Challenge - June 2016 onwards

Took the words right out of my mouth. It's provided what is a niche genre onto the Freeview platform, while what was left of Channel One upon its closure was picked up by Pick over the years, neutering out the endless dross it put out when it was branded as Sky3.

I'm amazed TNA has been on Challenge for this long to be honest. It doesn't get as much prominence as it used to. It's always been stuck out like a sore thumb in the schedule. Let's face it rights to TNA will have always cost more (probably not by much) than a repeat of Bullseye or The Chase.

Challenge seem to have what could be described as a borked playout setup at the moment particularly with 30 minute programmes as it seems to be showing the same episode of things twice in a row.

Tonight's 8pm Bullseye episode has aired twice one after another, as was an episode of Supermarket Sweep yesterday and there was at least one more example of this this weekend alone.

Problem first spotted by me last week but may have been going on longer.

They seem to do that quite often with Bullseye.

Never used to. Twice in the same day at two entirely different parts of the day is one thing and fairly common on a lot of channels but repeating the 8pm airing at 8:30pm? Come on, seriously?

"Missed tonight's Bullseye? Don't worry, it's on again right now, then after that it's on Challenge +1, and then again after that!"

And probably in about six weeks time too.

These channels of course rely on nostalgia but I do find the more Challenge show Bullseye, the less I like it.

There's a brilliant trailer for Gladiators going out at the moment, I hope someone can capture it.

A tweet has appeared, to acknowledge its birthday, I wonder if anything is being planned?

When was @ChallengeTV launched? #nationaltriviaday

— Challenge TV (@ChallengeTV) January 4, 2017

Bit of a flawed question really, what is now Challenge launched in February 1997, but the channel as such launched in September 1993 as Family Channel so its birthday is technically not until then. But anyway...

It's a shame that Crystal Maze appears to be the oldest programme in the current schedule. The amount of dependence this channel now has on Chase, Pointless, Millionaire and (to a lesser extent) Bullseye gets worse every month, and Christmas week was literally full of these four shows + Crystal Maze.

Its become increasingly obvious that Challenge are expecting little (if any) new money to come their way any time soon (in light of Sky cutbacks after their Premier League deal) for new shows - most of what they did buy didn't generate good ratings sadly.

So if anything does happen for the 20th Challenge anniversary it will probably be limited to a sting, ident or "celebrate with Bradley and The Chase for the umpteenth time!"

Its the Wheel of fortunes ( with Nicky) which is the oldest show on Challenge, Im sure that was on last week. I agree it needs some new shows. Plus your right about the it birthday.

I think Neil is referring to the fact that The Crystal Maze has been in the Challenge schedule longer than any other show.