The BBC has decided to can the traditional Top of the Pops Christmas Special in favour of eight "special" episodes of the archive spin-off TOTP2, the festive fun-busting corporation reports.

Following TOTP's demise in 2006 after 42 years of poptastic viewing, the Yule edition was apparently also under sentence of death. A Beeb spokesman explained: "We said at that time the Christmas Special would continue but would have to earn its place every year. This year it was felt that pop music would be better represented over Christmas by an eight-part series of TOTP2 that will reflect some of the year's key hits and possibly the Christmas Number One."

Pah. It just remains for us to say, in the 1974 words of popular music legends Mud: "It'll be lonely this Christmas, lonely and cold..."

Bootnote

El Reg this morning called BBC big guns Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross for their opinion on the TOTP outrage, but it seemed they were both out - possibly on a precautionary recce of the local dole office.

Accordingly, we left hilarious abusive messages on their ansafones suggesting we'd slept with members of their familes. Ho, ho, ho. ®

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• BBC deploys the Tw*t-O-Tron (12 June 2008)
• Ofcom slaps Beeb for Live Earth swearing (9 April 2008)