Less than a year after celebrating its 40th birthday, Top of the Tops is to leave BBC1 in an admission that an attempted revamp has failed. Nick Morrison asks if its downfall is a sign of the changing music market.

PERHAPS only Pan's People could have saved the day. The return of the leggy dancers seems to be the only thing which hasn't been tried in an attempt to inject a little bit of life back into Top of the Pops.

It was just over a year ago that the long-running but ailing show was relaunched, to try and prevent a mid-life crisis turning into terminal decline. Former children's presenter Andi Peters - now head of popular music at the BBC - charged with making it must-see TV once again, embarked on radical surgery.

The purely chart show, which commanded viewing figures of some 15 million a week in its heyday, became a magazine format, mixing music with interviews and pop gossip. Exclusive pre-release performances, a live edition from Gateshead in the summer and Eminem at Tower Bridge just last Friday, all aimed to make it exciting enough to persuade people to stay in on a Friday night.

But yesterday came the admission that the revamp had failed. Viewing figures stubbornly refused to rise above three million and now the 40-year-old show is to be shunted from BBC1, to a Sunday evening slot on BBC2.

Its decline has been laid at the doors of the BBC schedulers, at the programme's content and at the proliferation of rivals. But while all these may have played a part, many see the fundamental shift in the UK record market as being at the root of its problems.

Certainly, on the face of it, the BBC's scheduling has done TOTP few favours. Pitching it head-to-head with Coronation Street was never going to be a winner, and moving to Friday nights left it open to the criticism that it was depriving itself of most of its target audience, broadcasting when most self-respecting young people are out on the town.

But the truth is that the decline had set in well before the move from Thursdays in 1996. The days of 15 million-plus viewers were far back in the 1970s, and it is clear that some deeper malaise has been at work. Although it is true that any programme will struggle against the Street, had its viewing figures been higher it would have been hard to ignore the pleas for a better time-slot.

The show's producers have also come under fire for a slow response to changing attitudes among music buyers. A devotion to miming long after it had become ridiculed was a damaging blow to TOTP's credibility, and although the dance groups Pan's People, Legs and Co and Zoo may have helped in getting dads to watch, they were still in the show long after videos became virtually compulsory.

The face of last year's relaunch, Tim Kash, failed to endear himself to viewers, and was quietly dropped in favour of Fearne Cotton, but it is doubtful if a presenter alone could have reversed its fortunes, and, after all, TOTP has continued to attract the biggest names in pop, aware that although viewing figures may have fallen, an appearance can still provide a useful boost to the all-important Saturday sales figures.

Perhaps a more serious impact has been made by the sheer amount of music television now. When TOTP launched, on January 1, 1964, it was as an answer to ITV's Ready, Steady, Go, at a time when there were few chances to see pop music.

Now, not only do the main terrestrial channels feature a regular diet of pop, most notably on Saturday morning TV, but there are more music channels than you could shake a drumstick at. MTV and VH-1 may be the most popular, but Sky Digital now lists 65 channels devoted to music. With more than half the country now receiving digital TV, you no longer have to wait a week to see your favourite band: they're bound to be playing now somewhere.

But perhaps of most consequence is the change in the music market itself. TOTP's raison d'tre, its unique selling point, its heart and soul, is the UK singles chart, and the truth is the singles chart doesn't matter any more.

Last month, Swedish DJ Eric Prydz achieved the remarkable feat of returning to the top of the chart after having been knocked off the number one spot, by Robbie Williams' Radio. What was perhaps even more notable about Prydz's comeback, was that this was accomplished despite selling fewer singles than any other number one in history.

Music lovers just don't buy singles any more. Just five years ago, some 80 million singles were sold in the UK; last year, it was down to 36 million. True, this year has seen a slight upswing in the value of the market, mainly due to the introduction of £1.99 two-track CD singles, but it is hard to ignore the long-term trend.

The combined sales of the Top 40 singles now number around the 300,000 mark, compared with 550,000 ten years ago; average sales of number one singles are around 61,000 this year, compared with well over 100,000 as recently as 2002.

There are exceptions. Will Young and Gareth Gates both had million-selling singles in 2002, Elton John's Candle in the Wind shifted three million copies in a week in 1997, and the Band Aid III single released yesterday is a sure winner, but overall the decline seems inexorable.

There are a number of reasons for this: the long gap between a single's first play and its release means it has been heard countless times before it goes on sale, and giving CDs away with newspapers has given an impression that music is free. But perhaps the two most important are the rise in album sales and the popularity of downloading.

This year, record companies are celebrating their best ever year for album sales, with 237 million shifted in the 12 months to September. With many albums costing less than £10, the price gap between singles and albums has never been smaller, making singles seem comparatively poor value.

In contrast, the gap between the single-buying market, made up mainly of teenagers, and the more mature album buyers, has never been wider. Among the best-selling single artists this year are Eamon and Pop Idol winner Michelle, neither of whom figured in the album charts, while best-selling album artists including the Scissor Sisters and Norah Jones are yet to reach higher than ten in the singles chart.

In other words, the people who are spending more money on music are not buying singles, and not likely to want to watch a show concentrating on the singles chart.

But of still greater significance has been the advent of downloading. The third quarter of this year saw 1.75 million individual tracks downloaded from the Internet. With competition from a format which is more convenient and cheaper, it is hard to see how the decline in the singles market can be halted.

Reaching number one still retains some importance - for some acts it is a crucial test of the state of their career - but as long as the singles chart is in the doldrums, the task of making TOTP relevant again, much less essential TV, seems impossible.

Shifting the programme to Sunday may mean it could tie in with the new chart, and mixing in archive performances with the new releases could bring in some more mature viewers, but the move may simply be prolonging the agony. Many commentators believe yesterday's announcement is simply paving the way for quietly killing off TOTP next year. Perhaps a swifter death would have been kinder.