Zapsmart: Music on TV and Radio today

In what might be a regular Christmas week feature, if I can be arsed, some of the musical highlights from across radio and TV today:

2.30 Sky Arts 1 Donovan
"A definitve life of the troubled troubadour" it says here. Hopefully the programme will be slightly better constructed.

3.00 Radio 2 Dermot O'Leary
Dermot's "choir of angels" is promised - "three indie female stars", according to the Radio Times. I'm not betting this is going to be Frischmann/Wener/Madan.

4.50 Watch Top Of The Pops
It says "Christmas 2007", but it's presented by Steve Wright and features Roy Wood, so has the stench of being a Top Of The Pops 2 Christmas special. Mind you, who'd want to see the number one from Christmas 2007 anyway?

6.00 Sky Arts 1 Songbook - Midge Ure
Billed as the "man who co-organised Live Aid", which seems a curious way to try and interest people in his songwriting skills. Like pushing a biography of Churchill on the strength of his wall building.

6.30 ITV Take That: The Circus Live
Trying to plug the X Factor gap, ITV fling out the circus-themed That gig from last summer. Note to Gary Barlow: nothing is improved by adding jugglers.

8.00 ITV Stars On The Street
We've barely cracked open the Radio Times double issue before ITV give it up for the holidays. This is an hour's worth of people famous elsewhere turning up in Corrie, which means we'll get the awful Status Quo cameos, and the puzzling time Noddy Holder appeared in the 40th anniversary live special to bellow "it's Chriiiiistmas" even although he was (a) playing a delivery man and (b) it was actually the start of December. Keith Duffy is going to be featured, too, although since he was regular post-Boyzone, does he actually count?

8.00 ITV2 Take That: Backstage At The Circus
You would not believe what's going on backstage... - ITV2 continues to provide a stalker's edit for the senior channel.

9.00 ITV2 The Xtra Factor: Winner's story
It says here that "Holly Willoughby catches up with this year's winner" to find out what he's been up to. In the last seven days. Which has been in all the papers.

9.55 BBC3 Move Like Michael Jackson
Lie very, very, still indeed

10.00 Radio 2 Even Better Than The Real Thing
Noddy Holder pays tribute to those pisspoor covers albums that ruined many a Christmas morning in the pre-Now That's What I Call Music era. The prepublicity is making much of Tina Charles having helped record the knock-off versions, but not a word that Elton John used to pop up on them before he was able to afford fresh flowers every day. Perhaps they're holding that back as the surprise.

10.05 C4 Wife Swap
Having decided that Wife Swap has run out of steam, Channel 4 have decided to, erm, spend the entire bloody evening running episodes of Wife Swap. This episode brings together Sam Fox and Freddie Starr. Fox famously became a successful pop star overseas after it started getting too chilly to be taking her top off all the time; Starr was in a band managed by Brian Epstein. They even had a single produced by Joe Meek. We very nearly were spared thirty years of a man dressing up as Hitler in order to try and make Des O'Connor laugh.

10.20 Sky Arts 1 Thin Lizzy Live And Dangerous
More of a danger to themselves, as it turned out, but given this was filmed in 1978, at least it's one programme featuring Phil Lynott that won't mention Leslie Crowther.

10.40 BBC HD A Little Later
As befits a programme lobbed on to stop the schedule falling to pieces, Radio Times don't bother to tell you who's on. Good luck, HD viewers.

12.15am C4 Live From Abbey Road
There's Michael Buble, so plenty of opportunity to visit the bathroom between the mighty Little Boots and the Temper Trap.

1.00am BBC4 The Roxy Music Story
Or you could watch Velvet Goldmine.

1.00 6Music BBC Introducing...
Sweet Baboo