Hitlist UK is a weekly UK chart series which airs on MTV Europe. Its format has changed over the years. Originally airing in July 1992 as a two-hour television program that aired the official UK Top 40singles chart. The programme originally aired Mondays at 20:00 hrs and repeated through the week. In 1997, with the launch of localized MTV Europe channels in Germany, the UK and Italy the chart continued to air. In 2002, both MTV UK and MTV Italia discontinued the series, while MTV Europe continues to air the chart as a Top 20 playlist each week. MTV Germany stopped importing the original English series in July 2000, creating a German version of Hitlist UK, which was hosted by several German VJs up until 2004, when this version was eventually discontinued as well. From 1992 to 2002 the series was hosted by a number of MTV Europe VJ's, whereas the series has had no presenter since 2003. On August 1st, 2012 the UK Hitlist was suspended from programming on MTV Europe. As of January 1st, 2013 the UK Hitlist chart is back on MTV Europe – Every Thursday.
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As many other MTV programmes in the nineties, Hitlist UK is a music video programme, basing on the current top 40 of the UK chart. Due to the limited format, just the new entries and climbers would be shown, combined with some records of the top ten and the number one, provided there was a music video available. For positions 40 to 21, 20 to 11and 10 to 2 a rundown would be included, consisting of short extracts from all songs. Sometimes, a video would not be shown although it had actually climbed the chart. Reasons for this would not be given, so why a song was neglected could only be assumed. In the case of Mr Blobby’s "Mr Blobby" and Manchester United Football Squad’s "Come On You Reds", both of which were number ones, one reason for showing just an excerpt of the video might have been that both records were intended for the UK market only. For some time, the show also included songs that missed the top 40 mainstream list but which were successful in other UK charts, such as the dance, rock, indie, "breakers", or album chart.
