To be surprised that we lost Top of the Pops, Smash Hits and Grange Hill around the same time?

[MillOnTheSaw]

These 3 things mentioned in my title were favourites of people of a certain age. I challenge you to guess my age!! The thing that surprises me was that all 3 of these finished for ever at around the same time - mid to late 2000s. I’ll never forget the last ever episode of Top Of The Pops which aired on Sunday 30th July 2006 when Fearne Cotton and Jimmy Savile finally switched off the lights in the TOTP studio.

AIBU to surprised that these 3 beloved media phenomena of my demographic all packed in at the same time?

I MISS THEM 😢

omg that’s fabulous! Are you still an actor?

Thanks so much for this link!

The first episode of Grange Hill aired on the day I was born

Oh wow that’s excellent!

I stopped watching Grange Hill in the mid-80s. Once I was at a rough comprehensive school myself, it seemed tame and unrealistic!

Regarding its cancellation, as I understand it, the BBC had a directive to target their children's offering to a younger age-group, so they changed Grange Hill to 'The Grange' - about some kind of learning centre attached to the school - and got rid of all the gritty storylines - and unsurprisingly, that killed it altogether.

Yes - my school was much worst mud 80s than anything I saw in Grange Hill!

ah yes I read about ‘The Grange’ being introduced although I never watched those episodes !

Yes the Grange apparently had more fantasy sequences etc .. so different from 1983!

Yes it was.. they won Emmy and Grammy awards...I think from memory the guy behind it was also behind boney m and did the male vocal for them.

Ooo I feel honoured a smash hits employee and someone from grange hill!!!🤯

I watched a documentary a while ago about Grange hill and the fact that the BBC don't have any dramas or really any programming targeted at teenagers.

Grange hill was great but it used to really annoy me (I am a touch OCD about these continuity things) that the school never looked the same two years running

Yes there’s no kids TV on weekday evenings on BBC 1. In the slot they used to have GH, it’s now Pointless etc

I was obsessed with Smash Hits. I'm a bit younger than the OP (46) so was just right for the Kylie and Jason era but made SH great was the fact that it covered all music that was in the charts. I was lured in with pictures of Kylie on the cover and then ended up reading about this new sound called grunge coming from Seattle which would change the charts... I had Smash Hits set aside for me at the local newsagents and my parents paid a monthly bill. I looked forward to publication date (I think fortnightly on Wednesdays?) I was popular on those days - lots of classmates would want to walk home with me so that they could get a glimpse of it. I used to get frustrated with those that would just want to look at the pictures or read the big interviews - I would devour it cover to cover; I read everything and felt like I was part of a community, with all the in-jokes and references (you're fired - Ed, down the dumper etc) and the letters page was a way to bring us all together. I remember one occasion, the newsagent had forgot to put my copy aside and they were sold out on the shelf. I stood and cried in the shop. A father of one of the other girls from school was there and told me it was a good thing as that magazine was rotting my brain.

At one point I had a collection of 100s of copies of smash hits - must have been from around 1987-1991. I got rid of them all when I became a much cooler teenager and I regret this now.

I never really watched Grange Hill. Weirdly, my parents discouraged it, not for the usual reasons but because they thought it was posh! Basically, growing up in working class Scotland, any English accents were automatically posh, even if depicting a supposedly rough school. Dad was worried that I'd start talking like them if I watched it.

I loved our readers - like you, they were dedicated to the mag. The letters page was all genuine, actual letters from readers.

Grange hill was great but it used to really annoy me (I am a touch OCD about these continuity things) that the school never looked the same two years running

We filmed in an actual school in Willesden (I am pretty sure - long time ago!) and a lot of the scenes were on-site. Whereas, I think later they moved it to an exclusively studio setting, so perhaps that is the difference you are spotting?

I was only around 14 when I was in it, so the right age for the class I was in. I feel like nowadays if you have a school drama, they often use older actors (or maybe I'm just thinking of The Inbetweeners 😂), but we were all around what would be Year 9 in new money. Apart from Alan Humphries. He always appeared more grown up (maybe because he was taller) and actually, I just looked him up on wiki and indeed he was slightly older - and sadly died in 2023 (or the actor did). RIP

George Armstrong seemed lovely from what I’ve seen people say about him ❤️

I didn’t like the Kylie and Jason era at all I must admit. My prime era of Smash Hots was 1984 to about August 1986

Grange hill back on tv,had to share in this thread .Ch 56 that’s tv (uk).Episode 2 tonight .

6pm