The last fortnight has been CHOCKA, so here’s some “things”:
- BARB has a new way of displaying audiences – the As Viewed Top 50. This aggregates all the repeats a show has had along with the pre-broadcast and catch-up and can be set to either +7 or, the first time in years +28 days, and this goes back to January 2024 – I’m referring to it as the Kitchen Sink number, because it’s everything but the kitchen sink (and various PRs have been doing things like this for a while anyway). In some ways this is good, we’re aware that some catch-up of shows gets allocated to the repeats rather than the first run, it does not account for desireability of slot, it just lumps everything in together. What I was hoping for was sorting out the streaming numbers, it seems baffling that under the old system a popular episode of a show on streaming could be in the BARB 50 for multiple weeks, apparently counting as a repeat showing in the following weeks. It looks like the +7s of the original release date seem to work pretty well. However the +28s look like a mess – early episodes of Clarkson’s Farm (for example) are still showing up on the chart weeks later. Also I wonder if its in commercial channel’s interests to have the list extended to a Top 100, under the new metric it might show some shows not being quite as much of a flop as originally thought, but most pundits can only know things through inferral from Thinkbox (which still seems to be using its old TV only system) and overnights. Also why don’t overnights include pre-broadcast so those shows that use it have less sad looking numbers? You can still save linear (with streaming)! Also now we’ve got no idea when BARB is going to update, it used be pretty regularly around 4:15pm on a Monday, it looks like we might be about two weeks behind in future.
- On Friday night we went and saw Knightmare Live, which you’d assume we’d have probably have done before since it’s ten years old now. It’s good fun! Good jokes, a loving homage to how silly the idea of the show was really. Well worth a look if it comes near you, there’s one set to involve the actual real Hugo Myatt and Mark Knight at Leicester Square Theatre November 15th.
- Something I’m not sure I can recommend is game.city’s Jackbox style interpretation of Deal or No Deal for £15. It’s got (the voice of) Noel. You can play on your phone, but it’s pretty slow, when I was playtesting it when £20,000 was the top box and I knocked out Noel said “that’s OK!” But what makes it really annoying to play is that apparently it has a Banker even more generous than the ITV one. £30k in Round one! Also it might be quite fun if there was an option if you play multiple games to keep everyone’s scores and decisions a secret but have a ranking, to encourage a bit of bluff.
- Their version of Catchphrase is a bit more successful, but it’s got an American doing all of Stephen Mulhern’s catchphrases which feels wrong. Basically three quick rounds with animations seemingly taken from the show – the bonus board has only four squares on it, you buzz in on your phone and type to fill in blank letter boxes so there’s not much wiggle room for being close. You can play as individuals or in teams. For me £15 feels like a lot, but your mileage may vary.