POLITICS! And what better thing to put after election Thursday than a clip of late nineties sort-of hit If I Ruled The World, hosted by Clive Anderson and devised by Richard off Pointless.
It strikes me that I Couldn’t Disagree More predates Fighting Talk‘s Defend the Indefensible by a number of years, so you’d think Osman would be better at it.
IN OTHER EXCITING NEWS: 5 Minutes to a Fortune has apparently been sold to TF1 as Pas une seconde à perdre! (Not a Second to Lose! We’re always intrigued by a TF1 interpretion of a format) meanwhile there appears to be some controversy over a question.
Enrico Papi announced to host “Scream! If You Know the Answer” on Italia1
Awesome. It sounds like the UK version has been canned, although I thought the hour long UK/US version was lacking something anyway.
According to the enthusiasts on C4Countdown, Countdown is moving back to 3:15 from 20th May.
Good news.
Intrigued how much it will rise in the slightly later slot – there is competition there now that wasn’t really there when Countdown was moved to 2:40.
Suspect Channel 4 were trying to kill it softly, but hilariously everything else underperforming has led to a rethink. It’s very cheap if nothing else.
I’m pleased though I fear the damage is done. But it’s commissioned until 2015 isn’t it?
I notice with the recent press articles, a lot of people don’t seem to think much of Nick Hewer. I couldn’t stand him for the first year or so but have actually quite warmed to him recently (though I still think snubbing Jeff was a big mistake)
Do we know how 1001 Things… is doing this time around?
Not well, about 250-300k. As ever, raw numbers don’t tell the whole story – we were told that last time round it did good demographic figures, but now it’s lost 40% of the audience you would have to assume it’s lost a reasonable amount of demo.
I remember the Hewer Bounce giving it 1m viewers for about a week, then rapidly dropping back to 600k which is where it roughly was before Stelling left.
While I think about it, has anyone else been watching 1001 Things this series? It seems to have gone from easy-to-average last series to Nintendo Hard this series, including what appeared to be at least a five-day rollover last week and several episodes where all three contestants have dropped out on the final questions.
I think it’s partly that the categories are less to my liking this time round, but the questions seem to have got much, much more difficult.
Actually there was a similarly long run in season 1 without a win, and at least one episode in it with no final question.
If you think about it, in that slot it has to keep the jackpot rolling because by 4:15 the lead-out will have just treated £10,000 like it’s a few hundred quid. That’s a problem, and the only solution was Countdown to become the DoND lead-in again. Glad Channel 4 have belatedly realised this.
Today’s addition to the prize pot was £200, with a successful returning champion!
I understand the need to make the jackpot more difficult to win, but having all three players knocked out is a massive downer at the end of the show, and when it seems to be happening about half of the time, it seems that the questions are too difficult. I also don’t think that a daily jackpot would be that much of a problem, even at 3.30 in the afternoon (assuming that last series’ jackpot addition of £2-300 were to return – had contestants played for £200 today, it would be a bit more of a joke) – most winning contestants on Tipping Point go away with about that much.
Overnights for yesterday are on DS now. Wow.
1.45pm – Four Rooms – 149k (2.7%)
2.40pm – Countdown – 187k (3.5%)
3.30pm – 1001 Things You Should Know – 217k (3.4%)
4.00pm – Deal Or No Deal – 760k (9.6%)
5.00pm – Five Minutes to a Fortune – 492k (4.2%)
I bet the Daily Mail wish they’d waited a few more days to rehash their 4-year old Countdown Is Doomed article.
A shame Four Rooms isn’t doing great – it had 100k+ more than that on Monday, although it is in line with Super Scrimpers.
It’s not *that* cheap. You’ve got three hosts (although they’re on longish deals and not as expensive as the Richard/Carol era) as well as a celeb guest. But hurrah for a teatime slot even if it’s only High Tea.
Not that cheap then, but one of the few shows I can think of that can (and indeed does) record several week’s worth over the same amount of days.
Celeb guests are booked fairly cheaply as I recall being told as they have more emphasis on having a like of the game, as otherwise Manchester is quite far out of the way for lots of them.
Source? If you have a link, could you post it please.
It’s suggested here: http://www.c4countdown.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1780&start=120#p142151
Good news indeed. Begs the question what will happen to the 3:30 shows – primarily 1001 Things… of course, as that’s in the can and won’t have finished it’s run by the date suggested.
Probably burnt off at 2:45.
oh, and more news from Italy:
when RAI started the television service in 1954 it didn’t air commercials, but that changed in 1957 when Carosello was invented.
it was a short “advertisement segment” that aired every night, before the prime-time show.
here’s the opening theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T42xn6qLeYA
the single commercials had to adhere to a very strict rule: the actual advertisement (30 seconds max) had to be preceeded by at least 105 seconds of “entertainment contents”
here’s one with Mike Bongiorno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex0KKwemN-I
soon Carosello became a great success and many popular characters and catchphrases were born with that program.
it was so popular that many families started telling their children to “go to bed after Carosello” (which became a catchphrase itself).
the program ended in 1977 with the advent of commercial television. a failed attempt to revive the format was made in 1997.
but from next Monday…
Quite the episode this week on 梦立方, aka Cube China:
In other teatime news, Paul O Grady is returning to do his tea time chat show for ITV, so it looks like The Chase will get a break then: http://t.co/YHu6dNwJfP