead singer, in fact, did give me one...

-of these records, their brand-new record!

-Now, Sting...

-Quick, I've got my bit of paper!

-Can I tell the audience where you've got your foot?

-No I...

-I have to have my foot propped up, otherwise...

-But it's up my bum!

..my dress gets funny. If you get a bit lippy, I'll give you a quick...

poke! And now, we go to Jools Holland and his rhythm stick!

-A lot of letters said, "We want more sex on the show," so...

-THUD!

-Ooh...

-BLEEP!

I don't think The Tube could have been what it was without being in Newcastle.

It was away from London, the music business.

Bands had to come up to Newcastle to do it, and so make that effort

and you wanna be on it. That's a great thing to do.

MUSIC: "Why Can't I Be You?" by The Cure

# You're so gorgeous I'll do anything!

# I'd kiss you from your feet to where your head begins!

# You're so perfect So right as rain!

# You make me, make me, make me, make me hungry again! #

The edge it had, in coming live from Newcastle every week, meant that we weren't as subject to the hype

of the record companies who were all based in London

and we were particularly galvanised when someone -

I believe it was a journalist in the Daily Mail

who'd had something to do with Ready Steady Go back in the day -

who said it was impossible to make a meaningful music programme outside of the M25!

That was like a red rag to a bull to us.

We said, "All right, we'll show ya!"

After five years as the most talked about music show on TV,

The Tube finally called it a day in 1987.

So hello and welcome to the very, very, very, very, very last Tube.

The last show was remarkable, because we had something like,

if my memory serves me right, 60 bands, artists,

who were wanting to, to perform on the last Tube.

We just heard the sad and the bad news that it's all over for them,

the best rock-and-roll show on TV, for The Tube.

And the party went on for four days and four nights! Um...

I mean, there were bodies floating in the River Tyne, it was messy!

But by God, it was a glorious end!

The Tube's demise marks the beginning of a new chapter in our story.

Although launched in the states in 1981, the effects of MTV

weren't felt in the UK until 1987, when satellite and cable television was finally brought to Britain.

But the arrival of music TV fragmented the genre even further.

I can remember when MTV started and being very excited and thinking "Wow!

"You know, music television, music television on all day long!"

Now MTV has more additives than ever before.

MTV arriving changed everything because what MTV was in a way

was, was the idea of Top Of The Pops writ large.

I mean, it was, your favourite pop stars and pictures to go with it.

Here's a selection of programmes that can...

# Ooh, I gotta have faith!

# Because I gotta have faith, faith, faith!

# I gotta have faith, faith, faith! #

No-one thought it would have any effect

because everyone thought, "Well, its gonna get so few viewing figures."

And then, you realised, "Well, actually, MTV's gonna continue

"to show your videos long after your career has gone!"

And it started to have a massive effect

because it was 24-hour immediate music, which...

It meant that the other music programmes

had to kind of up the ante, they had to compete with that.

The terrestrial broadcasters responded to the arrival of MTV

with relentlessly fast-cut shows, such as Wired, Dance Energy and Behind The Beat.

In the 80s, a lot of the kind of, the trendy bands or the credible

NME-type bands, they didn't wanna be on the light entertainment shows.

It wasn't good for their image.

They didn't wanna appeal to mums and dads, even though they were selling records to them.

So they would do shows like The Tube or The Word.

The Word swaggered onto our screens in 1990.

A high-octane remix of the old variety format, it featured celebrity interviews,

bizarre reports and the coolest bands in town.

BOOMING VOICE: The Word!

Our references for The Word were, believe it or not musically,

early editions of Top Of The Pops, right? The good and the bad.

James Brown, Sex Pistols on the same show

as Joe Dolce, Shut Up A Your Face! Let's go for it.

The highs and the lows, right?

You hit the heights, hit the depths,

all within the space of the same five minutes!

It's fascinating telly.

MUSIC: "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana

Everybody I knew, and that's a lot of people, watched The Word

every week, because the bands that we've been talking about would be on The Word that week.

And to give her her credit, I asked many years later

who was doing that, and I think it was Jo Wylie.

I think Jo Wylie was the young researcher who had her finger on the pulse.

# With the lights out It's less dangerous

# Here we are now! Entertain us!

# I feel stupid and contagious!

# Here we are now! Entertain us... #

We wanted you to be able to talk about it with your mates, right, on the Monday.

For whatever reason, right?

Maybe something happened, you know, great band that was on, just to feel that vibe.

You know, make you feel like, "I'm living now and this is a great time to be alive!"

Whilst The Word delighted in its music shock tactics,

former Tube presenter Jools Holland launched Later in 1992

and up-dated The Old Grey Whistle Test's idea of a platform for more serious music.

Having credibility became cool for once.

Later has done well out of the fact that there is a new consensus that's sprung up

in the last 10-15 years, so you get young bands like to be associated

with old bands and old bands like to be associated with young bands.

And so, the key thing about Later

is that bit at the beginning, when they're all looking at each other.

You'll see people on the same show

who are very, very disparate, very different,

and very possibly you wouldn't have gone out of our way to catch that particular artist.

What the interesting thing is, apart from all the crap in the charts.

Um...artists like Misty and The Corals there, I think,

is some indication there's still a pulse in, er, British music.

There is still a pulse. You're a big influence. Have been.

-I like British music, yeah.

-You were, you're a big influence on it.

-Oh, am I?

-Yes, yes, you are! I'm afraid you are!

-All right!

-We've brought you here to tell you that.

-Oh, is that it?

-Yes.

Jools Holland's got that magical, magical TV ability, that people

absolutely adore him, but they can't work out what it is that he does!

He's the kind of gold-standard rock musician

cos he's a bit of a regular guy, yeah?

You could imagine him living next door

and he can play the piano and he'd play Happy Birthday at your mum's birthday.

It has a slightly older audience, certainly, because some of the acts

that are on are more for an older taste.

But equally, we have lots of, you know...

Robbie Williams is regularly on Later when he has a record out.

He has mass mainstream appeal.

You know, I think it's probably the most grown-up TV programme that I do.

You know, um...

More grown-up than Parky!

You know, um...

I dunno, I enjoy being here, cos everything's live and the musicians

are, are very often very respectful to each other while they're here.

# So when I'm lying in my bed

# Thoughts running through my head

# And I feel that love is dead

# I'm loving angels instead... #

It's moments like that, that, I think, is what Later does

and nobody, you know, other shows don't do that.

They're created more in a television environment, people record their items, they leave, you know?

Later's much more about everybody in the room at the same time

and they're the sort of moments that I think make Later special.

# I'm loving angels instead. #

AUDIENCE CHEERS

Throughout the '90s, pop music on terrestrial TV

remained defiantly aloof from light entertainment.

The White Room borrowed the pared down approach of Later

and was the brainchild of the production team

behind The Tube, complete with indy bands and authentic northern presenter.

-It's The White Room!

-CHEERING

Although The White Room was, to some extent,

aimed at the Later audience,

in that it was a serious music programme

for a more discerning, if you like, more grown-up audience,

the musical diet of the show and the feel of the show was aimed at the Top Of The Pops audience.

Often magic moments would happen and there were lots of them.

We had Lou Reed playing Walk On The Wild Side with Dave Stewart

and it was great fun.

# You take a walk on the wi-i-ild side

# You take a walk on the wild side And the girls, they go...

# Doo-do-do! Doo-do-do-do!

# Doo-do-do! Doo-do-do-do!

# Doo-do-do! Doo-do-do-do!

# Doo-do-do! Doo-do-do-do!

# Doo-do-do! Doo-do-do-do!

# Doo-do-do! Doo-do-do-do!

# Doo-do-do! Doo-do-do-do!

# Doo-do-do! Doo-do-do-do! #

I've always thought it's very important

while making music television programmes not to be too safe,

and not to kowtow too much to kind of censorship

and family values and doing what's expected.

# Well, here comes Johnny Yen again!

# He got the liquor and drugs

# He got the flesh machine! #

There's always the risk with Iggy that he's gonna get his todger out!

Because he enjoys doing it!

And, um...so you're always on,

slightly on the, um...on the guard when, when you book

said Mr Pop!

Um, and we had had that discussion with him

and, of course, he didn't get his todger out at all.

So technically speaking, he didn't break any rules,

what he did was put on a pair of kecks,

which meant that you could see everything he had to offer.

# I got a lust for life

# Lust for life! #

A lot of people, you know, running off the stage and stage diving.

That, to me, is what rock and roll's about -

youthful exuberance.

BIG BAND MUSIC PLAYS

But not all music programmes are youthfully exuberant.

The most successful music show on television has never allowed credibility to stand in its way!

In 1997, the lightest of light entertainment shows

transfixed the nation once more

when Britain won the Eurovision Song Contest for the fourth time in its 40 year history.

# Love shine a light In every corner of my dream... #

The Eurovision... is spectacular, wonderful...

..completely unique light entertainment.

# Save your...kisses for me Save all your kisses for me

# Bye-bye, baby! Bye-bye! #

Eurovision has kept going because it comes out of Europe -

it doesn't have the same nervous anxiety about whether we're in or out.

Are we fashionable, are we not?

HE SINGS IN GERMAN

# Ow! Come on! #

It's an opportunity for the outrageous,

for the, for the outmoded, for the just plain daft.

But at the same time, it's a vehicle by which we can just

explore our neighbours and have a bit of a laugh into the process.

However, back in 1968, it was all taken much more seriously.

At that time, it may have grown now,

there were 400 million viewers for Eurovision.

And I thought, "Well,

"400 million?"

So one in...just one million, one viewer every whatever it is and I've got a million sales!

Um... That's what happened!

# Congratulations and celebrations

# When I tell everyone that you're in love with me... #

I refused to sit with the other artists when the voting was going on

because I just think that's too personal.

So I locked myself in the loo with my guitar and, when it was over, I heard, "Tap, tap, tap."

And I didn't even, I didn't even open the door,

but Peter just said, "I'm sorry, mate, you lost by one point."

I thought, "I'm so glad I wasn't there!"

Although Eurovision is a song contest,

I think it's a performance contest.

I think, if you perform it well and you look good,

I think that's just as important as the song and proof

of that is Making Your Mind Up because we only won by four points

and I think if we hadn't ripped our skirts off, we wouldn't have won!

# Got to look as if you don't care less

# But if you wanna see some more!

# Bending the rules of the game

# Will let you find the one you're looking for!

# And then, you can show that you think you know

# You're making your mind up! #

The first Eurovision I did...was Terry Wogan's first, I think.

It was certainly one of the first and I was quite offended

with the fact that he used to take the mickey out of acts.

I thought, "This is important, they're representing their country!"

-TERRY WOGAN:

-'It's a great old rocker this.

'Some of the worst cases of broken veins I've ever seen!'

But I've always had an ironical or slightly cynical view of it

because I know it for what it is.

And I think, over the years, I've been able to bring the British public with me,

in our mutual disrespect of what should be an institution!

# Let our love shine a light in every corner of our hearts!

# Shine a light in every corner of our hearts. #

AUDIENCE CHEERS

-TERRY:

-Big hand for the little lady! Great performance.

MUSIC: "Picture Of You" by Boyzone

Manufactured bands have existed since the earliest days of Eurovision,

and during the '90s saw a revival in popularity

as Take That, Boyzone and the Spice Girls fought a battle for chart supremacy.

It was proof that, after a long period of cold war,

pop music and entertainment were starting to reunite.

When you look at the '90s and what a lot of people consider

manufactured pop, the whole reason was to create entertainers.

# Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want

# So tell me what you want, what you really, really want! #

Think of the Spice Girls, everything was very calculated

and very much made to entertain you, not just the music, but as a spectacle.

And I think the '90s, with lots of manufactured pop, was very much the era where record companies,

managers of acts thought, "Hang on a minute.

"We don't just wanna sing songs, we wanna entertain",

and that's the key to why so many of them were so successful.

It's always been manufactured pop,

we just didn't recognise it as manufactured.

I mean, Take That were obviously a copy of New Kids On The Block,

then we'd Boyzone who copied Take That.

We'd Spice Girls, we'd Bananarama. West Life are probably the biggest band at the moment.

But they're just another version of Take That or New Kids or The Beatles.

# Oh, Mandy!

# Well, you came and you gave without taking

# But I sent you away

# Oh, Mandy... #

When I put Take That together, I was thinking about a band

that was great for TV.

Part of the audition was putting the members in front of a camera

and seeing if they could sell themselves and if they could interview well on TV.

# All I do each night is pray

# All I do each night is pray!

# Hoping that I'll be a part of you again some day

-# Down on my knees!

-All I do each night is think,

-Yeah!

# Of all the times I closed the door to keep my love within... #

When we did Take That, we weren't telling anyone they were manufactured.

It makes me a bit uncomfortable to go on about manufactured pop groups

cos, you know, even Jon Bon Jovi and all them lot, they all have producers and they all

have marketing people in the record companies,

and they all audition for band members when people drop out.

The manufactured thing worries me slightly.

But...when we did Take That, it was all, you know,

Robbie and Mark knew each other and Jason and Howard were break dancers

and all that bullshit and everyone believed it. It was great!

But Take That would not have happened

if they'd said, "Oh, this bloke's put us together

"and we've auditioned," we wouldn't have got past first base.

It's money, you know?

That's what it is, you know. We're not doing it to make a statement.

I said this the other day, it is an extension of the merchandise.

Comic, cereal packet, video, record.

That's all it is. It makes money for the record label,

it makes money for the people who own the merchandise

and if a million kids enjoy it, good luck to them.

It is as simple as that.

MUSIC: "Nine To Five" by Sheena Easton

Although insiders have always known about manufactured pop,

the first TV evidence of the music industry's star-making machinery came in 1980,

on a BBC show called the Big Time,

when it discovered and promoted an unknown singer called Sheena Easton.

The idea proved to be 20 years ahead of its time.

The Big Time did expose what went on and how stars were created.

And they realised that Sheena Easton was entering into a machine,

and I think they rather loved her for that.

# So many nights

# I sit by my window

# Waiting for someone To sing me his song... #

I was so happy for Sheena Easton.

You'll remember, I was a punk rocker during this!

But to see the very first programme you've ever seen about someone being

discovered and developed and given a chance was really very exciting.

RADIO JINGLE: Radio One Round Table.

Now here's a lady I know nothing about, except she is physically very attractive,

which puts her head and shoulders above a number of others I can think of! Sheena Easton is her name.

Lend an ear to her new EMI single called Modern Girl

and tell me what you think of it.

I remember watching Sheena Easton,

who became probably one of the most successful reality stars,

much bigger than Kelly Clarkson, Will Young. I mean, she was global.

# You've got the look! You've got the hook!

# Sure enough do be cooking in my book!

# Your face is jammin'

# Your body's heck-a-slammin'

# If love is good Let's get to rammin'

# You've got the look!

# You've got the look! #

Fast forward to the present day

and we see a whole slew of star-making programmes.

The difference is that there's a competition and the public is voting.

But you can see the similarities.

SINGERS HARMONISE THE OPENING TO: "Monday, Monday" by The Mamas and The Papas

Two decades later, in the year 2000, whilst

Sheena Easton was busy belting out her back catalogue in Vegas, a new music show appeared on ITV.

Pop Stars was based on a similar idea to the Big Time.

It marked the return of pop music as family viewing

and the start of a new era in light entertainment.

This was watching a talent show with warts and all.

It was like talent shows have always been -

people in corridors, saying, "You're crap, you're great."

Um, it was ever thus, but you just never had a camera

on that. Pop Stars dramatically pulled the camera back.

That's how the Spice Girls were cast, it's how Take That were cast, it's how The Monkees were cast.

It's how pop groups have always been cast. So Pop Stars was the precursor to all of that.

Unfortunately, it was completely out of tune!

It's really strange, the perception of these programmes,

a lot of people think that you've got in through the back door

and, because it was deemed a television programme, that maybe it doesn't quite count.

OUT OF TUNE: # ..and I've got you

# So reach for the stars... # Oh, God!

For the first time, it was nice to bring kids off the street

who didn't necessarily have an agent,

who didn't have a manager and could walk into an audition and, you know, the judges could hear their talent.

ALL OUT OF TUNE: # And through it all...

# She offers me protection

# A lotta love and affection

# Whether I'm right or wrong... #

This could be... like Japanese water torture!

We get together all of the people that sing Angels out of tune

and for somebody we hate to listen to them!

I originally approached Simon Fuller

to say, "Will you be the manager of the band?"

cos he was hugely successful with The Spice Girls at that time.

I approached a guy called Simon Cowell...

I was offered the show to be a judge, said yes, and then

I changed my mind, because I didn't like the notion

of showing the public how we manufacture a group.

It was rather like a magician saying, "This is how we saw somebody in half."

And I wasn't even sure whether the show would be a success.

I was stuck and I think it was Claudia Rosencrantz that said, "Why don't you do it?"

# And if somehow you knew that your love would be untrue!

# Would you lie to me?

# And I'll be baby-y-y! #

Thank you very much, OK. Nice performance. Good performance.

And I'm sure the tune was in there somewhere!

That whole thing with Pop Stars and Nasty Nigel was driven by

the tabloids, rather more than what I was doing

and I wasn't particularly nasty. Some people were saying, "I've got two children!"

"Oh, that's all right, love. Don't worry.

"You're still a woman and you can still be in the band."

There was nothing really nasty about that.

# Hit me, baby, one more time! #

The reality is they are auditioning and that's the only reality to it.

Otherwise, everyone is performing on that programme.

MUSIC: "Pure And Simple" by Hear'Say

Although Hear'Say, the band created by Pop Stars,

only lasted 18 months, the enormous success of the show

led to the creation of Pop Idol in 2001,

which took the format to the next level.

You got the feeling light entertainment departments

thought that pop music was a fad and that it would eventually go away.

It hadn't and it became the centre of everybody's lives by the end of the '90s. It was the world.

# Come on, baby, light my fire

# Try to set the night on fire!

# Come on, baby, light my...

# Fire. #

I remember, you know, we sat at Pop Idol many a times and just knew

that what we were was the Billy Cotton Band Show for this century.

We were doing no different, you know?

Maybe I was Billy Cotton and Simon Cowell was Breezy,

but you know, we got all the acts going on,

but me and him were the double act, you know, with Foxy and Nicki playing the good-looking guys

and the younger guys for the younger generation. It was Punch and Judy.

-I honestly didn't think it was good enough.

-OK.

Please, don't take that. Please, say something back!

It is your opinion, I don't agree, I don't think it was average.

I don't think you could ever call that average, but it's your opinion and I respect that.

You couldn't resist the show because it had the old-fashioned principles

of a great variety show, but to an extent,

elements of a freak show as well.

# Everything I can

# I'll be your dreams with these two hands...

# With handsome... #

When we first started the auditions,

I remember saying to Pete Waterman, after being quite nice

to seven or eight people, "This is just ridiculous!

"I mean, you can't keep patronising these people who are blatantly awful!"

CHEERING

What Pop Idol did, which was so brilliant,

was it was the first show that gave power to the viewers.

So the judges took them to a certain point

and then this enormous responsibility and power

was suddenly in the hands of the viewers.

The winner...

of Pop Idol 2002...

is...

-..Will!

-CHEERING

But we got lucky, didn't we, on Pop Idol.

You know, sometimes you get lucky in life and Gareth Gates, Will Young made us very lucky.

North versus South... working-class versus middle-class.

It was just one of those, you know, magic times.

36,000 applied.

10,000 auditioned.

But only 12 can enter The Fame Academy.

The massive ratings of Pop Idol caused renewal of interest in pop on TV

and led to the BBC retaliating with Fame Academy -

a cross between a talent show and reality television.

ITV, in turn, hit back in 2004 with X Factor,

using a format which was by then tried and trusted.

I think we definitely got to a situation that every show now that

appears, every reality show, has got a set of judges

and one of them will be nice, someone might be a bit passionate,

someone's gonna say something pleasant, and someone's gonna be the bastard.

OUT OF TUNE: # Let me...entertain you! #

No.

Girls, individually, you sound horrendous.

Together, you sound even worse.

I don't think anyone will ever pay to hear you sing.

I tried, where I could, to make it as close as possible to a real-life audition.

The only difference being is, in a real-life audition, somebody walks

in the door and we often tell them just to leave immediately! So at least on this show they get to sing.

-What are you actually looking for, then?

-The absolute opposite of you!

I think shows like X Factor and Pop Idol have replaced the big shows

like Cilla Black, Cliff Richard, Des O'Connor, you know, Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies.

These are the new entertainment, these are the new light entertainment shows.

# California... #

Although pop is back in the driving seat of Saturday night television,

Top Of The Pops has finally bowed out after 42 years.

It's a shame it got to this stage, because it's just...

Sadly now, you only remember it for having, you know, a million viewers rather than having, you know,

15 or 20 million viewers when it was in its heyday, but again, I think everything has its time.

# Does anyone know the way?

-# Do you hear someone say?

-W-W-We just haven't got... ARGH! #

# Does anyone know the way?

# There's gotta to be a way To Blockbuster! #

When Top Of The Pops started, there wasn't a lot of output for music.

And then, obviously, through MTV and this explosion of channels where

music was everywhere, it started to become almost like wallpaper.

After decades in the wilderness, the power of pop music has once again been recognised,

and it is back where it belongs - at the heart of light entertainment.

God forbid if I were to pass away tomorrow, I mean, on my headstone, if I were to have one, I would

rather have, "Here lies Cilla Black, singer,"

rather than, "Cilla Black, TV Entertainer."

Music is entertainment, it's a form of entertainment.

You sit at home, whether you're listening

to classical music, pop music, hip-hop, you're being entertained.

Popular music is about, you know, sex, and it is about breaking

the rules and it is about lifting the hairs on the back of your neck and giving you goose bumps.

And if you can't do that with music on TV, then I think you've failed.

Next time on The Story Of Light Entertainment...

we examine the dark art of pretending to be other people.

-My name is Greg Dyke!

-"I'm the Director General of the BBC!"

We'll see how impressionists have fascinated us for decades.

I'm not so sure about that.

We'll find out why they're the poor cousins in the comedy world.

I think it's fraught with pain and anxiety and neurosis.

And we'll see how a multitude of mimics

has survived the vagaries of fashion and flourished in the new century.

Rory Bremner is better than any of us. He's quite the best there's ever been!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd