The Multi-Coloured Swap Shop (aka Swap Shop), was broadcast on Saturday mornings on BBC1 for 146 episodes in six series between 1976 and 1982. It was ground-breaking in many ways. Firstly, it was broadcast live, sometimes for up to three hours. Secondly, it introduced the now hugely popular phone-in format for the first time on TV.

Swap Shop was thought by many to be the BBC's response to the growing success of ITV's Tiswas, hosted by Chris Tarrant, although at the time Tiswas was only shown in the Midlands and had yet to broadcast nationally.

Swap Shop was hosted by DJ, Noel Edmonds and with co-presenters, Keith Chegwin, John Craven and later, in 1978, Maggie Philbin. Also featured was Posh Paws, a stuffed toy dinosaur. Noel Edmonds once explained that his name was actually spelled "Pohs Paws", because that is "Swap Shop" backwards. Another character was Eric, the often mentioned, never seen technician whose job was to lower a plastic globe containing postcards sent in by viewers as answers to competitions.

The content of the programme included music, visits from celebrities, competitions, and cartoons. There was also coverage of news and issues relevant to children presented by John Craven, building on his profile as a newsreader in the popular Newsround show.

The cornerstone, however, was the Swaporama element, hosted by Chegwin, who was very rarely in the studio. An outside broadcast unit would travel to different locations throughout the country where children could swap their belongings with others. This proved to be one of the most popular aspects of the show, often achieving gatherings of more than 2,000 children.

Swap Shop was a success, attracting substantial ratings not only among its target audience of children, but also students and parents. It ended in 1982, to allow the presenters to move on to other projects, notably Edmonds who became one of the highest-profile TV presenters in the UK.

Unfortunately many editions of the show were junked by the BBC in the early 1990s, believed to be of no further use, and many of the clips used in the retrospective It Started With Swap Shop and as extras on some DVD releases of other BBC shows had to be taken from domestic video recordings that had survived in private hands. Amongst the editions wiped were those featuring appearances by Blondie, XTC, Trumpton creator Gordon Murray, and numerous cast and crew members of Doctor Who.