Popstars

At the beginning of 2001, Saturday night television was not in the best of places. Noel's House Party had ended, as had Gladiators (for the time being), while The Generation Game, Blind Date and Big Break were all growing tired. Stars in Their Eyes was doing decent business but was itself hardly a new show, while the likes of The Moment of Truth and Friends Like These were solid performers but weren't setting the world on fire. The Lottery draws had stopped being the talk of the town, with Winning Lines the only really good game show built around them. And there had been some notorious flops in recent years like Ice Warriors and Families at War.

It was into this rather barren landscape that Popstars stepped. The format had originated in New Zealand, then hopped across the Tasman Sea to Australia, where many watched as the cameras followed the creation of the girl group Bardot, their promotional activities and finally the recording of their first single, which immediately topped the Aussie charts. Nigel Lythgoe, LWT's Head of Light Entertainment, was on holiday in Australia and chanced upon the show in his hotel room. Immediately, he saw a hit and began negotiating with ITV to make a British version.

After David Liddiment had given the green light, Lythgoe set about finding the three judges who, in the first part of the series, would oversee the nationwide auditions and ultimately choose the five hopefuls who would make up the new pop group. Wanting a "tough" judge, he approached both Simon Cowell and Jonathan King: Cowell declined as he wanted his record company to sign the group (which wasn't possible), while King had commitments in America. Eventually, Lythgoe was convinced to be the "tough" judge himself: "Nasty Nigel" was created there and then. Recruited as the "nicer" judges were Nicki Chapman and Polydor's Paul Adam.

The package complete, off went Lythgoe, Chapman and Adam around the major cities of Britain and Ireland, inviting anyone who thought they could sing to have a go. At the auditions, five people at a time would be called before the judges, and each one in turn would sing a few lines from a choice of songs (Britney Spears' "...Baby One More Time", S Club 7's "Reach" and Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca" were all prominent). The best singers would then be paired up and asked to duet, and only the very best would get to stay to the end, when they could sing a song of their own choice. From thousands of wannabes of varying ability, 163 progressed to the next stage of the contest, while the rest were shown the exit door.

The next stage of the contest saw the remaining hopefuls whittled down further through not only singing and pulling off dance moves, but also through training in media skills and the like. Eventually, only ten were left standing: Danny Foster, Michelle Heaton, Myleene Klass, Tony Lundon, Kym Marsh, Suzanne Shaw, Kevin Simm, Noel Sullivan, Jessica Taylor and Kelli Young. Lythgoe, Chapman and Adam made their final choice, then visited the respective homes of the final ten to tell them whether they were in the band or not. Danny, Myleene, Kym, Suzanne and Noel were the five chosen for the band that would come to be known as Hear'Say.

For Saturday night viewers, much of this was fresh and new. Popstars was, after all, effectively a documentary: everything was filmed on location instead of taking place on a dedicated set with a shiny floor (the auditions largely being held at various ITV regional studios when they weren't in normal use), and instead of a host there was the passive narration of Daniel Hill. As much time was given to the useless hopefuls as there was to the good ones, allowing viewers plenty of opportunies to laugh at the former while also cheering on the latter. Lythgoe's harsh remarks became familiar, and tears and bleeped swear words were common. Viewing figures increased accordingly, as did the newspapers' interest.

The documentary aspect was really ramped up in the second part of the series, which followed Hear'Say from their creation up to the release of their first single. Danny, Myleene, Kym, Suzanne and Noel moved into a secret location and knuckled down to learning the ins and outs of being in a pop group: singing together, recording songs and videos together, fulfilling media commitments both together and individually, and handling negative press.

Along the way there were moments of drama, including where it was revealed that Kym was already a mother-of-two, and also a moment of controversy when the band mimed the Simon and Garfunkel hit "Bridge Over Troubled Water" during their first TV gig, leading to fierce criticism from the tabloids. Eventually, they succeeded in recording "Pure and Simple" which, perhaps predictably, went straight in at the top of the UK charts.

Lythgoe's eye had served him well in that Australian hotel room: Popstars was an unqualified success. But, as it turned out, it was just the beginning. Later in 2001, Lythgoe discussed Popstars with his friend Simon Fuller, expressing disappointment that the ITC hadn't allowed the public to have a say in things like choosing the band's name and their first single to be released. Fuller promptly devised a show that took many of the elements of Popstars and combined them with public voting, as well as dedicated on-screen hosts and a traditional shiny-floor set. Cowell was approached to be a judge again, and this time agreed. And now you know the rest of the story. Suffice it to say that Lythgoe, Fuller and Cowell all saw their bank balances increase significantly.

But although Popstars was somewhat overtaken by this evolved breed, it didn't die there and then. ITV2 showed the Australian version, while RTÉ jumped on the bandwagon with an Irish version (with Louis Walsh as the "tough" judge). The format was repurposed to find aspiring actors who would make up a new family in Emmerdale, though perhaps this worked better on paper than it did in practice. And then, in the autumn of 2002, came Popstars: The Rivals, which owed rather more to Fuller's creation than it did to the original Popstars but which did bring about one of the biggest British girl bands of all.

Popstars is comparatively little-remembered now, but its importance can never be overstated. It was the show that ushered in a whole new genre of talent television in Britain, which is still very much alive over two decades later. And, of course, it played a significant part in Saturday night telly becoming a hot property again.

Darius Danesh's performance of Hit Me Baby One More Time.

Based on a New Zealand format where a five-member all girl group called TrueBliss were formed.

After "Pure and Simple", Hear'Say went on to record a second Number One single, "The Way to Your Love", although this was rather less successful (only one week at the top compared to "Pure and Simple"s three, and a tenth of the sales). After one more hit single, "Everybody" (which reached number 4), Kym left the group in January 2002, and the rest went their separate ways in October of that year, public opinion having very much turned against the group by then.

Undeterred by falling at the final hurdle, the aforementioned Michelle Heaton, Tony Lundon, Kevin Simm, Jessica Taylor and Kelli Young formed their own group, originally called Liberty before adding an 'X' at the end following a legal challenge from a 1990s R&B band. Liberty X went on to have rather more chart success than Hear'Say, with eight Top 10 singles between 2001 and 2005 - though notably they had only one Number One, "Just a Little", compared to Hear'Say's two. You can decide for yourself who won the battle and who won the war.

Before the name Hear'Say was announced, it was widely reported that the group would be named Inner Spin.

The series climaxed in a live Sunday night special from the band's house where the group's debut chart success was announced.

Popstars: The Rivals

Soapstars