The program may not have changed, but the studio certainly has: Top of the Pops now has a new highly efficient set with new elements and an enlarged lighting system.

"The most important innovation here,"reveal LDs Riccardo Barbaglio and Massimo Cavenaghi, "is the new lighting system. Last year, the Italian edition of Top of the Pops stood out for the quality of its lighting effects, which received compliments from the BBC. This is one of the reasons why Einstein, the Italian TV production studios, decided to invest more in lighting effects, which we wanted to make into a distinctive aspect of this year's program".

The set design was ultimately adapted to the lighting design, and for the first time, the lighting system includes the new Clay Paky Alpha moving body projectors and the wall-mounted Point MH.

Barbaglio spoke about Clay Paky's Alpha with the console technician Andrea Mantovani: "These are innovative products for our market, with an incredibly luminous output and a host of high quality effects: Alpha Spot HPE features many different rotating and fixed gobos and an animation disc which can be combined with gobos for creative effects. Alpha Wash, on the other hand, has an incredible zoom and can diffuse colour perfectly at all angles, including short distance projections: this is essential when you are working in relatively small environments like this one".

Alpha Spot HPE and Alpha Wash were positioned on battens over both stages to guarantee special effects and illuminate the public. A grid of Point MH projectors was fitted onto the right-hand wall of the studio.

The lighting system includes Stage Color 300 and Stage Light 300 in the chrome versions, Mini Scan HPE, CP Color MH, CP Color 400 and Stage Zoom 1200 - a variety of products able to provide any technical solution to filming as well as giving the program that distinctive Italian style.

Barbaglio continues: "A music program designed for young people should have a certain character and a dynamic interpretation of the music through the use of light; however it is best to avoid a hotchpotch of too many elements. We usually listen to each track more than once the day before, in order to interpret it through light according to the rhythm and the type of artist on stage". Massimo Cavenaghi agrees: "The program's success owes a lot to the lighting system and Clay Paky, which provided impeccable support and helped us exploit every potential of these new technologically advanced products."