'Top of the Pops' to return to BBC as public service

British music chart television programme 'Top of the Pops' is expected to return to BBC next year following claims that there are not enough popular music on television.

The decision is likely to come in the wake of heavy lobbying from artists, managers and record companies.

Music executives are increasingly confident that the BBC is ready to bring back a show that was last broadcast on BBC Two in July 2006.

Although to win back the viewers it will need to change, with songs being featured before they are released.

"There is only one chance for a comeback, and the programme will fail again if it returns exactly as before," Times Online quoted one music industry insider as saying.

"It needs to be more populist and have exclusive content, new songs, that can be put up on YouTube and shared around the Internet," the insider said.

Top of the Pops was axed after its ratings, which had been 15 million in its 1970s heyday, fell to close to a million, and the revival of the show has been discussed ever since.

"I would personally love to have a weekly music show on the BBC," Mark Cooper, head of music entertainment for BBC TV, said.

"It's a Sleeping Beauty.

"One day it will come back, in the way that Top Gear and Doctor Who came back," he said.

In the old days the show was judged a success in ratings terms - but the audience figures today would be unlikely to persuade BBC commissioners to bring it back.

"It's probably no longer the case that Top of the Pops can be revived on the basis of it being an entertainment programme - instead it may have to be judged as a public service," Cooper added.

Lemar, the R and B star, broached the matter with the Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary at a Downing Street breakfast this month.

"I spoke to Andy Burnham and I said, 'We should bring back Top of the Pops'. He replied that he thinks the same. Any aspiring artist wants to be on Top of the Pops," Lemar told The Times. (ANI)

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