This is quite an interesting story and although it’s been reported by the Mirror it doesn’t seem to have picked up much traction. Basically Tim Wonnacott’s been suspended from Bargain Hunt after an apparent argument with a producer on Friday – details unknown, an investigation is taking place.
Bargain Hunt is an absolute daytime monster and has been for about twenty years, usually the biggest show in daytime outside the big 5pm quizzes and regularly getting 30%+ shares (which makes it basically the biggest show on television outside of soaps and Strictly/X Factor. If only schedulers would put it on at 9pm, it would *literally* get 8m viewers nightly). This would not be the first time the show’s iconic host has parted ways, the series shot to fame under the stewardship of David “cheap as chips” Dickinson and became even more popular under Wonnacott. Both very much personality hosts.
Guest hosts (the regular antiques experts, presumably) will be covering the rest of the recording of this series, much like when Wonnacott was training for Strictly Come Dancing. Who’d be the next permanant host? I reckon with a bit of sharpening up Anita Manning is just eccentric enough and seems to have a large enough persona to carry it off full time. We’ll see though.
We don’t know the reasons for the suspension, but we will look forward to Wonnacott’s Win A Cot on Amazon Prime in due course. The other question is what will happen to the other shows on the BBC where he acts in an expert or voiceover capacity?
In the meantime we wait for ratings for Best Time Ever with Neil Patrick Harris, but the reviews are mixed at best. On the one hand shows are made for viewers not critics, on the other this sort of thing just doesn’t seem to go down well in the US (see Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, My Kinda Town etc.)
