Jimmy Savile Top Of The Pops repeats may be dropped by BBC

The first episode of Top of the Pops, presented by Jimmy Savile, was on New Year's Day 1964 and featured The Rolling Stones, Dusty Springfield, and a filmed contribution from the week's No 1 act, The Beatles

The BBC could drop its archive repeats of Top Of The Pops in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal.

The programmes have been screened since early last year but editions have had to be examined closely since Savile's reign of abuse was uncovered, with some shows dropped.

And last week an edition fronted by Dave Lee Travis was dropped following his arrest last week over claims he groped two women.

BBC4 controller Richard Klein said today he had not come to a decision about whether to continue the programmes next year.

The channel has been showing programmes from 1976 onwards, in sequence, and next year it would have been due to screen editions from 1978.

Klein said: "At the moment we haven't actually scheduled 1978. We've only done it the last two years so if we didn't do it again it wouldn't be the end of the world, and audience figures have declined."

The BBC had defended showing archive editions of the programme featuring sex offender Gary Glitter - which had prompted viewer complaints - because they said they did not want to rewrite history. But following a further arrest this month, he will not be featuring in the programmes because Klein said "showing him would be wrong - that's a decision that has been made".

He said it had become a complex process: "These are judgment decisions that we're making about what we think is right, and it's largely case-by-case and I think it requires us to be cautious and careful without overreacting, to take into account public sensibilities to take into account legalities.

"These are all judgments we have to make, and hopefully we're going to get it right."

Klein went on: "Whether I choose to continue it I don't yet know."

PA