TVobit: Don Cornelius

Don Cornelius, who created Soul Train and hosted it for decades, has died.

Cornelius created Soul Train as a black answer to American Bandstand in 1970; within a year it had outgrown its Chicago audience and went into national syndication. It remained syndicated for 35 years, which is a record.

Don remained as host until 1993; the programme continued with out him until 2006.

Given that Soul Train was, perhaps, the highest-profile regular slot for African Americans to appear on prime time television, who better to illustrate it than, erm, David Bowie?



Here's Cornelius interviewing Janet Jackson - he owned the interview. Or at least Soul Train Holdings did:



And here, with Korean subtitles, is Don introducing Betty Wright:



Don Cornelius, who was 75, was taken to hospital with head wounds. Unconfirmed reports in the LA Times suggest these may have been self-inflicted.

Xfm decides to bring back the DJs

Less than a year after introducing the dj-less daytime schedule, Xfm are climbing down and bringing back presenter-led programming during daylight hours.

It's almost as if they realised that if their audience wanted to listen to music on shuffle without interruptions, they could put on a CD. Or play their iPod. Or go to last.fm.

In tandem with the announcement of the dropping of an idea which should have been killed stone dead at the brainstorming session from which it emerged, they've also announced that Dave Berry (aka Ray Cokes in HD) is going to be moved to the drivetime slot.

Yes, Dave Berry. We're actually starting to think that shows without presenters might be the best move for Xfm after all.

We were so angry when he was kicked out, you know

Limahl follows in the shoes of, um, Jimmy Young and, uh, Noddy Holder and makes the small but significant leap from singer to dj, with a new slot on the Magic stations on Sundays playing a surprising mix of 60s soul and heavy gospel. Okay, it's an 80s show and he kicked off with Too Shy, but we always thought he looked sexy in a vest so we're happy to wish him luck.