Sat/Sun/Mon for two weeks, 9pm,
ITV1
This is going up a bit earier than usual because I would like, if I may, to have a quick chat about Saturday nights and ITV entertainment. What are the most recent new game-y hits on Saturday night across the last five years? They are Gladiators, The Wheel and The 1% Club. Each of these shows are straightforward (hit people over the head, answer questions with the help – or not! – of celebrities, answer increasingly difficult IQ style questions) and polished. You can basically pick up what’s happening very quickly, they don’t require no brainpower (well maybe with the exception of Gladiators), but they are quite simple to follow.
When we say Survivor (and more recently The Neighbourhood) are not weekend shows here, that’s because they don’t fit that mould, the last thing people want on a Saturday night is high-concept politicking and yet this is exactly what we’re expected to endure. That’s not to say they would have been more successful on a weeknight, but I would suggest that people are more open to this sort of thing on a weeknight – there’s a decent reason they don’t tend to put The Traitors on on a Saturday, and they certainly wouldn’t launch it there. I’ve got no problem with ITV trying out things (Genius Game was a brave swing and a miss for a channel it was ill-suited to, The Fortune Hotel deserved better but was seen as too derivative, we think probably unfairly), but it also feels like because of these non-hits, any new show is starting with an ITV handicap – it’s just not a destination for this sort of thing for most people.
What’s the solution? I don’t know – as we always say, if it were that easy everyone would be doing it. And it’s into this febrile atmosphere we have Nobody’s Fool, a new high-concept reality show they’re launching on a Saturday night and playing through two weekends. Even Love Island and Big Brother don’t bother airing on Saturdays! It feels like already we might as well write it off already. And that’s a shame because it might be quite good, and if there’s one thing this website still stands for, sproadically updated as it is (do try the Discord), it’s that we like it when good shows do well. Although we should also add we haven’t seen it and might yet be rubbish. In it, Danny Dyer and Emily Atack off of Rivals look after ten people all gathered in a country “smart” house. During their stay they will do quizzes, correct answers add to a prize pot, but they will not know how everyone has done so when it comes to voting people off if you’ve been thick you need to fake it until you make it – other tests of intelligence also feature.
And, you know, that sounds like it might be fun. It ought to at least be quite funny – I get the feeling that’s what they’re aiming for, whether they’ve done enough to overcome the handicap remains to be seen.
Let us know what you think in the comments!
On the Saturday night scheduling I honestly do not understand why ITV don’t put WWTBAM on at 9pm after BGT, it’s the perfect kind of show for that time and at it’s current sunday 8pm slot it gets figures around 2-2.5m and the show has a much better fit of being at saturdays 9pm rather than sundays at 8. Maybe ITV see the sunday 8pm slot as a good quiz slot.
In my opinion, Sunday at 8pm is the absolute perfect fit for Millionaire and I think ITV have realised that in the past couple of years looking at the decent ratings it does on a weekly basis it’s one of their best performing shows on a Sunday nights and easily beats the competition on other channels. The reason it suits this slot is because most quiz shows are high energy and light-hearted with loads going on. With WWTBAM it has that very relaxing and laid back feel about it, it’s the sort of thing viewers like me want at the end of a week to wind down after a long week.
No fancy lighting, no complicated rules, just decent quiz questions and good banter with Jeremy and the contestants. I’ve started watching every single week when it’s in the schedule since it’s been on Sunday nights the past couple of years before that only watched it occasionally.
Maybe so but imo sunday evenings feel more suited to dramas rather than big money quiz shows and it’s not just WWTBAM on that sunday 8pm slot, there’s also other quizzes like limitless win and beat the chasers in which I believe all of them fit the late saturday slot as light entertainment rather than a sunday 8pm slot and all of them with especially WWTBAM should be saturdays around 9pm rather than an intense reality show after a show like BGT
Launching something new off the back of BGT makes sense as it’s popular and has a more diverse audience than most other ITV shows. I wouldn’t have commissioned Nobody’s Fool though, just on the basis that reality is oversaturated.
It’s difficult to know what will do well and of course there’s budget to consider but Saturday nights on ITV are very pedestrian right now. Apart from The 1% Club, what else has been a “hit” recently?
This was the same argument for launching The Neighbourhood between two parts of the I’m a Celeb final. Didn’t work.
True, but I think the promo for The Neighbourhood had a lot do with how badly it rated from the off. People fighting was somehow OK and must see TV because it’s for £250k, crap puns, an unlikeable Norton and the catchphrase “Bring On The Ding Dong” which wasn’t even used. For that first episode to have rated well it would have needed a trailer for a totally different show. All in all, a total mess.
The big question is will they let Danny Dyer finally ask some quiz questions or is Emily Atack destined to be 3rd in an obscure “what comes 4th” question after Angela Rippon and Ellie Taylor?
Oh I doubt it. I had quite a good Only Connect question once on hosts who don’t ask their own questions – Danny Dyer, Julian Clary, Emelyn Hughes, can’t remember the fourth. It might have been Bernard Manning.
Victoria Coren Mitchen could be a very meta fourth