The votes have been counted and verified and for the first time on Tuesday night we’re doing a LIVE Youtube broadcast with the results. What did YOU vote best and worst new shows of 2014? And what was your favourite show overall? Has Osmania (*) run rampant like last year? Have you voted for the wrong things?

Well only I know the answer (and the results are juicy) but on Tuesday night you will as well. We’ll have LIVE expert analysis from David Bodycombe, Daniel Peake and Lewis Murphy and I’ll have all facts on hand if we remember to take live questions on Twitter so try and join us if you can, although the broadcast should be available to watch at your leisure afterwards.

The written report will go up on UKGameshows.com immediately after we finish the broadcast, as will the after party stats here. So join us!

In other news, Get Your Act Together starts tonight.

(*) I was dismayed to discover that “Osmaniacs” was already coined by Mark Labbett 🙁

This week is the calm before the storm – we’ve got some fun stuff lined-up for you next week including the POLL RESULTS (hopefully) and very very possibly a recording review and maybe looking at my diary there’s room for another BATTLE MODE the weekend after next.

In the meantime we thank Gordon Donaldson for alerting us to this – a short lived daily version of Strike It Lucky from Australia. This dates from 1994:

What I particularly like is the especially Australian quiz trait of the time of taking the theme from an existing and well-established international version and then doing something weird with it. The host seems rather low-energy compared to Michael Barrymore.

There was a suggestion doing the rounds a while ago that Strike it Lucky was one of the formats thought to be in line for an ITV revival. It would be interesting to see how it would go down, Barrymore says himself the format is basically rubbish and the show’s international standing (i.e. it basically flopped everywhere but here) would suggest that it basically worked because it’s the Barrymore Messes With The Public With Prizes Half Hour, so goodness knows who would fit his shoes these days.

The Poll of 2014 has now closed, thanks for all your entries, it’s been yet another record breaking year.

I’m going to spend the next week collating the votes and comments and we’re hoping to do a LIVE Youtube-cast with the results once they’ve been written up, so join us for that.

In the meantime here’s this month’s Raab-cast BONUS ROUND (once it’s finished processing) – if you’re not bothered about Raab but quite enjoy us arsing about doing quizzes, here’s the quick and dirty edit you need. This month David brings us a pop quiz and Wits and Wagers and Dan brings us Order Order! A quiz where you put things in order:

The next edition will go out March 28th. The EXCITING NEWS is that the third and decisive Schlag den Brig will likely (although this is not set in stone yet) be happening March 21st, and we’ll be filming some more OB stuff earlier in the month, so keep that free in your diaries. If you want.

Don’t forget that the Poll of 2014 closes TONIGHT just before midnight, if you haven’t voted then please make sure you do so.

So we’re in new talent show season, The Voice UK got off to a strong start yesterday but I’ve no real interest in that, instead I’ve just watched Harry Hill’s Star’s In Their Eyes on catch-up which was SITE with added Harry Hill zanyness. This is quite a difficult tone for the show to take – on the one hand there seems little point directly competing with serious talent shows, and there’s certainly no point being the same as The Voice, on the other hand the original show ran for almost twenty years and there’s a certain expectation of what it’s going to be like and anyone expecting a show like the original got a fairly rude wake-up call.

In truth as a parody of light-entertainment masquerading as light-entertainment I enjoyed it (although I also accept I didn’t really watch much of the original back in the day), I thought the presentation and formatting gags were quite funny (“the not live final! It’s not live, but it is a final. And winning Stars in Their Eyes is unlikely to change your life, but then it won’t ruin it either,” and the Brucie style “What have they got?” “STARS!” “Where are the stars?” “IN THEIR EYES!”) and they found decent people to play along with the gags in their normal life VTs, if not brilliant singers in the main. In truth I probably would have dropped a couple of the sillier sketches like the bread fight and Adele’s baby, maybe they should have emphasised Harry Hill a bit more in the titling.

Although a rating of 3.7m (inc. +1) is going to feel disappointing, it’s really not much worse than other new ITV light-entertainment offerings in the last few years. The worrying thing is that people seemed to be tuning out of it across the hour. The fun thing is knowing that the’re filming about a week ahead so we can see if they make changes – the horse has already bolted I expect, episode two is in the can so if they’re going to make changes it will be from episode three. Really it’s Dick and Dom’s Ask the Family all over again – another show I enjoyed, but another show that got gradually less fun after audience reaction.

Next Sunday Get Your Act Together begins which may or may not be an Endemol Joe production, and really I’ve got no idea how it will do – people watch Britain’s Got Talent, but Sunday Night at the Palladium was only doing 3.5m (but has been recommissioned). So we’ll see. What we do know is that it’s all in the can apart from the live final.

Saturday 10th January,
7:15pm UK (8:15 on the continent),
ProSieben and naughty internet streaming

Yes! It’s time for Stefan Raab to take on his fifty-first kanditdat with €1m up for grabs if the best of Germany can out perform the best of German television across fifteen mystery games.

And again we will be providing sort-of-live commentary, which doesn’t really work as live commentary because of all sorts of delays. HOWEVER it will likely be fun to listen to, and will likely feature all sorts of fun and games along the way. So why not come and join us? David J Bodycombe, Daniel Peake, Lewis Murphy and myself should all be along.

We’ll probably have all sorts of extra-curricular activities to fill the gaps during the breaks as well. Why pay the €21.50 (plus €6.50 booking fee) to watch it LIVE in the studio when you can watch it LIVE with us?

The musical turns this episode are Ella Henderson and Howard Faltermeyer Herbert Grönemeyer !

Here are the deets – note that we have a new recommendation for you after someone suggested it last commentary:

Here are all the links you need:

Here is link to our commentary (will open in a new window). This stream is commentary only. You will need to have a naughty stream running at the same time for the visuals. We are likely to be about 15-20 seconds behind the visual stream (and about a full minute behind if you’re watching an actual satellite feed), sorry.

This is the primary stream we will be watching live and basing our commentary on. HOWEVER! It is recommended you watch the back-up stream whilst listening to our commentary as that is 10-15 seconds behind our primary stream and so the commentary syncing should work out much better. If we have to switch to the back-up I’m afraid we will be about twenty seconds ahead of what you’re watching.

Follow us on Twitter for immediate news if something goes wrong. Or because we’re fun guys!!!! @bothersbar, @danielpeake, @ogbajoj, @davidjbodycombe.