Top 10 TV Shows "Sounds Like Friday Night" could try and be as good as...

Top 10 TV Shows Sounds Like Friday Night could try and be as good as...

...apart from Top Of The Pops

As we chew our way through the second episode of Sounds Like Friday Night, with a small spattering of live music interspersed with some lame pre-recorded comedy sketches performed, not by comedians, but by quaint radio presenters and well meaning pop stars, is it too soon to have already damned this show as a flop? Maybe not. But it is a missed opportunity, when putting a pop music light entertainment show in a 7.30 Friday night primetime slot is precisely what TV and its audience are crying out for.

So what, in my opinion, should SLFN be trying to be as good as? Well, if the aim is to represent popular music - as heard on Radios 1, 1Extra, 2 and 6 - and be popular, accessible and entertaining? I'll give you a Top Ten.

We can rule out:

The Old Grey Whistle Test (1971-88) - The grandaddy of music television, but designed for a late night specialist audience, never aimed as a showcase for pop music. Indeed it was the matching counterpart to Top Of The Pops in its heyday, the BBC2 to its BBC1, and we have it covered with Later, Glastonbury, and BBC4's arts shows. Sure, if you liked Toad The Wet Sprocket, then Whispering Bob was for you. But must we fling this filth at our pop kids?

The Word (90 - 95) - Grossout for drunks

Revolver (78) - Maybe only I remember this. Hosted by Peter Cook, who even the audience didn't get, it showcased great bands at the height of new wave, but really you had to be there to get it. 

The White Room (94 - 96) - OGWT light

Kenny Everett's Video Show (78 - 81) - Presented some acts way better than Top Of The Pops did, indeed many of its clips became the official promo for the likes of Bowie & The Boomtown Rats. But it was a comedy show first & a music show second. Sure, better then Sounds Like Friday Night on both fronts, but not the model I'd seek to emulate.

We can also rule out:

Pop Idol (01 - 03) -  Not about new music

X Factor (04 - ) - Not about new music

The Voice (12 - ) - Not about new music

Stars In Their Eyes (90 - ) - Not about... well, you see where that was going

So the Top 10 TV Shows Sounds Like Friday Night could try and be as good as, in my opinion, are:

Oh Boy (1958/9) - Jack Good's continuation of his BBC show Six-Five Special, for ITV, lost the chat (and sport and magazine items) and concentrated on the music. The time was right and the audience responded. Made stars of Cliff Richard and the Larry Parnes stable.

Ready Steady Go (63-66) - "The weekend starts here" was its catchphrase and, for many of the mod generation, it was the cooler show than the Beeb's Top Of The Pops. The Stones, Beatles, The Who et al were friends of the show, which made music specials, including an influential Motown episode. Sadly short-lived and much missed.

Thank Your Lucky Stars (61-66) - ITV's show was noticeable for allowing miming and outliving its competition. Had a popular record review section (mimicking BBC's Juke Box Jury) which gave us the catchphrase "Oi'll give it foive."

Supersonic (75-76) - ITV's early afternoon pop show wasn't limited to the charts, like TOTP, and had the novelty of no presenter, relying on producer Mike Mansfield's cues from the gallery to link the as-live acts. Catered for the overflowing number of glam rock acts that even TOTP couldn't squeeze in.

Marc (1977) - A short lived curio, in which Marc Bolan was given his own show to present and curate (as ITV had previously done with The Bay City Rollers' Shang-A-Lang, and the self-titled Flintlock and Arrows shows), Marc was the show that first put punk on TV. The Damned made their first TV appearance here, as did Generation X and The Jam. At the other end of the fame tree, David Bowie guested on the final episode, a few hours after which Marc died in a car accident.

Oxford Road Show (81 - 85) - From the BBC's eponymous Manchester studios (don't look for them, they're not there any more), ORS mixed live bands with the then deluge of videos and showcased many indie bands and breaking acts. 

The Roxy (87-88) - If anything, this is in the list as a cautionary tale. It came from Newcastle (where the next show on our list had been a proven success) and tried to go up against Top Of The Pops with the same content. On the same night. And in the same time slot.  When acts chose not to travel to Newcastle for a fraction of the exposure they could get by going to London, the show was probably grateful for the industrial action that hastened its cancellation. A textbook example of what not to do.

The Tube (82 - 87) - One of pop television's best ever shows, it took the cool sensibility of the music papers and the style mags, with the brash self confidence of the newly formed Channel 4 and broke new ground. Broadcast from Newcastle, and bravely mixing unsigned and often unlikely acts with pop sensations - with no miming allowed - it gave Top Of The Pops the best run for its money since Ready Steady Go and forced them to up their game. It was the show that discovered Frankie Goes To Hollywood and The Proclaimers, as well as giving us Jools Holland and, indirectly, bringing about Band Aid and Live Aid. 

The Chart Show (86 - 03) - Before MTV, and later Youtube, allowed full-time access to pop videos, they were the currency of a pop generation and the hunger for them was insatiable. TOTP and other shows featured videos, but tried not to be overwhelmed by them (a struggle when the budget for one pop video could often be bigger than the budget for your whole series). The Chart Show made a virtue of the video, and dispensed with the other dodgy variable, the presenter. Instead we had animated links, catchy jingles, and a format based around the Top 40 Chart (quirkily it wasn't the same chart as the one the BBC used, which led to frequent raised eyebrows when the 'wrong' record was Number One), as well as the Indie Chart, Dance Chart and the Rock Chart. Sometimes keeping it simple can be the best answer. The Chart Show is, should anyone have noticed, the UK's third longest running pop music show ever.

Later... With Jools Holland (1992 - ) I have a love/hate relationship with this show, being eternally frustrated by the average age of its acts appearing to be in their late 70s, and the eclecticism sometimes bordering on taking the piss. Also Jools Holland's perrenial insistence on playing along with acts has become ridiculous. But you can't argue with a show that's lasted for 25 consecutive years, and has showcased more live pop and rock acts on screen than any other show (if you allow for TOTP had mostly mime acts for the majority of its 42 years). And you can't argue with the format. 8 or so acts in one studio, with the maximum time being given to the music, and the minimum amount of time being given to Holland. Who, to his eternal credit, keeps it brief, and talks quicker than any other music presenter in TV history. If someone would nick the key to his piano lid, and forget to book the octogenarians and east European throat-singers, this show would be perfect pop TV.

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here.