Picture it, October 1987, I was 11 years old. My mum, dad, me and my two brothers had been abroad to Spain for the first time as a family and had a great time in Benidorm. We returned to a cold,  wet, hurricane recovering England on a Thursday afternoon and all I wanted to do was watch Top of The Pops when I got home. Now at this time we never recorded anything, mainly because the timer recorder was so complicated on out giant VCR so I had already missed two weeks worth of episodes and as a child that was a VERY big deal!

Top of the Pops (TOTP) to me was event TV.  I loved music, I still do in fact. So a TV show every week that showcased all the new music around (in the UK top 30 anyway) was a big deal and from around that time I made sure that I never missed it again and for the next 15 years or so I never did!

Now its 2011 and i'm a little bit older,  TOTP has been off air for seven years after being shifted to BBC2 on a Sunday afternoon and pretty much ruined by Ferne Cotton and Reggie Yates, but watching repeats of the show on BBC Four has made me realise not only how I still miss the show but also that there really isn't anything like it on TV anymore.

There were obvious reasons why TOTP was cancelled. At the time record sales were at an all time low with many acts selling less then 25,000 copies to get a number one song but things have changed a lot in the digital age...

Nowadays, lots of music acts pop up on talk shows like Graham Norton and Alan Carr, but mostly that's one act doing one song. After being seen on TV though, even being heard in the background of the knicker factory in Corrie,  songs fly up the charts on itunes. Every autumn the UK Top 40 has what is called the X Factor effect when the chart is full of songs that have been performed on the show usually ending with the coveted Christmas Number One spot being the song released by the shows winner.

When this happens, sales are huge. Most X factor winning songs sell 500, 000 copies and one winning song by Alexandra Burke sold over 1 million!

I have opinions about the X Factor that I won't get into here, but one thing it does highlight is the impact that TV does have on the charts now in the age of downloading and instant sales.

Imagine what a prime time TV showcasing new music show would do now? TOTP was a great way of getting new acts on TV. Now for an act it is much harder without some huge marketing campaigns that cost money which 99.9999% of up and coming bands and singers do not have.

Anyway, that's my opinion. Do you agree or disagree?