The whole thrust of TV technical innovation – to iPlayer and beyond – lets viewers find an episode from the musty archives of shows they missed and play it again, Sam. What's so newsworthy, then, about the BBC announcing it is to re-run the 1976 series of Top of the Pops on BBC Four? Welcome back Kiki Dee, Pan's People, the Brotherhood of Man…

You can see other shows of that era – from The Professionals to Minder – churning away endlessly on digital channels. You can hear the sounds of the 70s daily on Radio 2. And you could easily arrange to rummage through the entire Top of the Pops library on request. In short, this seems like just another thinly disguised repeat ploy to put Have I Got Old News For You in the shade. Climb aboard the BBC time machine and go back 36 years to an era you thought you'd escaped forever. More tardy than Tardis.