The Chart Show

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The Chart Show

The Chart Show Logo 1996-1998
Format Music
Created by Keith MacMillan

Philip Davey
Country of origin UK
Production
Executive
producer(s)		 Keith MacMillan

Gail Screene
Running time 60 min (1988-1998)

45 min (1986-1987) 2x30 min (1987-1988)
Broadcast
Original channel Channel 4 (1986-1988)

ITV (1989-1998)
Picture format 576i 4:3
Original run April 11, 1986 – August 22, 1998
External links
IMDb profile

The Chart Show (also known as the ITV Chart Show) was an hour-long music video programme which ran in the UK on Channel 4 between 1986 and 1988, then on ITV between 1989 and 1998. The production company was Video Visuals, and (when shown on ITV) was credited as "A Yorkshire Television Presentation" from 1993-98 (prior to this, no ITV Franchisee's logo was shown at the end).

Contents

[edit] History

When it started, the show was unique in that it had no presenters; computer-generated displays took their place. The "pop-up" information snippets were represented as "windows" in a mock-up graphical user interface called HUD, which also featured a "mouse-pointer" and "icons" generated on an Amiga computer. Although commonplace nowadays, such interfaces were relatively cutting-edge at the time. Graphics mimicking those of a video recorder in operation were also used.

The show was considered quite important when it first launched, being one of the few outlets for music videos on British television, in the days before the widespread takeup of satellite and cable television, and channels such as MTV Europe. Many music videos got their UK Television premieres during The Chart Show.

Shortly after launching, The Chart Show found itself being taken off air during a dispute with the Musicians' Union over the showing of music videos on ITV & Channel 4 which lasted throughout the summer of 1986. During this time, a show called Rewind, made by the same production team, was aired. This consisted of performances from other music shows. The dispute was resolved by the end of the summer, and The Chart Show returned at the end of August.

On Channel 4, the show ran on Friday nights, mainly filling gaps between series of The Tube. After moving to ITV it ran on Saturday mornings and also had a late night repeat in some ITV regions, though the day and time of this varied over time and between regions. The show became regular after the axing of The Tube in 1987, with five editions in July of that year going out as 60 minute long "Summer Specials" - the last regular edition to air on Channel 4 was on September 30, 1988. The final episode on Channel 4 was a Review of 1988 special on January 2, 1989; the first edition on ITV aired 5 days later. The show was renamed "The ITV Chart Show" that September after ITV launched its new corporate identity. The name reverted to The Chart Show in 1994.

Earlier Channel 4 editions were 45 minutes long, and later ones were 60 minutes, but were split into two 30 minute segments before moving to the 60 minute format in 1988. However, some later editions were shortened due to ITV buying rights to Formula 1 motor racing in 1997.

The last edition was shown on 22 August 1998, after being axed in favour of a live, performance based show, CD:UK, which began the following week. The show featured various messages from viewers saying goodbye to the show and how upset they were that the show was finishing.

The first (and also the last) video to be shown was "Addicted to Love" by Robert Palmer. On the final show, this was broadcast with the original graphics, albeit taken from the 4th episode, rather than the first, as revealed by the date shown in the H.U.D.

In the show's later days, the programme was broadcast "live", with all the elements of the show programmed into a computer and laid back to tape, the song title graphics and info banners being added live as the show was broadcast. This fact was played up over the first few months of the show being made this way, with a "Live" graphic appearing at the beginning of each part, in addition to the interactive Battle of the Bands segment. Both of these were dropped after a minor revamp in 1997, although live phone-in competitions continued to appear occasionally until the end of the show's run.

For two weeks in January 2003, The Chart Show returned to Channel 4 in 30 minute segments in the morning, although these followed a different format, with a voiceover and absent of the faux-VCR graphics that the show was well known for.

[edit] A Different Chart

Confusion often arose from the chart used on the show, as they initially used the chart compiled by MRIB (which was used at the time by commercial radio, and was adopted by NME in 1988) and later on compiled their own chart, as opposed to using the "official" Gallup/CIN chart used by BBC Radio 1, which in addition to the show's initial Friday and later Saturday airdate (therefore not taking account of the full week's sales) meant that the chart shown was different, sometimes slightly, other times more significantly, from that broadcast by Radio 1. Indeed, there were many occasions when the single shown to be Number One by The Chart Show differed from the official number one.

[edit] No Videos

There were many cases throughout the show of songs featuring in the charts not having a music video to accompany them. In most cases, these were songs in the specialist charts, and the problem was got around by showing a photo of the artist over a short excerpt from the song. In the early days there were some very notable exceptions, the most notable being Ride On Time by Black Box. The music video wasn't completed for several months after the song was released. However, the song was number one for six weeks, so a performance that was filmed for then Saturday morning show Ghost Train was shown, which had Catherine Quinol and an unknown organist performing on a stage. In the later years of the show they had many various computer generated sequences to accompany the audio clip. These included onscreen games of pong, close ups of turntables playing, cars being crushed, silhouettes of people dancing, lava lamps and many others.

Another notable example was Music Sounds Better With You by Stardust. This was number one on the August 15, 1998 show (though it only reached number 2 on the official singles charts) and, much like with Black Box, the music video wasn't completed until several months later. This time, a montage of past graphics from the show was put together, partially in response to viewer requests to see old graphics before the final episode. Though it would have been fitting for this to have been shown on the final episode the following week, the song had been knocked off the top spot, and only a short excerpt was shown.

In 1997, The Verve had refused to allow the Chart Show to show the video for their single Lucky Man. When the song was mentioned in the top ten and in the indie chart, a message was shown on the screen explaining that they refused to let the video appear on the show, unless the ITV Chart Show logo was changed. When the song stayed at Number 1, the message said: "Okay everybody... No change from last week. The band and their manager Jazz are still refusing to let us show their video unless we redesign the show for them. In the words of Vanilla... 'No way, no way, Ma Numma Nah.'" Accompanying this was the music that had been used to introduce the 'Worst Video' on the end of year specials.

One other example is Zero by The Smashing Pumpkins. The video for Tonight, Tonight was shown in its place, but with Zero playing.

[edit] Sponsorship

The show had three sponsors over the span of its life. These were Pepe Jeans during 1992, Twix between 1993 and 1996 and Tizer for a few months in 1997 (The latter also sponsored The Chart Show's replacement, CD:UK, for several years). Notably the sponsorship was incorporated into the show's titles, which was unusual as most sponsorship messages on UK television are shown as short clips wrapped around, rather than part of, the show in question. This proved irritating to some viewers when Tizer became the new sponsor, as stings were played at random moments (i.e. towards the end of the shows titles) interrupting the show deliberately. These stings caused criticism and were soon dropped so the show could run clean.

[edit] Vault Repeats

Satellite channel The Vault began repeating 1991-92 and 1996-97 episodes from December 2006. There were plans for the other episodes to be converted, as they were stored on video formats that couldn't be used. However, the showings were axed in July 2007 due to low viewing figures, and the 1993-95 episodes were ultimately never converted. In March 2008, The Vault brought back repeats of the show by popular demand, but these were axed again the following month, only showing four episodes in the run. It is rumoured that this axing was due to transmission problems that were too much for The Vault to cope with, such as picture and sound problems. There were reports of one episode consisting of the first part being shown four times.

A forum admin on The Vault's website informed a user that the channel is currently going under scheduling changes, and that The Chart Show will be back on The Vault soon.

[edit] Show Features

[edit] Exclusives/New Releases

These were nearly released songs that were played at various points in the show, mainly at the beginning and before the 'Top Ten'. Various graphics were used to denote that the video was an "exclusive" showing throughout the series. Very occasionally a video was promoted as "World Exclusive". Usually, there was only one animation, with several colour schemes though between 1989-1991 there were 3 such animations (again, each with different colour schemes) and between 1996-1997 the word "Exclusive" appeared at the top of the screen, animating on in several different ways (although always in the same size & font- although, again, with different colours). The emphasis on videos being "exclusive" was kept throughout the entire run of the series.

[edit] Star Chart

A short lived feature introduced to the show upon its move to ITV in 1989. Each week, there was a different star sign and songs were shown by different artists who were born under that particular sign. This feature was dropped as part of a revamp in September 1989. Notably, the Star Chart still appeared on the "Next Week" caption shown at the end of every episode until the graphics were revamped in December 1991, despite the fact the feature hadn't appeared on the show for over 2 years by this point.

[edit] The Chart News

Introduced to the show in September 1989, one of the regular subdivisions of The Chart Show was 'The Chart News' where new single releases that had not yet reached the Top Ten in the singles chart would be played, including some that had not yet even been released. Originally the only categories were Chart Breaker (new entries to the top 40) and Highclimber, until September 1989 these were shown before the Top Ten. With the May 1996 relaunch, new categories were introduced- New Entry, Newsflash and Scoop. Video & Back Chat were also seen in the animations, but were very rarely used to introduce videos.

[edit] Interviews

In 1996, a new feature, star interviews, were introduced during The Chart News section of the show. These consisted of interviews with various artists, talking against a backdrop of their past or current music videos. In keeping with the presenter-less format of the show, there was no interviewer seen during this section.

[edit] Battle Of The Bands

For a while a section called 'Battle Of The Bands' was shown. It was supposed to be a competition to see which band the viewers thought was the best. At the end of the show, it revealed which band won (and played a recent song performed by that band). Usually there was some sort of theme between the two artists up for voting such as being rival bands or relating to a recent or upcoming chart battle. In 1996 and 1997 there was an F.A. Cup Final battle of the bands, with the official songs of the teams being up for vote- Liverpool won in 1996, Chelsea won in 1997.

[edit] The Chart Show Competition

After a while, the Battle of The Bands was replaced by 'The Chart Show Competition' where the viewers had to answer a question associating with a pop star (in which a video by that pop star would be playing at the time) and they could prizes such as albums or clothing signed by various artists. What form these competitions took changed between shows- some weeks they would be a live phone-in with the winner announced at the end of the show, other weeks it would be a write-in competition.

[edit] Video Vault

A video of a song that was at least a few years old would be shown in the middle section of each episode of the show. This was nearly always a Top 10 hit, and the original title for this section of the programme was 'Vintage Video', signalling that virtually all of the featured videos were from the early days of music video production in the mid-to-late 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s, predating the origins of The Chart Show. However, it was renamed 'Video Vault' with the December 1991 revamp. This segment was introduced in September 1989, prior to this other slots such as Star Chart and Back To Back were used to show older videos. Towards the end of the shows run, it was possible to email in to request songs to be played, and requests were sometimes shown on screen.

[edit] Hot Shot

This was a forthcoming release which was being tipped for success. Between 1996 and 1998, though it had appeared to have been renamed "Shot", the 'S' in shot was flashing used in Red Helvetica Font, indicating that it was still called "Hot Shot".

[edit] Back to Back

In early years, another regular feature on the middle section of each programme involved the playing of three different hit singles by one musical artist in a row. This feature was known as 'Back to Back'. In some weeks, "showreel" would be shown instead- this followed virtually the same format, but was 3 videos by the same director(s).

[edit] End to End

In every episode of the original show, just one video was played in its entirety from beginning to end with no cut-off point towards the end. This feature was known as 'End to End'. Which song was rewarded with this preferential treatment was entirely at the programme makers' discretion and did not follow any clear pattern.

Back to Back was dropped upon the show's move to ITV. End to End survived the move, but very rarely appeared, it had been dropped entirely by the early-1990s.

[edit] Rough Cut

On some shows, an early pre-release working version of a future video was shown at some point, usually in the 'Next Week' section. This feature was known as 'Rough Cut'. Rough Cuts were also occasionally seen on some of the end of year specials, during the previews for the following year.

[edit] The Four Charts & The Top Ten

Although there would be many charts in the 2002 'Chart Show TV', during the editions that were aired between the inception of the programme in 1986 and 1998 there were only five charts, one of which was an album chart, the other a singles chart; and three of which were charts of singles in specialised music genres, only one of the three of which was featured in the middle section of each episode, on an alternating basis. Until September 1989, the specialist chart was shown during the first part after the first song, afterwards it was shown after the first song in the second part of the show, in 1997 it moved back to its pre-September 1989 spot. During the editions that were shortened to make way for Formula 1 coverage, no specialist chart was shown.

From April-September 1986 there was a Reggae Chart which counted down the reggae singles in a specialist chart but this was dropped after September 1986.

Also in 1986 there was also a Music Video Chart which counted down the current music videos you could buy in the shops.

[edit] Indie Chart

This chart showed the top 10 indie singles of the week. Though the ident for this chart varied over the years, the background music that was played was generally 'Indie'. With the earlier formats of the show, it was referred to as 'Indie Singles'.

[edit] Dance Chart

This chart showed the top 10 dance singles of the week. Though the ident for this chart varied over the years, the background music that was played was generally 'Dance'. This was the specialist chart to be shown on the last ever episode of 'The Chart Show' as well as on the first ITV edition in 1989.

[edit] Rock Chart

This chart showed the top 10 rock singles of the week. Though the ident for this chart varied over the years, the background music that was played was generally 'Rock'. This chart was originally called the 'Heavy Metal' chart before the show was moved to ITV.

[edit] Album Chart

This chart showed the top 10 albums of the week, but was rarely shown in the specialist chart section. When it did appear there were several videos from artists or groups selected from the top ten that week as well as the artist or group at number one. The "Network Album Chart" was shown as a specialist chart during The Chart Show's period on Channel 4. However, it existed mainly in the Chart File Update section including when the programme moved to ITV, but disappeared completely from September 1989 when the Chart File Update section was dropped.

[edit] Top Ten

This was the overall singles chart that was shown near the end of every episode following the second commercial break. Initially known as "The Network Chart", being the name used for the MRIB Chart the show used, that name was dropped when the show began compiling their own chart. It began with a note saying (ironically) 'The fastest chart on television', referring to the fact that the chart was up to date at the time of broadcast, being compiled either the previous day, or the same day as opposed to Top of The Pops whose chart was several days old by the time it was broadcast. All new entries, the Number One single, and any climbers that had not been played in the previous week tended to be played in full, while brief clips only were shown of the remaining songs. This was essentially the same system used for the specialist chart run-downs in the middle section of the show.

[edit] Chart Presentations

In each chart that was shown in an episode, there would be a few songs in that chart which would be played at a longer length. Songs under this category would be: new entries, some of the climbers and the number one singles of the chart, non-movers were also occasionally played. There were three ways in which they were presented:

From 1986-1989, all the top ten songs in the charts would be shown briefly. After reaching the No.1 single, (except for the top ten chart, which would stop at No.2) the chart would be stopped and rewound to the first song that was to be played in full. When that song was finished, the chart was fast-forwarded (and sometimes rewound) to the next song to be played in full.

From 1989 - 1997, the songs in the chart would be shown briefly. When it reached the first song that was to be played in full the 'Play' graphic would appear immediately. Although the 'F FWD' graphic was still used, it was only to fast forward after the pop up boxes explaining some facts about the song had disappeared, before moving onto the next song.

From 1997-1998, the 'Play' graphic was dropped and every song was fast forwarded whether played in short or full.

The No. 1 single of the specialist charts would not always be played for a one of these reasons:

  • The single had no video
  • The content in it was inappropriate
  • The single was also No. 1 of the Top Ten

[edit] Chart File Update

Whilst one of the specialist charts would be featured prominently, the top ten singles of the other charts would be shown briefly in this section of the show. This section was shown throughout the shows run on Channel 4 and for the first few months on ITV. It was last shown on the August 26, 1989 edition.

[edit] Next Week

At the very end of the show, after the Number One single of the week was played, was a section called 'Next Week', featuring brief previews of songs which were coming up in the next week's show, often with one of them being played almost in its entirety with the closing credits. From 1996, the ident would be presented in the same manner as one of the subsections of 'The Chart News' though was never treated as part of 'The Chart News'.

[edit] Chart Show Awards

Each year (with the exception of 1994) The Chart Show would have an end-of-year edition that would feature the best selling songs of the year both in the overall singles chart and in the three specialist charts. Also in this edition The Chart Show would also award the Best and Worst videos of the year, along with best new acts.

These are some of the winners:

[edit] Best New Act

[edit] Best Solo Artist

[edit] Best Video Of The Year

[edit] Best Foreign Video

[edit] Best Band

  • 1997 - Texas - Say What You Want

[edit] Best Director

[edit] Worst Video of The Year

[edit] Funniest Video of the Year

[edit] Dance Chart

[edit] Indie Chart

[edit] Heavy Metal/Rock Chart

[edit] The Top Ten

[edit] See also