Why the show had to go: in an exclusive interview, BBC entertainment chief Mark Cooper discusses the reasons for the decision to axe TOTP.(TOTP news special)

The BBC has declared that Top Of The Pops became a victim of its own format, blaming dwindling interest in the weekly UK singles chart and changing consumer tastes as key reasons behind its decision to axe the flagship show.

BBC head of entertainment group Mark Cooper has explained to Music Week the thinking behind the decision, indicating that the BBC had reached a point where it felt the programme was no longer serving the audience.

"After 42 years, the music industry and the way people consume music has changed so drastically, as has the kind of offerings available to people, particularly the teenage audience that has been the core of Top Of The Pops," says Cooper, who has produced the programme for the past three years.

"They have so many ways of consuming music, particularly from all the different cable channels, that Top Of The Pops as a broadcast proposition hasn't been working in the way that it used to."

Such changing tastes have, he believes, turned Top Of The Pops into a show which appeals less to the crucial 16- to 25-year-old demographic, with its rapid attention span satisfied by a proliferation of music channels, than to their parents, who have grown up with the show.

Speaking last Thursday, Cooper said, "I was watching our show go out last Sunday [June 18], aware this announcement was going to happen. I think the show started with Muse, then it went to Ne-Yo and I was just thinking, 'Who is following this?' Whereas I would have sat in wonderment as a teenager, the audience has a lot more choice and, in essence, Top Of The Pops chooses for them."

"I have two teenage sons and they flick through media," he adds. "It takes a lot to hold their attention. It is hard to get them to even watch one three- or four-minute song performed naturalistically."