The last time we did this it was August 2024 – a long time ago, and you’ve been saving your gossip up evidently. So a reminder, this is an anonymous tip line, we cannot verify anything here so you’ve only got yourselves to blame if you go around calling it all “fact” and it turns out it isn’t – I suspect there is elements of truth to many of these, I wouldn’t print them if I didn’t think they were at least plausable, but also I don’t know.
I’m also going to hide everything under a cut, because there is a lot of it.
Alright! Taking them as they come:
Mighty is doing runthroughs for a new version of Wonderball, aiming for a more primetime-y slot
That’s a deep cut, but I remember sort of liking Wonderball when it was on. If you don’t remember it, and that will be most of you, it was BBC Scotland’s premier quiz, the object being to own the last ball drawn from the pot and answering questions to increase your odds. Low key, but had some fun ideas. Also barely 10,000 viewers. Finished 7th in the Poll of 2019 no less!
However BBC give us what we really want – look at your BBC2 daytime figures, repeats of !mpossible dominate. Come on! Reboot it and call it !mpluasable and stick it on at 4:30. You know it makes sense.
ITV are eyeing up alternative host options for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire given Clarkson potentially running for parliament and his ever increasing time running his farm and pub.
Clarkson to leave Millionaire, filming his last episode in just over a month. No idea why, no scandals or anything like that. My understanding is it’ll continue with another host, to be decided
Well two people have said this independently which suggests either an element of truth or an extreme lack of imagination. But then there was a suggestion last year that they were looking into contingencies for Richard Osman’s House of Games but he doesn’t seem to have left that.
Unsurprisingly, the worst person to work with in the Celebrity Traitors cast was Paloma Faith.
Well it’s lucky she was murdered early then. We once saw Paloma at a recording of the Top of the Pops Christmas Special we were all invited to as arecording of 5 Gold Rings was starting extremely late because of snow and they didn’t have much of an audience either, so the crowd year consisted of largely elderly homosexuals and baffled foreigners. Anyway, that’s my Paloma Faith anecdote, I hope you enjoyed it.
007: Road To A Million is done, no chance of a third series from Amazon
You Bet is dead
007 is I think a bit of a shame, although the complete lack of impact for its second series was quite funny, especially considering the budget it must have had. You Bet is one of the great “well, what were you expecting to happen” stories of our time.
The show Chris Mccausland piloted for the bbc saturday nights sounds like its going to series
This is The Easiest Quiz In The World or something similar isn’t it? Another Richard Bacon format. I don’t know, I absolutely get the appeal of Chris McCausland getting a Saturday night gig, but my understanding of the format makes it sound extremely annoying – get a question wrong and everyone loses all their money, thanks for wasting my time. We’ll see.
Last One Laughing UK has recorded a Halloween special, but unclear if it’s for this year or next!
I don’t think this is true, although if it’s for Halloween this year they’re leaving it a bit late.
Deal or No Deal set to bring back the swap for the next series
Can it bring back a nastier Banker as well?
The BBC were looking into making reality gameshow spin offs of some of their shows after the success overseas of DOND Island. Mastermind, The Hit List, Dragon’s Den, a revival of 1 vs 100, and Weakest Link were all considered but eventually dropped after Destination X performed better than expected.
Destination X will be getting a big reformatting next year, as pressure from NBC and concerns about cost has the Beeb debating dropping the bus from the show.
The first one is a piss-take I think – DOND Island so successful they’re not bothering with another go, evidently, but I do think there could be some truth to the latter. They would have been filming this year’s series about this time last last year, but… there’s been nothing as far as I know, and we posed the question a little while ago, what if the BBC is a yes but NBC is a no? And how do you do it without the iconic Destination X Bus?
Venron Kay was in the frame to host Hole In The Wall
Gladiators celebrity special will air at Christmas, not new year
Netflix is interested in taking over the US rights to MAFS. Interestingly the US version still uses the older Channel 4 format and not the hyper-dramatised E4/Aussie format, so will be interesting to see which format Netflix goes with if they do buy it.
I could see that slotting in well for them. I’m sorry about the formatting of the last two, it’s alte and I’m too tired to sort it.
Studio Lambert developing their own dedicated FAST channel
Steven Lambert redefining the FAST Channel genre, as he is continually fated to do.
Probably already known but Richard in BB was one of the guinea pig housemates put in before the show to test the cameras etc, and he impressed producers so much they put him in the actual series.
I had read this somewhere and I think it was a good call as he’s been good value, to the point where I had a free £5 bet on a popular betting site waiting for me and I thought 7-1 was quite good.
Drastically fewer ‘choose between yourselves who gets eliminiated’ games in Beast Games s2
Thank goodness for that. Unbelievable that “most tasks that require self-elimination” wasn’t one of the many Guinness records they got for series one.
Not news but wasn’t it reported that Celeb Ghost Trip was returning this year? One would have thought if it was it would be airing now in the run up to Halloween..
I’m going to square with you, I have no recollection of Celebrity Ghost Trip at all. What was that Irish reality show ITV2 showed one year for Halloween, Haunted House or something? A bit like Fear Factor. About twenty years ago now. Anyway do write in if you remember this piece of ephemera.
The Inner Circle has been given another daytime run but no celeb version. A new show is to premiere on ITV Quiz.
I think that’s meant to be two separate statements but reads like a Mystic Meg lottery prediction. The Inner Circle returning wouldn’t surprise me, everything gets two series, it won a large tender, it fulfills a regional quota. Sure, nobody’s watching, but that’s not the point. I think premiering a new show on ITV Quiz removes the point of ITV Quiz as an extremely cheap archive channel, but strager things have happened.
Andy Cohen hosted a pilot of One Question USA. No word on if this means a third series of Claudes or even a weekday version.
I think One Question is dead, if Clauds can leave 7m rating Strictly, she can definitely leave 0.4m rating three-years-on-a-shelf One Question, and I don’t think there’s much value in the format at this point without her.
Channel 5 are due to commission a second series of Celebrity Puzzling for 2026.
Yes this is plausable, it did alright. I hope nobody is even thinking about rotating the shape.
Blankety Blank is to be “rested” after 2026.
Maybe. I’m slightly baffled by the way the Beeb have treated Blankety Blank. Some shows are tentpoles, some are useful auxillary. Blankety Blank is the latter that the Beeb have tried to use as the former. No! You put it on after something like Mickey Mac’s Big Show, that’s where its value is, not left out all on its own.
ITV are begging Simon Cowell to bring back The X Factor for next year however he’s refusing to because he sees Netflix as the future of singing competitions
Have there been any successful singing competitions on Netflix? Did Building the Band get any traction at all? Also he’s meant to be doing Who’s In The Band? on ABC in the US (Another Richard Bacon show!) that films its pilot episode… tonight as it happens, so I’m not sure the premise holds up sadly.
Phew, see you next year for the next one!
“The Inner Circle has been given another daytime run but no celeb version”
Think the “Celebrity” version went nowhere and did nothing to be honest.
Weirdly, even though the celebrities add absolutely *nothing* to the proceedings, I actually prefer it over the daytime version. It feels more slickly edited (and honestly, I prefer the style of the contestant introductions, with them meeting their partner and talking to each other about their plan, over the civilian’s weird look to camera style), and the small increases to the money amounts actually add a bit of tactics the civilian game lacks: In the Civilian game, the only amount a player can have above £1,000 is the jackpot, so whoever wins the extra £1,000 in Round One is always going to have at least the second-highest amount in the game (either outright, or shared with another player if they had the £0 originally). With the celebrities, the addition of £2,000 as a further amount makes getting the extra money less of a guarantee of overall value.
My mother wants me to add, she feels like Amanda Holden appears to do a better job hosting the Celebrity version compared to the regular Inner Circle. Her opinion is that Holden feels more “at ease” on the celebrity editions, as she has known faces to bounce off, giving her a sense of comfort — and I must admit, there does seem to be a lot more banter and humour overall.
So the swap on Deal or No Deal isn’t discontinued after all! That’s what I was concerned about since it was revived.
Also, are there going to be changes to the set, and will the jackpot be increased back to £250,000? Ooh, I doubt it!
Vernon Kay did a pilot for a reboot of Friends Like These with Alison Hammond, but that was ages ago so doesn’t seem anything will come of it. One of his former shows 1000 Heartbeats is also said to be getting the reboot treatment.
ITV daytime related, is Sara Davies’ Time Is Money next year? In terms of new formats, is that it for 2025?
Nothing too crazy here.
Wouldn’t be at all surprised with a Destination X retool. It held up remarkably OK here, unlike other territories, but it feels more like a big-launching two series flameout rather than a long term sustainable hit,
It’d be surprising if The Inner Circle didn’t get a second run. Almost everything does, it’s not an embarrassingly bad production or megaflop or anything and it shows commitment to shows that make it through the tender. If they do axe the celebrity version then maybe we’ll get Celebrity Answer Run which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Surprised !mpossible’s repeats do well, although it makes sense since they repeat it endlessly. I don’t remember it doing THAT well first time around.
Really want a Celebrity Answer Run, I made this suggestion to the BBC and also Jason Manford on social media they said “that’s the plan” hinting they might be doing it. The Answer Run has a set design and feel which seems fitting for a teatime Saturday night slot. Would be well up for this Jason has done work with BBC for previous prime-time show First and Last so worth giving it a go. Have a comedian special imagine the banter
Wonderball v2 is an interesting prospect, but I have my doubts about how it would be mathematically viable. The offers are 10-15% of the jackpot (which was 2k on BBC Scotland) – for those to feel like interesting money you would ideally want a 5-figure jackpot (maybe 5k if you’re going for teatime), but the average winnings per show is probably something like 50-60% of the JP, so it becomes quite expensive for what you get.
If Clarkson does leave WWTBAM then who on earth would be the new host, I’m glad at least if it’s true that they’d still continue the show
You’d think if he was leaving on amicable terms they’d put the new host on Hotseat first rather than launching it with Jeremy. Not sure if that’s been filmed yet but presumably due to air in the New Year when the soaps vacate the 7.30pm slot.
Yes, it’s filming end of November with the next batch of normal Millionaire filming early December, yes it’s due for a weekly half seven slot.
The MAFS US Netflix thing is unlikely given that it’s literally just moved to Peacock.
On the guinea pig contestants, the first female winner of Love Island was a guinea who greatly impressed.
I learnt about this a few days too late otherwise this is the sort of thing I’d normally drop in a Stool Pigeon: you can play a live version of De Alleskunner (99-1) in the Netherlands via https://nextlevelenschede.nl/en/the-all-rounder/ – crucially, the difference is no elimination, it’s just all minigames all the time. (Does the lack of elimination miss the point? Perhaps, but the authenticity vs. experience of the elimination in The Traitors Live Experience does lead to some pissed-on metaphorical chips.)
Two hours, 450 euros, but that’s a price for 20 players, so it’s actually pretty good.
Yeah, two hours for effectively £20 seems pretty good to me.