CD:Live (Euroish TV programme)

CD:Live (Countdown Live) is a Euroish chart music programme which ran from 5 March 1999 to 20 November 2009. The programme ran live for an hour on Friday evenings, originally at 6pm and later at 7pm, on The Fix digital TV channel, with a repeat the following lunchtime on TV3, and spinoff programme CD:Live Hotshots on TV4. It was the Euroish version of the British music programme  and replaced The Big Top 40 which had ran in the Friday evening/Saturday repeat slot since March 1996.

The programme included a studio audience and live performances, along with interviews, competitions and music news. CD:Live featured the Friday Night Chart, which although was unofficial, usually reflected the new chart positions a day before the official chart was announced on 3FM. This made ETV's long-running Chartdown, which aired only the night before, seem very out-of-date broadcasting the previous week's chart.

Throughout the programme's history it was sponsored by McDonald's, Technic, Sminster, Orange and Virgin Megastore.

History
CD:Live, initally referred to as Countdown Live (in lieu of the logo using CD:Live from the start) was first broadcast on Friday 5th March 1999 on Club 3's digital television channel, reshown the following afternoon on TV3 itself. The programme's inaugural presenters were Steve Wilkinson (formerly of Super Saturday) and Channel 4 presenter Mollie Hedges. Wilkinson left the programme in 2004 to focus on his commitments presenting Big Brother; the evictions of which were broadcast just hours after CD:Live's transmission. Hedges meanwhile left the programme at the start of 2007, to take over the mid-morning slot on 3FM.