Catchup

Alan Carr's Epic Gameshow

Saturday's version of Bullseye was absolutely awful. If Andrew Wood still owns the rights to the show I'm surprised he let them butcher it so much. I'd heard that the reason it was axed in 1995 was because ITV wanted to alter the format again and he refused - moving it to Saturday was also seen as a disaster. Sunday was, strangely, the right slot for it.... bizarrely, ATV were given the prime Monday 7pm slot before Coronation Street but it didn't succeed. Not sure if Lew Grade hated it tbh. Central moved it to Sunday teatime and it was a cheap, hugely successful show for them.

It clearly doesn't work in an hour format, altering the end game failed and the audience whooping like seals on drugs is just stupid. The quality of the contestants didn't help either... some of the '80s and '90s contestants seemed like Brain of Britain in comparison.

Does ITV think we need hype or can't cope with simple no-fuss 30 minute quiz or game shows? If they are bringing back old favourites for viewers they should keep the format and layout because tinkering with format fail.

I read recently that ITV were unable to obtain the UK rights to bring back 3-2-1.

London Live

ESTV (London Live) has published their latest set of accounts for the year ending September 2019.

Turnover down for the second consecutive year to £2.4m (from £3.1m), but losses also down to £2.8m (from £3.2m).

Staff numbers down by 40% to 35.

Good news for the man in charge - the highest paid Director (Tim Kirkman?) had his salary increased by £34k to an eye-watering £302k or 19% of the total salary bill.

Alan Carr's Epic Gameshow

My understanding is that the masters of many ATV/Central game/quiz shows such as Bullseye, Family Fortunes (original), Blockbusters were "lost" and that's why they are always recreated on other shows. Same with so many of Ed Welch's themes he made for Central and TVS which he entrusted them with - sadly, they will never see the light of day

Alan Carr's Epic Gameshow

The original Strike It Lucky from 1986 theme was called Born to Run by Paul Westwood, DeWolfe library, and is on the ITV50 CD

CNN International

So a while back CNN international dropped News to show Golf. Now at 1.15am on the 5th of July UK time they're not showing the 4th of July special that they've been promoting all day. They have a documentary "Trump the Law" on instead. Followed by hours of the usual filler. Now I would have taken the 4th of July Special over repeats and those strange programmes about Africa and South Korea that feel like they've been paid for. It's been a very long time since I've gone to CNN for real news, which is sad because they do seem to have very talented Journalists in the International bit of the organization.

I do still tune in during the small hours over here as it's a useful reflection on a liberal mindset. You'd have real problems however if it was your only source of information.

BBC Breakfast - 16th July onwards

They wouldn't be able to use B on Sundays because Andrew Marr comes straight after it.

BBC Cymru Wales New HQ

I'm certainly not disputing that there will still be a good bit of work to go on everything, and I can understand why COVID-19 has thrown a spanner in the works. I just feel like next year is unrealistic, considering how complete it looks in the picture. A delay into autumn or early winter, I could understand, but writing it off until next year seems a bit extreme, especially given that we're all starting to return to some form of normality.

BBC Breakfast - 16th July onwards

I can completely see the programme moving back to London.

However, under the current management, licence fee settlement, production conditions, staffing arrangements? No, I can see it remaining in Salford for a long time.

There are advantages for this type of programming to be London based, guests and newsroom access primarily among them, but currently they are outweighed by the political (BBC and Governmental) decisions which resulted in the original move. Until those policies change, it's not coming back to London.

Alan Carr's Epic Gameshow

I think the Strike It Lucky theme was library music, so probably easier to source than an originally written theme whose source tapes may well have been lost.

Alan Carr's Epic Gameshow

John wrote both the ATV 1981 show cues and the Central 1983 show cues, both were incredibly good and arranged and recorded with live musicians, not in the least bit jazzy with 'weird chords' as you refer.
I'm just saying ITV could have sourced this if they had wanted to instead of using inferior recreations; they used the original music for the 'Strike it lucky' episode so clearly had no issue using original compositions.

BBC Cymru Wales New HQ

I don’t think they’ve had a separate sports presenter in quite a while.

What was your favorite regional ITV station growing up?

Just about every region opt outs are in this format from the same day on You Tube