Upon its inception in 1964, Top of the Pops was presented by a team of disc jockeys in rotation: Alan Freeman, David Jacobs, Pete Murray and Jimmy Savile.
By 1970, only Savile and Blackburn remained of the 1960s regulars and between them they would host all the editions from January 1970 until their duopoly was broken by Ed Stewart's return in March 1971.
By the end of the decade, the bond with Radio 1 seemed unbreakable with the show being simulcast on the station from 1988 and even traffic reporters like Sybil Ruscoe trying their hand at presenting TOTP.
With a new theme tune and set of titles modelled on a weathervane, the first show was presented by Mark Franklin and Tony Dortie on 3 October 1991 with the first live performance Erasure's "Love to Hate You".
Despite claiming 9m viewers in January 1992, the success of the revamp was short-lived and by May 1992 less than 6.5m were tuning in – a figure which remained fairly constant for the next eighteen months.
Reasons for the sustained lack of popularity for the show ranged wildly from a general apathy towards the music that featured in the charts at this time to claims that the graphics styled around the 'weathervane' idea were hard to read.
Dortie and Franklin presented the show individually in rotation until January 1994 when Ric Blaxill replaced Stanley Appel as executive producer.
Newer recruits to Radio 1, including Lisa I'Anson, Wendy Lloyd, Claire Sturgess and Jo Whiley, augmented the presenting line-up.
Debuting on 17 September 1994 in a 5.15pm Saturday afternoon slot on BBC Two, Johnnie Walker provided voice-over introductions before the show began to draw solely on archive performances from 1997, when former TOTP host Steve Wright took over.
TOTP2 moved to a midweek early-evening slot in 1998, retaining a Saturday afternoon repeat, and regularly became one of the most watched shows on the BBC's second channel.
Ric Blaxill left in 1997, and the show was temporarily looked after by Mark Wells who continued his predecessor's policy of having rotating guest presenters.
By this time, only Jo Whiley remained of the Radio 1 DJs introduced to the show by Blaxill, though Wells added Radio 1 Breakfast Show caretakers Mark Radcliffe and Marc Riley to the roster (although both Whiley and Radcliffe & Riley only appeared twice each between Blaxill's exit and the arrival of his permanent successor in June).
Fellow Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs and Never Mind the Buzzcocks host Mark Lamarr were added to the team but were quickly dropped, though Jamie Theakston, co-host with Middlemiss on The O-Zone, and Ball on Live & Kicking arrived in January 1998 after guest presenting the previous October.
Ball and Whiley departed in summer 1998 to be replaced by former Smash Hits editor Kate Thornton who established herself with Middlemiss and Theakston as lead presenters by autumn 1998.
After the 2000th edition on 13 September 2002, the presenting team continued to rotate solely between Liz Bonnin, Lisa Snowdon, Sarah Cawood alongside the returning Richard Blackwood until the new year.
Along with newcomers and former children's television hosts Margherita Taylor, Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates, this quartet presented in rotating pairs until another revamp of TOTP took place in November 2003.
For this final season, Cotton was joined by former Pop Idol contestants Sam and Mark and Radio 1 DJs JK and Joel as co-presenters.
The ratings never improved, despite the show going on location to the 2006 Winter Olympics and Radio 1's One Big Weekend, and on 20 June 2006 the BBC announced that Top of the Pops was being axed due to no longer being able to compete with 24-hour cable music channels, with the final episode airing on 30 July 2006.
The new series began two months after the original show ended, on Saturday 30 September 2006, with new studio performances provided by Nelly Furtado and Razorlight and a Top 10 chart rundown.
In 2017 the BBC launched Sounds Like Friday Night, a new live music show hosted by Greg James and Dotty; it lasted just two series.