SWEARING ON THE TELEVISION

Some top swearing fun contained in the latestOfcom complaints bulletins, both terrible accidents.

First up, the Performance channel was in such a hurry to get a Dr John documentary on the air it made the fatal mistake of sticking it out without watching it first.

So, a stream of shits, fucks "and 'derivatives'" went out at lunchtime. Performance have form for this sort of thing, but even so seem to have got away with a wagging finger and a warning to be more careful.

Meanwhile, Men and Motors managed to soundtrack a 4.30pm competition with a nigga, shit and fuck-filled backing track. (Someone - we suspect Andi Peters once played the 'what the fuck was that' version of EMF's Unbelievable during the broom cupboard part of Children's BBC.) It was all a terrible mistake, blustered ITV, and so Ofcom are happy to draw a line under the affair.

music ofcom doctor john men and motors itv

WHY PETERS HAD TO GO

We know, we know, Andi Peters left TOTP through his own decision.

But we've only just noticed (we didn't watch it this week, we were leaping between the news networks for the whole weekend) that Hayseed Dixie were on again. Again.

Michael Grade, don't waste time having an investigation into a few jokes by John Humphrys. This is the sort of thing the governors should be stamping down on.

music andi peters totp top of the pops tv hayseed dixie

RIGHTO, SOMEONE TIDY UP AFTER ME

Having turned up with a brief to restore it to its former glories, and left it a screwed-up mess tucked away in the gloom of a Sunday night on BBC TWO, Andi Peters has quit Top of the Pops. Apparently, his decision to quit has nothing to do with the disaster that his stewardship of the programme turned out to be, and everything to do with wanting to retunr to presenting. Yes, some sort of daytime hospital thing. That would be a major step upwards.

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KASH BACK: You've got to give Andi Peters some respect for keeping going with Tim Kash for so long, despite it being obvious that he's unpopular, inept and has the sort of on-screen personality which makes Richard Whiteley look like Kenneth Clarke. However, even a mule must sometimes yield, and Tim Kash is leaving TOTP - not being sacked, you understand, just he can no longer spare the time what with all his MTV commitments (yes, those several hundred viewers won't entertain themselves). Fearne Cotton now gets first pick of the audience.

THE NEW FACE OF THE POPS: Meet Tim Kash, the new face of Top of the Pops:



Now, we've never seen Tim doing his thing on MTV, so we don't know if he's really the music-soused, confident presenter that Andi Peters is telling us he is. We're not so sure he's that clued up, though - "Like most of us, I grew up watching the show, but more importantly it's an institution, having broken so many bands over the years." Does he mean 'broken' in the sense of given first exposure to? But that's not TOTP's role or, indeed, schtick, which is why the name of the show suggests you're going to already see bands at the Top of the, um, Pops. Maybe he means that it's ruined bands careers?

Of course, now he's in charge and there's nothing we can do about it. But who is this shadowy new figure, then? A former presenter of MP3TV, for a start. Nope, us neither. He filled this survey out when he was doing that job [Warning: Not office safe, assuming your office doesn't tolerate wan wackiness]:

First Job: Now I've really got to think. I don't get to do this much (just read and smile - that's what they told me when I got this job). 've done some strange things for money before - not sure if you can call them jobs though. When I left school about two years ago, I took that well-needed time-out to figure out what I really wanted to dedicate myself to. It was a close toss-up from becoming an astronaut, a footballer, an Alaskan crab fisherman or an international playboy.
As you can see, I picked the next best thing - presenting. Can't see the connection? Three words for you - 'Tim's Master Plan'. It's just the beginning.
Why NOW: Because it's better than THEN.
Future: If you're asking what's next for me, then I couldn't possibly tell you. But, if you want to know what I intend to do in the next five years, then that's another story altogether.
Let's just say that by 30, I want to have had an international best-selling autobiography. Why? Because if I have that, then the next 10 years of my life will be worth writing about. Welcome to my world.

Hmmm. Our hand is already hovering over the 'bring back Gail Porter' button on our desk...

IN GOD'S NAME, WHY?: Isn't having Victoria Beckham in to "relaunch" Top of the Pops like kicking of an overhaul of Match of the Day with something from the Conference? "It is not known if Victoria will be singing or presenting", apparently, although we're not sure what would be most horrific.

We're still not entirely sure how Andi Peters is going to be able to square his job being in charge of TOTP - and as such, a signed up believer that the BBC Top 40 is the only chart that counts - with his presenting slot on Capital, which uses a totally different chart. Isn't this going to cause him difficulty of a 'conflict' nature?

TOP OF THE POPS... WITH CRAZYLEGS CRANE: There had been a sense of anticipation when Andi Peters took control of Top of the Pops, and announced his revamp. Now he's had a meeting with BPI to give them a sneak preview of his plans and anticipation has got red hot. Anticipating the show is going to go the way of This Is Your Life, that is. We're guessing that when he looked in the ideas cupboard, Peters found it was empty and so he scraped some up from other shows. So, while we applaud the axing of the Star Bar, we can only roll our eyes at the other innovations:

More backstage footage - because who wants to see your favourite band performing, when you could see them standing around looking bored in a corridor?

New presenters - blonde? can'thardly string twowors teggever? Your time is now

A new logo - Yes, that'll bring the audiences back from Corrie

and, best of all... a new name:

The All-New Top of the Pops.

Like The All New Flintstones, or the new Leave It to Beaver. We wish we were joking. We really wish we were.

THE HOARY YAWNFLAKE (dyswwdt?): Taking advice from Three Counties Radio's third-biggest star might not be one of major priorities of Andi Peter's TOTP review, but just in case - and because these things drop off the page eventually, we'll fillet this from Media Monkey:

"Speaking on Christian O'Connell's Xfm breakfast show ex-BBC Radio 1 DJ Dave Lee Travis had some sage advice for Andi Peters as he takes over the helm at Top of the Pops: 'Remember, it's rock and roll, mate'. The hairy cornflake said: '[TOTP] has been over for the last eight or nine years...in those days it was fun. Radio and TV has to be fun and nowadays people take it all too seriously. It's not brain surgery, it's rock and roll mate...we had Legs and Co in our day, but now every female has to have her stomach showing and their arses hanging out and it devalues it, you need a little bit of this and a little bit of that.' Ah get off the fence would ya, DLT."

DUCK Andi Peters, the former human half of a double act with Edd the Duck, is seizing control of Top of the Pops by rejoining the BBC to become Executive Producer (Popular Music), parachuting him into the chair at the top of Ver Pop's table. Chris Cowey, meanwhile, the man credited with "saving" the show by constantly fiddling with the format and diluting it with every new trick, has decided strangely simultaneously to leave the BBC. Lets hope he takes the Star Bar with him.

Peters' remit at the BBC seems to be to be in charge of "tunes the young people might like" and at least he hassome links with TOTP - he presented it a few times when the show was being harried along the route of "if it's for children, let's have children's presenters on it." And Peters' T4 has shown a commitment to music beyond the bleeding obvious. But we're concerned that 'popular music' (covering Glastonbury and Later with Jools as well) is being seen as synomous with teenagers, and we're also a little bit dubious how the Executive Producer of TOTP is going to be allowed to continue co-presenting the Hit Music Sunday Show on Capital, a show that's based on a totally different chart to the one used by the BBC. Is it possible for a man to believe that The Only Chart That Counts varies depending on which day of the week it is?

Edd The Duck is currently head of New Media for Carlton.