First Top of the Pops

At 6.35 pm on January 1 the premiere of the half hour British TV programme Top of the Pops was shown for the first time. Acts performing included (in order of appearance) Dusty Springfield (I only wanna be with you); The Rolling Stones (I wanna be your man); Dave Clark Five (glad all over); The Hollies (Stay); Swinging Blue Jeans (Hippy hippy shake) and The Beatles (I wanna hold your hand, that week's number one). The programme continued until July 30 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most of its history, it was broadcast on Thursday evenings on BBC 1. Each show consisted of performances of some of the week's best-selling popular music records, usually excluding any tracks moving down the chart, including a rundown of that week's singles chart. This was originally the Top 20, though this varied throughout the show's history. The Top 30 was used from 1969, and the Top 40 from 1984. The first programme was produced in Studio A at Dickenson Road Studios in Rusholme, Manchester. The presenter was the late and now disgraced Jimmy Savile, with a brief link to Alan Freeman in London to preview the following week's programme. The tape was wiped. Throughout its history, the programme proper always (with very few exceptions) finished with the best-selling single of the week, although there often was a separate play-out track over the end credits.