Needless to say, I stayed up and watched the midnight showing of last night's TOTP 1979 as well as the 7.30. I was surprised to see just how many acts they cut out of the earlier showing but reinstated in the later one: LEO SAYER, MANKIND, THE DOLL, HOT CHOCOLATE, LEGS AND CO. A full ten minutes was cut for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. I am guessing that it is probably due to the strict schedule earlier in the evening - i.e. they only have a 30 minute slot to fill. This is a shame as the edited version of the programme does therefore give a very inaccurate or incomplete view of what was in the charts in that particular week. Obviously I was very pleased that they left the Shadows in the shortened version, but will we be so lucky next time...? Personally, I quite enjoyed seeing Mankind doing their disco version of the Doctor Who theme; likewise The Doll (a punky band with a girl on guitar) and the epic video for the Hot Chocolate song. For some reason I enjoyed watching Legs and Co too....
By the way, the editing was pretty smooth and the shortened version of the programme looked OK.