TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

In the new year the show was cut down to under half an hour to make way for popular, but terrible soap opera Crossroads, and also possibly to make the show more attractive to other ITV channels. Another possible attraction for the network was Sandy Sarjeant, the show's first cage dancer who arrived in March. She would now be the focus of attention now that Patrick Kerr had left the show. An excursion to France in April might have been used to encourage exports by Global TV, Rediffusion's international sales division. Although it's unlikely the show itself was sold abroad clips from the show were used to bulk out local pop shows in West Germany. The truth was that Rediffusion in London was the only ITV channel showing it at the appointed time of Friday evening, with viewers in the north and north-east seeing it nearly a week later on Thursdays. No other ITV channels would show it anymore. Putting a brave face on it a spokesman for Rediffusion told Disc magazine "Although only three areas are now taking the programme, it does not affect the possible viewing public by more than 20 per cent."

Discussing the idea that pop television had become stale Francis Hitching told Melody Maker in January 1966 "RSG is not unimaginative, because it is a live programme it gives more chance for artists to do something out of the ordinary, not bound by what's happening in the Pop Fifty or what the record companies decide what's best for them. It's a programme doing its best to recreate the best of what happens in a club. For example, we have had numbers that last six minutes which you never get on a single." When asked about the audience participation in the show he replied "Regarding audience participation you can do a show and put on artists in a dramatic way, with lights and scenery, presenting the artist visually with no other element. You can do that for a number of weeks, but the whole spectrum of these dramatic pop shows can't develop. On our show there are no sets and very little scenery, and week by week it changes, because the kids change. RSG now, compared to two years ago is unrecognisable."

Vicki Wickham pulled off something of a coup by booking James Brown for the 11th March 1966 show. Ahead of the transmission Rediffusion promoted the show by playing a 17 minute film of James Brown live in America to journalists at Television House in Kingsway. This possibly might haven been his TAMI Show appearance in 1964. Pete Townshend argued in Melody Maker "Why should James Brown have the whole show? Why didn’t they give him some supporting acts. The sound was atrocious it showed a great misunderstanding of sound. The camera work I liked, but they don’t seem to have much control over sound. They should wake up, because they will destroy pop. It’s a shame about James Brown, it's probably damaged his reputation. As usual the RSG audience performed like a lot of twits."

Even though the show had responded to the threat of Top Of The Pops by having the artists perform live, miming and lip-synching eventually made a return only to have the Musicians Union threaten to block the show if the lip-synching didn’t stop by 31st March 1966.

In Spring 1966 the show was on the move again. A Rediffusion spokesman talking to Record Mirror claimed "On March 25, the programme moves to the new time of 7-7.30 pm. This will give it a larger network." This actually meant returning the show to its very first time slot, back in the summer of 1963. Time slot placement for any show had always been a problem for the ITV network, resulting in the show not always being seen nationally, if at all, resulting in ITV's various stations showing the programme on different days, for example a Friday evening live show in 1966 would then be shown by Granada and Tyne Tees the following Thursday evening. The new time slot meant it had a better chance of being seen by the whole ITV network. The 25th March 1966 edition was the first 7:00 to 7:30 pm show to be fully networked at this time, replacing long-running quiz show Take Your Pick.

By this time the deal that ITV had with the Performing Rights Society meant that any songwriter who had a song performed on RSG or any other networked show would receive £50 per song, compared to £17 per song for the non-commercial BBC.

On 1st April 1966 the show was broadcast from La Locomotion club, Paris, featuring many names from the French chart. Among the local audience were a British couple "representing the best British dress and dance trends" according to Record Mirror, while Cathy McGowan had been taking French lessons especially for the show. A French technical crew were on hand as the usual UK crew were back home working on the general election coverage. After the broadcast the Yardbirds played a live show at La Locomotion.

Despite the noose of cancellation hanging over them the show's producers continue to strive to bring the best new talent to a wider audience. This often meant listening to all new releases sent to them by the record companies. Talking to Beat Instrumental in June 1966 Vicki Wickham claimed "There's an awful lot of listening in fact, between 60 and 70 new releases every week. Everyone involved with the programme gets together to decide which are the best and we spend the rest of the time including weekends putting the show together. We often listen to B sides too, so there are quite a few hours of playing time before we actually get down to the show. We get millions of pluggers coming along with piles of records but we always listen - you never know what might come up".

In order to continue to attract big names to the show several shows throughout 1966 were given over to special guests, performing live sets and introducing the other acts themselves. These included the Troggs, The Who, Otis Redding, The Walker Brothers and Ike & Tina Turner.

In June 1966 they show received a strange accolade as the German-Dutch magazine Musik Parade awards RSG their Golden Arrow as best TV show, despite the fact that only clips of the programme had been shown there.

RSG continued throughout 1966 including a re-launch as 'new style RSG' in June. The new set design looked like a vacated building site with scaffolding and ladders. There were also groups of lights with the show's and artist's names illuminated. However, some dancers were still allowed near the stage. Producer Francis Hitching told Record Mirror "The show made a name for itself in the early days by launching new faces. Then came a period when audiences were mostly interested in seeing the established faces. Now we seem to have reached a phase where there is less call for the standard beat and more interest in complicated and unusual backings. This is giving a chance to the young solo singers."

The Musicians Union imposed miming ban came into effect on 1st August 1966, but RSG were ahead of the game with many singers already performing live, albeit with pre-recorded backing tracks.

Mid-August 1966 saw the possibility of devoting an entire show to The Pop Crusade, a package of acts from the Green and Stone management stable from the USA featuring Bob Lind, Sonny & Cher, Buffalo Springfield and The Daily Flash. A camera crew was to film them from the airport into London. Despite the hype it never happened.

From the 9th September 1966 show RSG would now be pre-recorded on Tuesday. Despite a prestigious time slot the falling audiences meant that its days were numbered, and after re-scheduling by Rediffusion it was announced in early November that the show was to be cancelled with the final edition to be broadcast in December. Cathy McGowan's show contract ended on 30th November, so that also might have been used by Rediffusion as a reason to end it when it did.

However, no one had told Vicki Wickham. During the Ike & Tina Turner show, recorded late September, she told Penny Valentine of Disc Weekly "Despite rumours to the contrary 'RSG' will not fold at the end of the year. It has been scheduled for next year, so we are working on plans to turn it into a different sort of show, rounder. Not just one artist after the next." Referring to the live show that had just finished she said "We're going to concentrate on these sort of shows when the artists are good enough. Giving over the entire second half to them. This is the coming thing as far as we're concerned - it's the obvious way for the show to progress." When the penny dropped that the show was not returning Vicki Wickham, talking to Record Mirror's Tony Hall said "All the excitement's gone. It's just not happening the way it used to."

The producers weren't exactly making themselves popular either when on the 28th October 1966 they decided to give The Dave Clark Five top billing over The Hollies, leading to a walk out by The Hollies. Talking to the New Musical Express in late October Manfred Mann told them "We don't want to offend anyone, but that business with Dave Clark topping The Hollies really got me. I don't wonder why The Hollies walked out... Knowing how aware the RSG team is, I just can't understand how it arrived at this decision."

Stars could bitch about the show in public, but the show had its own backstage secrets, like legendary guitarist Vic Flick from The John Barry Seven, who played on practically every show since the orchestra was introduced. Flick had played the guitar on The James Bond Theme, the Juke Box Jury theme among others.

Rediffusion were keen to keep Cathy McGowan happy by giving her a new show, but despite offers it never materialised. Talking to Disc Weekly about the upcoming demise of RSG she claimed "I'm not really sorry RSG is ending. It is the end of a way of life. It is better to end this way rather than just run down." From a business standpoint McGowan shouldn't have been bothered by the show's demise. By this time she was promoting her line of Dansette record players and had her own cosmetics line which was to be sold in Macy's and Gimbel's stores in the USA, as well as other advertising opportunities during the show's run.

By late-1966 music was fragmenting in Britain. The Who, the Yardbirds and The Animals were no longer covering R&B and blues songs, they were either writing their own songs or covering contemporary folk-song writers. The truth was that The Beatles had stopped coming to the show, but would happily appear on Top Of The Pops, and if the show had continued into 1967 the Stones would stop coming too, and then the Yardbirds, and then The Who and on and on. It had to stop. The party was over. However, the show left us a parting gift, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream and Marc Bolan all made notable appearance on the last few shows. The final show saw many RSG favourites playing medleys or shortened versions of their hits in an attempt to get as many acts on as possible.

Even though the TV show was over Ready Steady Radio continued on Sundays until the end of January 1967, while about the same time Elkan Allan was spilling the beans about the show in a series of articles for The People. In the summer months of 1967 Vicki Wickham became producer for a series of Sunday evening shows at The Saville Theatre in London before taking a job at EMI Records, working at Major Minor Records, and running the indie label Toast Records in 1968. By the early seventies she was in New York managing Patti LaBelle / LaBelle and writing for Melody Maker in 1972 as their New York correspondent. She would become a regular feature of pop archive shows and documentaries throughout the 2000's, and in 2014 conducted one of the last interviews given by George Michael. Polly Perkins had a brief singing career in 1968 with Smith - Bown & Polly Perkins. Cathy MacGowan faded from view, only occasionally popping up, notably hosting one edition of Supersonic in 1975. She later became a showbiz interviewer on BBC1's London early evening news show in the late 1980s, but then took to retirement, choosing not to participate in any of the RSG documentaries on Channel 4 or the BBC.

As the show was finishing Rediffusion's in-house magazine 'Fusion' summed it up, "It was the first pop programme to show teenagers as they really were, acne and all."

When the idea of a new Friday night pop show for Channel 4 was suggested in 1982 Tyne-Tees TV's Malcolm Gerrie was contacted for ideas. Gerrie had been a fan of Ready Steady Go and Channel 4's chief executive Jeremy Isaacs who, when working at Rediffusion in London, had to regularly fight through the RSG crowd every week just to get into the building, so was well aware of the attraction and impact a show like that could have. When making up his first Channel 4 schedule Isaacs included a Friday night slot for such a show. The Tube was the only successor that came close to RSG's legend.

The famous catch-phrase was later re-used by London Weekend Television to announce their opening line-up of programmes in 1968 and in 2019 was being used by BT Sport. From the mid to late seventies The Old Grey Whistle Test played clips of the show, as did Yorkshire's Pop Quest and ATV's Revolver. Seeing this apparent surge of interest in the show Dave Clark made enquiries to Global TV (Rediffusion's international sales company) and bought the few remaining films and a few other pop specials and began to release edited compilations through home video. The Tube's home Channel 4 TV in Britain showed similar compilations in the mid eighties and in late 1989 through the Disney Channel in America. A second series of seven shows were planned for the summer of 1986 in the UK but RSG didn't materialise again until 1993. The sale of surviving shows and clips to BMG in 2016 gaves hope that a new initiative to find remaining clips would result in more being shown. A four-disc DVD set from Kaleidoscope in 2023 included all known clips from official sources, barring The Beatles' musical appearances. In March 2020 BBC4 gave over two hours to a superb new documentary and compilation show. Both shows involved Malcolm Gerrie, Geoff Wonfor, Jools Holland and Chris Cowey, all familiar names and faces from The Tube. Sadly, no compilation will ever cover the fact that the vast majority of the shows were not kept, and the majority of the paperwork proving guest appearances etc were also trashed when Rediffusion lost its contract in 1968. Thankfully, photographic evidence from Getty Images and Alamy's websites give us a glimpse of what it could have been like. Privately made audio recordings uploaded to You Tube also offer further evidence.

In autumn 2020 the book Ready, Steady, Go! The Weekend Starts Here: The Definitive Story of the Show That Changed Pop TV by Andy Neill, told the full story and is thoroughly recommended.

The show would be best remembered for breaking new acts like The Animals, Them, Lulu, The Who, The Rolling Stones, among others, and was without a doubt the most important and influential British pop music show of all time.

READY, STEADY, GO! / READY, STEADY GOES LIVE

1966