Tony Blackburn
Top of the Pops ArchiveTony Blackburn is an English DJ and radio presenter, who is perhaps best known for presenting Top of the Pops, and shows on Radio 1 and Radio 2. He began his career as a radio presenter on pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s, before joining the BBC in 1967.
Blackburn was one of the longest serving presenters on Top of the Pops. Presenting the show from the 1960s, up until the early 1980s. He also returned as a guest co-host for numerous Top of the Pops specials, including the last weekly edition of the show in July 2006.
Statistics
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TOTAL APPEARANCES
More Information
Episode Appearances
Trivia
05/02/1970Maurice Kinn from NME (New Music Express) presents Tony Blackburn (on behalf of TOTP) with the 'best TV show' trophy. Maurice mentions that "for the 5th consecutive year, Top of the Pops has been voted the best TV show."
03/06/1976Tony Blackburn advises viewers about the upcoming Seaside Special airing on BBC1, on June 19th 1976.
28/10/1976Tony Blackburn wears a t-shirt reading “I hate 'Diddy' David Hamilton” during the show, and during the 2nd presenter link David 'Diddy' Hamilton makes a cameo appearance next to Tony wearing a t-shirt reading “I hate Tony Blackburn”.
28/10/1976Tony Blackburn reminds viewers of the competition to decide the name of the new “Top of the Pops dancers”, which would later be known as “Legs & Co.”
Christmas 1976 - Part 1Tony Blackburn makes a cameo appearance during Pans People's “Jungle Rock” routine.
27/10/1983After 144 episodes, Tony Blackburn presents TOTP regularly for the last time.
Presenter Statistics
By Decade
| 1960s | 0 / 146 |
| 1970s | 0 / 146 |
| 1980s | 0 / 146 |
| 2000s | 0 / 146 |
By Year
| 2006 | 0 / 146 |
| 1988 | 0 / 146 |
| 1983 | 0 / 146 |
| 1982 | 0 / 146 |
| 1981 | 0 / 146 |
| 1979 | 0 / 146 |
| 1978 | 0 / 146 |
| 1977 | 0 / 146 |
| 1976 | 0 / 146 |
| 1975 | 0 / 146 |
| 1974 | 0 / 146 |
| 1973 | 0 / 146 |
| 1972 | 0 / 146 |
| 1971 | 0 / 146 |
| 1970 | 0 / 146 |
| 1969 | 0 / 146 |
| 1967 | 0 / 146 |
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Archived Interview
This content was taken from the BBC's original TOTP2 website, which was archived and discontinued in 2007. The original content is no longer available, but the TOTP Archive has preserved it. Please note that the content may not be up-to-date and may not accurately reflect today's views and opinions.
Interview date: Circa 2003
Noddy Holder and Slade's 'Merry Christmas Everybody!'
Great fun - I thoroughly enjoyed every minute!
Yes, I fell in love with Petula Clark when she was on TOTP.
Not at the time, but watching old episodes now makes me embarrassed about some of the 70s clothes we wore!
Not really - it's really hard to hear the audience individually over the Floor Manager talking to you, and the general noise - far too hectic!
Arthur Mullard and Hylda Baker doing 'You're The One That I Want' - terrible!
Any punk rock band, especially the Sex Pistols!
I try and block Punk rock out of my mind, you know. I thought that was a horrible era and I didn’t like it, I just didn’t like anything that Sid Vicious stood for. I loved the flower power era because you had the bells and you were wearing flowers in your hair. The two eras I loved - the flower power era and the glam rock era.
Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder and Elton John.
If you find yourself utterly fascinating and funny, but fail to understand why anyone else on TV is regarded as remotely interesting, then you're probably the right sort of person to be a presenter! Seriously though, you need a lot of self confidence, but the key to presenting is being yourself and letting your own personality come through.
When I started on it in 1967 it was enormous. It was one of those shows you didn’t miss because it was tradition, it was like the Ten O’clock News - everybody watched it. I suppose it was one of the biggest shows on television, the ratings were enormous. After you’d done it, if you went out onto the streets the following day, it was one of the shows that everybody had seen.
It was the only music show. It reflected the charts, so you were seeing all the top acts. Every act wanted to be on, so you were seeing the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, everybody was on it, and it had that very hip image to it.
No! They all tend to roll into one. The strange thing about doing Top of the Pops is it was rather like being a bingo caller, you were calling out the numbers. One thing I remember about doing Top of the Pops, there was a certain fear in doing it because in those days it was all on videotape and if you made a mistake they had to cut the videotape and it was very, very expensive and that could cost you a re-booking. So the one thing you didn’t want to do was make a mistake.
It was very similar to doing a live show. There’s something very special about doing live television. I prefer that.
It made it impossible for me to go to the fish and chip shop. At the time it was so enormous. You went out on the street and you were instantly recognised. So the combination of Radio 1 and Top of the Pops made me into a national name which I will always be very grateful for. It’s stayed to this very day and the fact that you were a presenter on Top of the Pops is still very very special.
The dressing up, particularly around Christmas time, was all pre-planned. The problem with presenting TOTP was everybody wanted to get into the picture so you constantly had all these kids waving to their mums and dads. It was quite distracting because they weren’t aware you were there to do a job so right in the middle of a link, some arm would come in front of your face. That was the main thing in TOTP trying to stay in the picture yourself.
It was a great thing to be on them, because it was just before the Queen’s Speech. The Christmas Day was the best one to be on. I remember doing a show with Noel Edmonds, it was like he’d just come out of Sherwood Forest.
It’s history, it’s special, it’s TOTP. This country without TOTP wouldn’t be the same. We’ve got all these music channels now, we’ve got MTV and that’s great. There’s a big audience for that. But TOTP has the DJ introducing it and the top songs as well. With the music channels you have to wait a long time to get your favourite, but you know what’s going to happen on TOTP - you are going to get the No.1 song, you are going to get the chart rundown, so within half an hour you’ve just got the very Top of the Pops!