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A show called 'The Hit Parade', produced by Francis Essex, was first transmitted by the BBC in January 1952 from Studio 'G' at Lime Grove (that was later to host 'Top Of The Pops') and was described in the Radio Times as '... the most ambitious attempt yet made to present popular music on the screen in a directly visual way'. This apparently meant using dance sequences to dramatise the song lyrics with a forerunner of the iconic 'Pan's People'. The show did not present the original artists but used house musicians, featuring vocalists Petula Clark and Denis Lotis, to recreate the popular songs of the day and pre-dating by several months the start of the UK singles chart. The show was briefly revived in 1955. Essex also produced another show for the BBC called 'Off The Record', in May 1955, which was hosted by bandleader Jack Payne and was not only more eclectic in terms of artists featured but also included some music news and the occasional short feature on aspects of the record industry. Artists who typically appeared on the show included Ronnie Hilton, Alma Cogan (Dreamboat), The Four Aces (Stranger in Paradise) and Max Bygraves. This programme survived until 1958 with the latter output starting to feature more of the new rock'n'roll sounds.

A one-hour long live classical music offering called 'Music For You' was transmitted by the BBC once a month, on Wednesday evenings, from Studio G, hosted by Eric Robinson and directed and produced by Patricia Foy. Artists appearing included Luigi Infantino, Annaliese Rothenberger, Joan Hammond and Hilde Gueden. On their third day of transmission in September 1955, ITV broadcast a programme called 'TV Music Shop' that featured various stars such as Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson. Under the terms of the Television Act of 1954, that had been put into place to help regulate potential commercial television channels, a 'closed period' existed between 6.00pm and 7.00pm that was often referred to as 'the toddler's truce', a reference to the supposed intention of allowing parents this uninterrupted time to put their children to bed before the evening 'adult' programmes commenced. Although this was initially acceptable to independent television management at its launch, financial losses the following year prompted them to petition Charles Hill, the Post Master General, for a relaxation of this rule. This request met with government acceptance and, despite resistance from the BBC who tried to delay the decision, the condition was abolished on Saturday 16th February 1957.

On that weekend evening the BBC took full advantage of the new timings to experiment with a programme aimed at older children and young adults. A short news bulletin was broadcast at 6.00pm, lasting five minutes, following which a live music program called '6.5 Special' first aired. 'Magazine' format programmes such as 'Tonight' (18th February 1957) catered for a wide variety of people getting home from work on weekdays but the weekend viewing pattern was somewhat different. Programme planners decided that something aimed at young adults would be more suitable to fill the gap between children's television and the adult offerings in the evening while not driving the older audience away to a different channel. With this in mind, one of the suggested titles for the new programme was 'Start the Night Right'. Other possible titles included 'Take It Easy', 'Don't Look Now', 'Hi There' and 'Live It Up' but '6.5 Special' was eventually selected for its 'jazz' allusion to trains. It was the BBC's original intention to run '6.5 Special' for just six weeks as a weekend 'filler' for the 6.00pm to 7.00pm 'gap' in transmission but Jack Good's production was of such a high quality that it quickly gained popularity and a regular audience in excess of six million. He said: "When I got the job to produce '6.5 Special' I was dedicated to making a rock 'n' roll show, although I didn't entirely succeed. I had to find British rockers because they only gave us a budget of £1,000 for the whole programme - that's the set, the costumes, everything". After the launch of '6.5 Special', Saturday early evenings seemed to become the 'prime time' slot for pop music programmes and remained so for quite a long period.

The show itself was the result of a 'compromise' between the BBC and Jack Good's original concept, being a combination of 'variety' and 'magazine' type shows mixing popular music with other types of entertainment, sprinkled with items intended to inform and educate, whereas Good had wanted to fully project the energy and excitement of rock'n'roll. The first show was presented by Pete Murray and 27 year-old Josephine Douglas (who was also the show's co-producer), providing what they considered to be a mixture of 'youth and experience' but was not entirely acceptable to the teenage target audience who expected younger presenters for what they considered ought to be a 'pop' show. Although giving the appearance of being spontaneous, the presentation of the show was actually pre-arranged and quite strict. The musical numbers were deliberately varied and designed to provide a balance of pace and style and the original written script also clearly demonstrates the 'compromise' arrangement: Pete Murray: "Hi there, welcome aboard the '6.5 Special'. We've got almost a hundred cats jumping here, some real cool characters to give us the gas, so just get with it and have a ball". Jo Douglas: "Well I'm just a square, it seems, but for all the other squares with us, roughly translated what Peter Murray just said was, we've got some lively musicians and personalities mingling with us here, so just relax and catch the mood from us". Trevor Peacock, who was the '6.5 Special' scriptwriter for Jack Good, wrote several hit songs including Joe Brown's 'That's What Love Will Do' and Jess Conrad's 'Mystery Girl'.

The first show was played in and out by Kenny Baker and his jazz band. In between, Michael Holliday performed a couple of ballad-type songs and the rock'n'roll element was provided by Bobbie and Rudy and The King Brothers. Somewhat bizarrely, there was also an appearance by a Ukrainian classical pianist, Leff Pouishnoff, who contributed a selection from Beethoven and Chopin but, although the BBC persevered with the idea of including a classical item for a few weeks, this aspect of the show soon quietly disappeared. 'Regular' features came and went, including film extracts, film star interviews and a section featuring less well-known sports, introduced by boxer Freddie Mills. The first of these was a demonstration by 'The Herculean Balancers', two Hungarian strongmen who carried Freddie onto the set and caused him to comment "If you're going to rock'n'roll properly, you need to have your muscles in pretty good shape". Dance was a common feature and it was '6.5 Special' that introduced the world to the 'Hand Jive', with a supporting set of instructions written by Good 'Hand Jive at 6.5'. The first programme also included a recorded feature on The Brady Boys' Youth Club choir performing a selection of folk songs and it was this type of feature that carried the BBC's intention to try and educate and inform. The show tended towards four main types of music: rock'n'roll, trad jazz, ballads and, of course, skiffle with Lonnie Donegan, Willie McCormick and Chas McDevitt making regular appearances. Its later theme tune was performed by the Bud Cort Skiffle Group and it even had its own skiffle competition. However, it was for the 'new' sound of rock'n'roll that the programme was to become most famous and '6.5 Special' played a leading role in its growth in the UK, influencing record sales and providing a showcase for emerging British artists as, at that time, not many established American stars were keen on coming across the Atlantic.

One of the new crop of British talent was Terry Dene who, after appearing on '6.5 Special' in April, subsequently hit the British music charts with his cover of 'A White Sports Coat' and starred in a 'pop' film called 'The Golden Disc' that was vaguely based on his own career. Other stars in the making were Marty Wilde and Jim Dale, who was later to compere the show but is now possibly better remembered for his performances in the 'Carry On' films. Although usually produced at Lime Grove (and subsequently the Riverside studios), the show also occasionally went 'on tour' with 'specials' such as its broadcast from Glasgow in May 1957. The most famous of these OB's was probably its 16th November event that came from 'the 'birthplace of British rock'n'roll', the 'Two I's Coffee Bar' in Old Compton Street, Soho. That show included both '6.5 Special' regulars and 'Two I's' resident performers, notably opening with Adam Faith's skiffle group The Worried Men, and also contained a version of 'Rockin' At The Two I's' by the curious combination of Wee Willie Harris, The King Brothers and Mike and Bernie Winters. BBC Deputy Director Cecil McGivern was to report; "This edition was not only extraordinary but extraordinarily good. It was first-class television as well as first-class entertainment". Despite such high commendation this episode was also to be one of Jack Good's last. Against the expressed wishes of the Corporation he announced his decision to produce a '6.5 Special' stage show and, on 9th January 1958, the BBC announced that it was not renewing his contract.

Good had never been entirely happy with the 'compromise' of the show's presentation anyway and, following co-producer Josephine Douglas's decision to turn freelance, the introduction of new co-producer Dennis Main Wilson created further internal friction. Jack Good was replaced by Duncan Wood to share production duties with Wilson, later being joined by Billy Cotton Jr., and Good moved to independent television where his new show 'Oh Boy!' was to eclipse his BBC creation.

In December 1956 'Cool For Cats', produced by Associated-Rediffusion, was shown in the London area at 7.15pm on Mondays (later changed to Thursdays). It was originally presented by journalist Ker Robertson who had come up with the format for the programme and chose the records to be played, but it was not long before he was replaced by a younger presenter thought to be more appealing to a youthful audience, a certain Kent Walton. The 15-minute, twice weekly show (the second a repeat), later expanded to half an hour, was directed by Joan Kemp-Welch and consisted of comments on the records played and a regular dance troupe that was choreographed by Douglas Squires. By June 1957 it was being nationally networked twice a week and lasted until December 1959. Cool For Cats 1958 Although made at the Hackney Empire studio in London, ABC gave Jack Good's 'Oh Boy!' a trial run in the Midlands region during June 1958, followed by national ITV networking on 12th September at 6.00pm to 6.30pm in direct competition with BBC's '6.5 Special'. The original hosts were Jimmy Henney and Tony Hall, with a resident band led by Harry Robinson, the musical director. Other regular artists included Lord Rockingham's XI, The Vernon's Girls, Marty Wilde, The Dallas Boys, Neville Taylor's Cutters, Dicky Pride, Vince Eager, Ronnie Carroll, Red Price and Billy Fury (mostly performers from the Larry Parnes 'stable' of rock'n'roll stars) with Cherry Wainer on an electric organ and singer 'Cuddly Dudley' (Dudley Heslop) who was generally noted as 'Britain's first black rock'n'roller'. The first episode of the show also featured a new young singer named Cliff Richard who entered the music charts a fortnight later with a rock'n'roll offering called 'Move It', written by Ian Samwell.

This non-stop music show was billed in the TV Times as 'an explosion of beat music' and crammed as many numbers as possible into its twenty six minutes, which meant that the presenters were hardly given any air time at all as the cameras moved from act to act with virtually no pause in between. For the same reason audience shots were also rare, unlike in previous shows where they had been a planned visual feature. The camera work was done in a style that attempted to reproduce the 'feel' of a live concert and everything was designed around this idea with fairly strict choreography, lighting and angle composition. The simple stage set design placed a band to the right, some steps and stage platforms at the back with a microphone at front centre, most of the performers being shot in close-up or mid-shot. The set-up and technique prompted The Daily Herald to comment "The three-dimensional sets, clever lighting and fast, exciting atmosphere of 'Oh Boy!' have confirmed Jack Good as ITV's most imaginative producer of 'pop' shows". The BBC attempted to respond to this new challenge and later editions of '6.5 Special' consisted almost entirely of music, but still lacked the energy and drive of 'Oh Boy!'. Changes in style and presentation cast were to prove equally ineffective as the producers were simply unwilling to let go of their more staid, 'establishment' approach, becoming even more disconnected from teenage tastes, and the BBC eventually decided to ditch the show altogether.

It was replaced with 'Dig This!', a new offering that retained its predecessor's nominal 6.05pm start time but was shortened to half the length in order to try and inject a bit of pace and energy. It was first seen on 3rd January 1959, with the Radio Times of 19th December 1958 promoting it as 'a swift moving, up-to-the-minute show with all the latest pop music presented in a new streamlined manner'. 'Dig This!' was initially introduced by an ex-serviceman called Gary Marshall with a rousing cry of "Hi, kids! Dig this!" and, similar to 'Oh Boy!', the show also had its own resident band, Bob Miller and The Millermen. Despite the updated format the BBC's efforts somehow still failed to reverse the trend in audience figures. The show had only been running for a few weeks before cast changes were made in February and, at the end of March, the BBC accepted defeat in the fight for the 6.00pm audience, ending the show's brief run and replacing it with the American western series 'Wells Fargo'. However, they didn't give up on 'pop' music shows altogether and a younger producer called Stewart Morris was brought in to oversee 'the first of the new 'beat' programmes', a production called 'Drumbeat', which first aired at 6.30pm on 4th April 1959. For this new show Bob Miller and his band were kept on and joined by a second 'house' band, The John Barry Seven. 'Regular' performers included the 17 year-old Sylvia Sands and the former 'Oh Boy!' singer Vince Eager but it was another former protégé of Jack Good's who benefited most from the new show and, by the end of the year, 'What Do You Want' was a chart-topping hit for Adam Faith. The show did well enough, although Morris's claim of having more viewers than 'Oh Boy!' may have been slightly optimistic, and it was allowed an extension of its original planned run, eventually ending on 29th August and outliving its arch rival by three months! There didn't seem to be any one particular reason to end 'Oh Boy!' but the 'copycat' BBC production rivalry and the fact that ABC wanted to vacate the Hackney Empire in favour of its Manchester studios almost certainly played their part in the decision.

'Oh Boy!' was axed from ITV on 30th May 1959 to be replaced with a new half-hour show called 'Boy Meets Girls' on 12th September at the new, later time of 6.30pm. Singer Marty Wilde was the 'boy' in question, with Joe Brown making regular appearances on the programme and The Vernon's Girls providing the female element of the title. Some other artists, such as sax player Red Price and organist Cherry Wainer, were also retained from its predecessor but the direction by Rita Gillespie was a markedly different concept, although the new show was still produced and presented by Jack Good. 'Boy Meets Girls' was a much gentler show, featuring more ballads and musical variety, which was suggestive of Jack Good being persuaded, or pressurised by the BBC, to calm things down a bit. Good himself was to comment "Oh Boy! taught me that there is no substitute for personality in entertainment…. ….we shall use an occasional, wild number but the accent is on friendliness and the programme is aimed at a wider audience. We are out to capture the elder brothers and sisters of the teenagers, and the mums and dads too". It may have succeeded to some extent with older viewers but the show certainly seemed to be less appealing to the youth audience. Viewing figures started falling and attempts made by Good to liven it up with the appearance of major American artists such as Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran (who both made their UK television debuts there on January 16th 1960, sharing the bill with Billy Fury, Adam Faith and Jess Conrad) came too late to save the show. It was brought to a close a few weeks later, on 5th March 1960, shortly before the shock of Cochran's untimely death from head injuries received in a car crash on April 17th.

'Bandstand' was launched by ITV in September 1959, a half-hour jazz programme featuring performances that were mostly mimed. Jack Good was to return only a month after the end of 'Oh Boy!' with his third television attempt, a show called 'Wham!' that was billed as 'a fistful of songs' and was the vehicle that brought DJ Keith Fordyce to the fore as a television pop show presenter. As in Good's previous two series, The Vernon's Girls were resident dancers and the acts on the first show on 23rd April 1960 featured Billy Fury, Joe Brown and The Bruvvers, Jess Conrad, Dickie Pride, Little Tony, Vince Taylor and the brilliant Johnny Kidd and The Pirates. Despite the star-studded line-up the format was, by this time, a bit of an anachronism. Even so, it surprisingly only lasted eight episodes, ending on 18th June. After this failure, Good returned to America where he produced 'Shindig!' for ABC in 1964, using the 'Oh Boy!' formula. He did briefly return to the UK in 1979 to produce a short, nostalgic revival of 'Oh Boy!'. Meanwhile, the BBC's iconic show 'Juke Box Jury' replaced 'Drumbeat' on 1st June 1959, compered by DJ David Jacobs, with the first show featuring panellists Pete Murray, Alma Cogan, Gary Miller and introducing Susan Stranks (later to co-present the children's programme 'Magpie') as a 'typical teenager'. The production format of 'Juke Box Jury' was a marked change in the way 'pop' music was presented on television and coincided with what was to be more or less the end of the four-year reign of rock n' roll as the most popular 'youth' music on television. The programme was based on an American format and produced by Russell Turner. It originally began in June, being aired on Mondays at 7.30pm, but it was soon moved to the Saturday evening slot, being recognised as approaching the 'holy grail' mix of teenage appeal and adult entertainment that they had been searching for. It soon gained regular viewing figures of 9 million, rising to around 12 million at its peak in 1962.

The production saw resident DJ David Jacobs sitting at a desk next to a prop jukebox, presenting clips from the latest record releases to a guest panel of four people for appraisal, with the cameras occasionally panning the studio audience of young people, viewing their reactions. After each clip members of the panel voiced their opinion on it and voted it a chart 'hit' or 'miss'. In the event of a 2-2 'tie' a panel of teenagers, selected from the studio audience, would be invited to decide. Each week at least one of the artists whose record was being reviewed would make a guest appearance, remaining out of sight until the panel had voted - sometimes quite embarrassing if it had been voted a 'miss'! The initial 'panel' usually consisted of people directly connected with the 'pop music industry' but slowly started to integrate other 'celebrity' guest panellists, such as Diana Dors, who provided a point of interest for those viewers who weren't particularly interested in the music but led to some criticism about the validity of the 'voting' by people not particularly well-qualified to make a judgement. One particular case in point involved journalist Nancy Spain who, on the 29th October 1960 edition, bizarrely confused Lloyd Price with Frank Lloyd Wright, and the singer Carmen McCrae who, on hearing 'Blue Angel' by Roy Orbison, happily spouted that she 'hated this type of music', but thought that it would be a 'hit' because it was so 'terrible'.

A short, ten-minute version of 'Juke Box Jury' was broadcast as part of the BBC variety show 'Christmas Night with the Stars' on Christmas Day in 1962 and 1963 and the BBC also broadcast 'Twist Music With a Beat' on 7th July 1962, which was a pop programme about the new dance craze, a 'Twist' competition between some of the cast of the TV show 'Compact' and regular 'Juke Box Jury' panel members, featuring Petula Clark, Don Lang and His Twisters, Tony Osborne and His Mellow Men and The Viscounts. The main programme ran until the end of 1967 when it was eventually dropped due to falling ratings. The last show was broadcast on 27th December 1967 with original jury members Pete Murray and Susan Stranks making a final appearance to complete the 'circle'. Pop-only shows using the '6.5 Special' format were revived by ABC in April 1961 with the arrival of 'Thank Your Lucky Stars' on a Saturday tea-time. Initially shown only in the local region, it was to become what was possibly the most influential 'pop' show of the early Sixties. The programme was compered by BBC and Radio Luxembourg DJs Brian Matthew and Keith Fordyce and, later, by Jim Dale. After becoming fully-networked it helped start the rise of 'super-groups' such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and many others. The show also had a 'Juke Box Jury'-style section called 'Spin-a-Disc' where a guest DJ and three random teenagers reviewed three new releases. This bit is well remembered for the appearance of Janice Nicholls, a former office clerk from the Midlands who became famous for her catchphrase 'Oi'll give it foive', delivered in a strong Black Country accent.

Westward was a small TV franchise whose output could not be seen much beyond Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset, but this didn't stop them embracing the 'new' music. An early programme produced by Westward for young people was 'Spin Along', presented by Alan 'Fluff' Freeman, first broadcast on Tuesday 12th September 1961 between 6.15pm and 6.45pm to fill the hole left by 'Westward Diary' which was not broadcast on Tuesdays. A second series, starting on 24th September 1962 was shown at the later time of 7.00pm. Other Westward programmes included 'Move Over Dad' for which, in November 1963, The Beatles had to be 'smuggled' through a tunnel into their Derry's Cross studio to record an interview with Stuart Hutchison due to the huge numbers of fans outside. They also produced a show called 'Pop And Leslie' and, in 1964, 'The Westward Beat Competition' that boasted a panel of judges which included Brian Epstein and Dick Rowe and was won by a group called 'The Rustiks'.

Even as late as 1962 some TV stations and producers still continued to promote trad jazz music, particularly ATV who provided us with Lonnie Donegan's 'Putting On The Donegan' series and 'All That Jazz', the latter using 'jazz' in the title more than in the content as it was a series of shows that actually featured quite a wide variety of mainstream acts such as Karl Denver, Frank Ifield and Billy Fury, but that's about as far as ATV went in producing 'popular music' programmes. The 'birth of Mersey beat' provided a whole new genre in British pop music and, focussed on the North-West, on their doorstep, naturally attracted great interest from ABC and Granada as it had the potential to provide a new 'weapon' in the competition between regional stations. This was mainly between ABC, Granada and the more Southern-based Associated-Rediffusion as ATV still clung to their previous ideas on musical entertainment, even though their parent company owned Pye records! Pop music acts were being increasingly featured in all kinds of variety shows and even found their way into children's television on shows such as 'Tuesday Rendezvous' (later 'The Five O'Clock Club'). TWW (Television Wales & West) aired a local thirty-minute show called 'Discs A-Go-Go' in 1962 from their Brislington studios. It was produced by Chris Mercer and compered by Kent Walton, later better known for his Saturday afternoon 'World of Sport' wrestling commentaries, and where artists were unavailable to perform, a series of still pictures featuring a cartoon fox were used as a visual aid to illustrate the theme of the lyrics! The show was later partially networked but never seen in the London region as its format was considered to be too similar to RSG! Tony Prince appeared on this show before joining 'pirate' Radio Caroline as a DJ. The only surviving recorded edition is a later-made one-off 'Bristol special', originally transmitted on 2nd March 1968, hosted by Tony Blackburn and featuring The Symbols, Paul and Barry Ryan, Tomorrow, Keith West, Steve Howe, Solomon King, The Gojos, Samantha Lee, Engelbert Humperdinck and Bob Miller and The Millermen.

Associated-Rediffusion, who held the weekday ITV contract for the London area (and called 'Rediffusion-London' after 1964), launched their next assault on the youth audience on Friday 9th August 1963 via a black and white live show from their Kingsway Studio 9 called 'Ready, Steady, Go!' with the memorable tagline 'The weekend starts here!'. Conceived by A-R boss Elkan Allan and produced by Francis Hitching, it comprised a number of different elements including pop music, the latest dances, various weekly competitions and a lot of 'audience participation', portrayed in a 'club-like' atmosphere. The studio itself was quite small, therefore even the cameras and operators became part of the action. Robert Fleming was the show's first director and the presenters were Keith Fordyce and 'typical teenager' Cathy McGowan, with occasional input from David Gell and Michael Aldred, although Dusty Springfield also acted as a compere in the very early shows. Initially a local show, the programme was soon networked nationally but strangely, due to the scheduling of the times of local news, some ITV regions had to join the show part-way through. The show was later transmitted from Studio 5 at Wembley. Of course, BBC Light Entertainment supremo Bill Cotton wanted a programme to compete against 'RSG!' and the various proposals put forward resulted in the iconic 'chart songs only' show, 'Top Of The Pops', being launched on New Year's Day 1964, broadcast from Manchester. Due to the geographical problems in getting artists there the show was permanently moved to London studios commencing Thursday 20th January 1966. Southern television aired a show similar in format to BBC's 'Juke Box Jury' called 'Dad, You're A Square' on 21st June 1963. Although only 13 shows were originally planned, it ran until 13th May 1964. A pilot of the show, devised by Barry Langford and hosted by actor Bill Owen, had originally been made by ATV in 1960 but not followed up. Southern happily took up the idea and hired the previously untried Sandra Stone, an eighteen year old shop assistant, as the host. In dramatic fashion, if a record was voted a miss then a cannonball would destroy the record.

Another show briefly broadcast by Southern TV was 'For Teenagers Only'. This was actually a show made by ATV Midlands, originally produced and directed by Reg Watson, (later produced by Raymond Joss and directed by Alan Coleman), which was aired in the Midlands region on Thursday nights from 6.40pm to 7pm between 8th August 1963 and 1st October 1964. Made at the Alpha Studios (ATV television studios in Aston, Birmingham), it evolved from a June 1963 pilot show called 'Up and Doing' and was intended, in part, to showcase local 'Brumbeat' talent. With no specific 'presenter' as such, the first resident band was Steve Brett and The Mavericks (a later line-up, not on this show, was to include Noddy Holder), joined by stars such as The Applejacks, Linda Doll, The Rockin' Berries, Tommy Quickly, Patsy Ann Noble, Robby Royal, Mair Davies, The New Cyclones, The Fortunes, Billie Davis, The Daly's, Mike Rabin, Denny Seyton and The Sabres, Peter Lee Sterling, The Diplomats, Millie, Lance Harvey and The Kingpins, Don Spencer and Mal Ryder. From the TV Times 29th September 1963 "Each week Steve and the boys will be joined by another Midlands group to present music with a beat and sometimes music that's just a little off-beat".

1964 saw the introduction, or continuation, of many more local shows, including one of Ulster's few attempts at a 'pop' show, 'Pop Scene', a short-lived five nights a week presentation, from 28th September to 23rd December that featured show bands twice weekly, and Border Television's 'Beat The Border', a pop TV series presented by Tom Edwards who was later to work for Radio City and Radio Caroline. Viewers in London and the surrounding areas found themselves blessed with a third television station on 20th April 1964 with the launch of BBC2. The new channel's initial foray into the regular 'pop' scene was 'The Beat Room', first shown on Monday 6th July from 7.35pm to 8.00pm. It was a live performance show, produced and directed by Barry Langford and presented by Pat Campbell, with resident dancers 'The Beat Girls' plus resident band Wayne Gibson and The Dynamic Sound. The only surviving recording of the show is of #14, featuring The Kinks' 'You Really Got Me' and 'Got Love If You Want It', The Syndicats and John Lee Hooker. Advertised as '30 minutes of non-stop beat and shake' the series lasted for about a year, tending towards the R&B style of music that RSG! had helped to popularise and featuring a range of blues artists from both sides of the Atlantic including Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, Chris Farlowe and Long John Baldry.

Other BBC2 music shows included the monthly 'Top Beat' (1964-65), hosted by Alan Freeman and shown mid-week at about 9.15pm, that crammed eight or nine acts into a 45-minute studio concert and which, in 1965, featured possibly the greatest Sixties television line-up ever, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard and The Shadows, The Kinks, The Searchers, Dusty Springfield, Donovan and Them. The popularity of jazz persisted and a show called 'Jazz 625', featuring performances by British and American jazz musicians, was broadcast on BBC2 between 21st April 1964 and August 1966. Created by Terry Henebery, the title referred to the 625-line UHF transmission by BBC2 as opposed to the 405-line VHF system still used by other channels. The theme tune was written by presenter Steve Race and later presenters included Humphrey Lyttelton and Peter Clayton. It was based at the BBC Television Theatre, the old Empire on Shepherd's Bush Green, with some outside broadcasts being recorded at the Marquee Club. Southern TV broadcast a show called 'Ladybirds' that featured all female artists and ran from 31st December 1964 to 29th July 1965. It was hosted by Terence Carroll and Shaw Taylor (of 'Police 5' fame) and was one of many that Mike Mansfield was to produce for the station over the following years, including 'Pop The Question', a 1965 music quiz hosted by Muriel Young and its sequel, 'Countdown', that ran from 15th October 1966 to 23rd December 1966. 'Countdown' was a quiz show where pop stars were asked questions about current chart hits and would, in turn, be allowed promote their own recordings. Muriel Young continued to host, assisted by Don Wardell. Although a Southern production, it actually debuted on ATV in October 1966 but lasted just one series.

1965 saw BBC2's successor to 'The Beat Room' appearing on Monday 1st February from 6.55pm to 7.25pm, again produced by Barry Langford. The new show, 'Gadzooks! It's All Happening', was compered by Alan David and Christine Holmes (who also co-hosted the popular children's programme 'Crackerjack!') with resident dance troupe 'The Beat Girls' surviving from the previous show. Occasional 'guest' presenters included Lulu and Marianne Faithfull. The title was changed to 'Gadzooks! It's the In Crowd' for a while before eventually being shortened to just 'Gadzooks!'. David left the show on 5th July 1965 because "not enough people are looking in". Roger Whittaker subsequently took his place until the show was axed after just eight months. The show is notable for eventually presenting David Bowie's first television performance, as 'Davy Jones and The Manish Boys' on March 8th 1965, with 'I Pity The Fool', after a row about the length of his hair. BBC Scotland introduced their own show called 'Stramash!' from 4th October 1965 to 3rd January 1966, a weekly pop programme for Scottish viewers (and artists) featuring regulars Lulu and The Luvvers, The Senate with Sol Byron and two dance troupes: 'The Stramashers' and 'The Lindella Movers'. Produced by David Bell and hosted by Christian (Chris) McClure, the one English act to appear regularly was Peter London.

On Wednesday 5th January 1966 BBC1 aired a new (but short-lived) half-hour programme from 6.30pm called 'A Whole Scene Going', hosted by Barry Fantoni and Wendy Varnals. Purporting to reflect 'the tastes and times of Britain's under 21s' it was a teenage lifestyle 'magazine' programme containing features on Carnaby Street fashions, the London club scene and package holidays abroad. It is notable for containing Twiggy's first television appearance. Due to changes in viewing demographics and falling audiences,1966 saw 'Ready, Steady, Go!' being reduced to half an hour to accommodate the 'Crossroads' soap and a reduced version of 'Thank Your Lucky Stars' being moved to Sunday afternoons, both eventually being axed altogether, a fate they shared with the American show 'Shindig!' which was replaced by 'Batman' in January that year.

In 1967 ex-Radio Caroline DJ Simon Dee was given his own chat show on BBC1, the legendary 'Dee Time', which featured new record releases between his conversations with various guests. Television in general was giving increasing prominence to personalities, and individuals such as Lulu, Val Doonican, Rolf Harris, Dickie Valentine, Ken Dodd, Petula Clark, Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw, Tom Jones, Scott Walker and Cliff Richard all starred in their own musical show series, as well as BBC1 introducing us to the TV show featuring the zany world of chart-topping American pop group The Monkees. The remaining years of the Sixties became absolutely packed with a wide variety of different types of music show. Shortly after leaving university in 1967, ATV gave Jonathan King his television break with 'Good Evening I'm Jonathan King' which ran for six months on Saturday evenings, initially at 6.30pm, and discussed pop, films, theatre and books. At the end of February 1968 King's show was moved to a later time of 11.20pm to make way for 'Time For Blackburn' and, after six weeks in the late night slot, it was finally axed on 30th March.

Another Southern TV pop show called 'As You Like It', produced by Mike Mansfield and hosted by Don Moss, ran from 11th March to 27th June 1967. This was one of two shows being run as 'pilots', the other being 'New Release' which aired at the start of 1968 and was, initially, only shown in the Southern region on Fridays from 7.00pm to 7.30pm, hosted by DJ Tony Blackburn. It only ran under this title from Friday 5th January to 23rd February, at which time some other regions started taking it and it was re-named 'Time For Blackburn' from 2nd March to 28th December 1968. The show featured five newly-released discs, the artist performing their song live to a recorded backing track under the auspices of musical director Johnnie Pearson, after which they joined Tony at a round table to discuss it. Each subsequent performer joined the 'panel' at the table to discuss their own and each other's records. Some inserts were also filmed at London's 'Revolution Club' while Blackburn would introduce the acts and clips from the studio in Southampton. One episode is notable for (The Crazy World of) Arthur Brown accidentally setting fire to himself while performing 'Fire'. To complement this bizarre incident the station identity caption was also set alight at the beginning of the show. The series was widely seen, being shown on ATV London, Border, Anglia, Channel, Westward and Tyne Tees. It is most likely that the fortunes of the show were affected by the regional franchise changes in some of the ITV stations at the end of July. LWT (the new London weekend station) aired the show in a Friday night slot at the end of 1968 but dropped it after 6 weeks, with Southern eventually axing the series altogether after the Saturday 4th January 1969 show.

A 1967 series from Ulster TV called 'Zoom In', conceived by Gordon Burns of 'Krypton Factor' fame, was originally planned to be just two 'filler' shows called 'Zoom In' and 'Zoom Out' but was sufficiently successful to be given a run in the 7.00pm prime time slot. Co-produced by Tony Eames, it featured both Irish showbands and visiting English artists with two regular go-go dancers and the studio audience. The show also contained comedy sketches featuring DJ Hendi (Michael Henderson). The 14-hour 'Technicolor Dream Festival' at Alexandra Palace on 29th April 1967 was attended by about 10,000 and filmed by the BBC. A longer-lasting (though less potent) version of the drug LSD called 'STP' was handed out free to anyone who wanted it. Pink Floyd made an appearance, although not filmed, and there were various other performers including artists, poets, dancers and jugglers. The programme was aired by BBC2 on Wednesday 17th May 1967 from 8.05pm, in black and white. From the Dickenson Road studio in Manchester a much under-rated weekly 25-minute show called 'All Systems Freeman!' was launched by BBC1 at 6.40pm on Friday 5th January 1968, using a combination of pop radio style presentation with visual television music formats. Its early evening scheduling probably robbed it of the larger, late evening audience it might have had but the show quickly gained a cult following even though it only lasted for 12 episodes, finishing on 22nd March. 'Fluff' sat behind a (for the time) high-tech console, appearing to control the musical inserts with sliders, dials and other interesting mechanisms. The visible turntables were much more than just props and actually provided some genuine audio input. Alan Freeman wore 'can' style headphones and did his own vision mixing on a panel adjacent to the turntables. The programme included a mixture of film reports on developments in the world of popular music, pop 'business' news and film clips of groups performing in non-studio settings - an early, ground-breaking kind of 'pop video'. Also regularly appearing on the show was Bernard Herrmann who had previously been a musical director for 'The Good Old Days' and 'Dee Time'. The Ladybirds and The Northern Dance Orchestra provided the studio backing and Johnnie Stewart was the producer.

New on 7th September 1968 was 'Colour Me Pop', which BBC2 had originally featured as a segment of the Friday magazine show 'Late Night Line Up'. It was specifically designed to take advantage of colour TV transmission and eventually became a programme in its own right from Saturday 2nd November. The series was produced by Steve Turner and ran for over a year before it was superseded, in January 1970, by 'Disco 2' (originally named 'Line Up's Disco 2'), a largely-forgotten series first presented by Tommy Vance (and later Pete Drummond) and was a predecessor of 'The Old Grey Whistle Test' that ran on BBC2 from 1971 to 1978. It was directed by Granville Jenkins, with a theme tune by Elton John that was later replaced with Led Zeppelin's 'Moby Dick' intro. The show was first broadcast on Saturday evenings, later moved to Thursdays and the occasional Friday.

'How It Is', a 40-minute magazine series "by the young, for the young at heart" appeared on BBC1 on Friday 19th July 1968 from 6.00pm produced by Tony Palmer, who also presented alongside Peter Asher (who left after only a few weeks), Radio 1 DJ John Peel, 'Oz' magazine editor Richard Neville and Angela Huth. The 25th October 1968 edition was not broadcast live as the BBC were concerned about the 'October Revolution' that was due to take place in London that weekend and so it was recorded an hour early. Palmer soon became frustrated with people thinking the programme was aimed solely at teenagers and, in late November, it was announced that the series was going to be 'rested', but would return in a new late-night slot in 1969. The last episode of this show was transmitted on Friday 20th December 1968. It was replaced with 'How Late It Is' in a later time slot at 10.50pm on Friday 14th March 1969, which was effectively a 'second series'. Huth and Neville continued to present, joined by Pete Drummond. The producer, Tony Staveacre, promoted the show's 're-launch' by saying "We want to provide a platform for new ideas, styles and sounds and, at the same time, offer new opportunities for established artists. We want the show to have an urgent, last-minute appeal so that viewers will never quite know what is coming up next" which is probably quite true as the series only lasted until Friday 23rd May.

A series of six programmes, hosted by Alan Price and called 'Monster Music Mash', went out on BBC1 on Tuesdays from 7th October to 11th November at 5.15pm to 5.44pm, a weekday children's slot. Price said of the show "I adore working with children. We aim to bring the kids all kinds of music, everything from pop to blues and traditional folk. We want to give all the artists on the show the chance to perform two or three numbers - anything they feel like doing, and we want to get away from this idea of guest artists coming on just to plug their latest record". 'Discotheque', produced by Granada Television in 1969, was another short-lived children's pop music show, hosted by Ayshea Brough (who also starred as a 'Skydiver' operative in Gerry Anderson's futuristic TV series 'UFO' ) before moving on to 'Lift Off' (later 'Lift Off With Ayshea Brough') shown at 4.55pm to 5.20pm from 5th November. 'Lift Off' ran until 1972 and was initially co-presented by Graham Bonney, featuring current chart hits and new talent. For a short period the show was co-hosted by Billy J. Kramer. The show's 'resident' group was 'The Pattern' and also featured 'The Ken Martyne Dancers'. 'Lift Off' was originally devised by Muriel Young. Probably the last offering of the 1960s was a one-off 75-minute TV 'special' called 'Pop Go The Sixties!', a celebration of Sixties music, broadcast in colour on 31st December 1969. It was a co-production between the BBC and Germany's ZDF, primarily produced and recorded at the BBC's Television Centre in London, in late 1969. Presented by Jimmy Savile and Elfi Von Kalckreuth, Johnnie Stewart produced the show and Stanley Dorfman directed. The only song performed in German was by Sandie Shaw.

Top American music shows included Hootenanny, Shindig, Hullabaloo, The Music Scene, Where The Action Is, Hollywood a-Go-Go and Upbeat.