When the BBC said there would be no Top Of The Pops Christmas special this year what they really meant, obviously, was that there will be a Top Of The Pops Christmas Special this year. And a New Year special too.
As previously reported, despite TOTP's demise as a weekly pop show in 2006, the BBC has continued to broadcast a Christmas Day edition. However, they recently announced not even that would air this year - leading to much online chatter about how much TOTP is missed and how the Beeb should never have axed it to start with. And also to Simon Cowell telling reporters that if the BBC wouldn't do a TOTP Christmas show they should be forced to hand the brand over to ITV, where he'd do one instead.
With all that chatter going on, the BBC yesterday announced it would, after all, air a TOTP Christmas Special on BBC 1 - and not only that but a New Year's Eve Special too. Though just to remind us all why we had grown to hate the show so much in the years before its axing, Fearne Cotton will return as presenter for both special editions.