The Pop Corporation

We all love PopMaster, and if you’re not that aware of it, it’s probably because you’re super young and haven’t listened to live radio once in your life – that’s fine and all, but you’ve been missing out. See, Ken Bruce and his lovely, lovely voice have been testing people’s musical knowledge for years and has been an institution for music nerds for so long, that there was a palpable sense of grief when it was announced Ken and his quiz would be packing up and leaving Radio 2.

Well, he’s not vanishing completely, because good ol’ Ken will be making the leap from aerial to aerial by taking his legendary pop quiz to the Channel 4 family!

In a statement, typically affable and self effacing, Ken said he was looking forward to seeing if he has a “face for TV”.

There’ll be six episodes, an hour long each, and they’ll be aired on More 4. Largely, it’ll be the same format as his radio show, with contestants pitting their wits against each other – the main different is that you won’t have to listen to a radio show either side of it, which inevitably means 100% less Katie Melua.

Bruce continued: “After all these years we are finally bringing PopMaster to the telly where we’ll be challenging music lovers from around the country to not only recall a range of facts and stats about chart toppers and beyond over the decades, but to do so under the glare of studio lights and with the added pressure of television cameras.”

Here’s lovely Ken’s sign-off at the BBC.