Britpop On TV

The success of Britpop benefitted not only from the shake-up at Radio 1, but also from the arrival of several TV programmes, and the emergence in Britain of satellite TV in the early 90s.

I've already mentioned 'Britpop Now' and 'TFI Friday', but the most important music show in Britain was, of course, 'Top of the Pops' [TOTP]. TOTP was obviously based around what was successful in the charts in the time, meaning that it only reflected Britpop as it became more successful. That said, in 1997, when Chris Cowey took over as producer of the show, he instigated a live performance policy for artists appearing in the studio. In 1994, the BBC also launched 'Top of the Pops 2' [TOTP2], which, as an archive show, allowed (in theory) more space for newer artists on the main TOTP.

A major addition to music TV in Britain was 'Later... with Jools Holland', which began in 1992. It's clear looking through the list of episodes that from Series 4 in late 1994 up until about the end of Series 8 in late 1996, there was at least one "Britpop" artist on just about every episode.

Channel 4 responded with their own short-lived live music TV show, 'The White Room', which ran for 3 series throughout 1995 and 1996. This show was even more Britpop-heavy than Jools Holland's, though is perhaps best remembered for Iggy Pop performing 'Lust For Life' in see-through trousers. Host Mark Radcliffe introduces Iggy by asking "Will he get his knob out?" Producer Chris Cowey then moved to TOTP in 1997.

BBC also had music magazine show 'The O-Zone', which had been running since 1989 (and ran until 2000). In 1995 however, the show got re-launched with Jamie Theakston and Jayne Middlemiss as hosts. The show was primarily pop-based, though it did feature Britpop bands much more from 1995 onwards.

In 1992, Sky acquired the rights to show the new Premier League football. This lead to a massive increase in Britain to the number of people getting satellite TV, which in turn lead to increased viewers for MTV and VH-1, the two available music channels at the time. I can certainly remember Britpop videos being played extensively at the time, especially Oasis and Blur. I do not need to see the video for 'Wonderwall' or 'Don't Look Back In Anger' ever again.

All of these things happening definitely contributed to the public awareness and success of Britpop. Some were already there of course, and some were created or changed to reflect the success of and public interest in Britpop. And if you compare this time with the lack of music programming on terrestrial TV today (only Jools Holland and the odd show on Channel 4 remain), it is an indicator that a movement like Britpop could possibly never happen again in Britain, which is kind of sad.