The Chart Show
| The Chart Show | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Keith MacMillan Philip Davey |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Keith MacMillan Gail Screene |
| Release | |
| Original network |
Channel 4 (11 April 1986 – 2 January 1989) ITV (7 January 1989 – 22 August 1998) Channel 4 (6 January 2003 – 17 January 2003) Chart Show TV (6 August 2008 - May 2009) |
| Original release | 11 April 1986 – May 2009 |
The Chart Show (also known as the ITV Chart Show) is a music video programme which ran in the United Kingdom 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 and 1998 (prior to this, no ITV Franchisee's logo was shown at the end). The show has lived on through a Channel 4 revival in 2003 and a more recent revival on the digital music channel Chart Show TV, which ran sporadically from 2008 and 2009.
The show was designed to compete with established pop shows such as the BBC's Top of the Pops and was influenced by the video formats of MTV. The show was unique in that it had no presenters, instead computer-generated displays took their place in between promotional videos of artists.
The "pop-up" information snippets were represented as "windows" in a mock-up graphical user interface called HUD. In 1987 this was replaced with the more familiar display which featured a "mouse-pointer" and "icons" generated on an Amiga computer. Although commonplace nowadays, such interfaces were relatively cutting-edge at the time. The look of the icons was updated on the move to ITV in January 1989, and again upon the show's relaunch on 7 December 1991 as part of a competition prize from Amiga Computing magazine. However, this update only lasted one show and the previous 1989 icons returned the following week and lasted until May 1996 when the show's look and production was completely overhauled and was replaced with an animated text banner at the bottom of the screen. (Over the years but mainly from February 1996, info boxes developed informal humour and [from the same date] used the word: EXCLUSIVE!)
Graphics mimicking those of a video recorder in operation were also used, and are one of the show's most well remembered features.
The show was very important when it was 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.
...
Wikipedia