James Redmond was really witty in the sketches (notably as a posh bachelor in the Blind Date "Secret Of My Success"), but never really cut it as a straight presenter.
I've mentioned that before, because I had that episode, from November 2001, on an old tape for ages. It was the day Blind Date came back after The Premiership had been dumped out of primetime, and Cilla was a guest, so they did a Blind Date parody with James, as you say, absolutely brilliant in it, he was so funny and the cast and crew were in absolute hysterics. He'd been a guest a few times and totally got it - I remember him appearing quite regularly on T4 around the time and being equally good value and very likeable - and I always assume that was when they decided to offer him the job. It's fair to say he didn't make that much impact when he took over but, as I say, he'd already been overshadowed by Brian from day one.
Yeah, and recorded on a monday (i was in the audience). Usually on a pre record theyd do the live show on sat morning then the other show in the afternoon which must have been a long day! In the ant and dec days youd know it was recorded as they removed the clock. A famous exception was when they did new years day 2000 live from a bed in the chums flat after celebrating all night.
Great show, that, they all cheerfully admitted after it that they carried on drinking all the way through the show. As you say, the disappearance of the clock was always the giveaway it was a pre-record. Although there were clearly more pre-records during SMTV Gold because of the numerous occasions it was dumped in the afternoon, I don't think there was a massive ballooning in the number of pre-records, they did quite a few during the imperial phase.
One I certainly remember came in 1999, as it was during the period when there was some kind of dispute with F1 and ITV couldn't show qualifying live (F1 qualifying much like test match cricket on the Beeb as a regular cause of the Saturday morning shows being truncated), but at the last minute the dispute was resolved and they could show it live. That day's SMTV was pre-recorded so Ant and Dec had to come in to do an additional link at 11.30 to say that despite what they'd been saying all morning, CDUK wasn't on next but later in the afternoon.
And during 2004 and 2005 it seemed to be completely random who'd be presenting it, Cat frequently wouldn't be there in the months leading up to her leaving, and some weeks they flew Holly down from Maidstone, which means she wasn't there for the second half of MoM. And the less said about the 2005 revamp, the better.
If anyone remembers, CD:UK was meant to come back on Channel 5, with Dave Berry (who was the most regular presenter between Cat leaving and the 2005 revamp) and Caroline Flack as hosts, but for whatever reason it didn't happen. At the end of the final episode they seemed pretty confident they'd be back though.
Yeah, I remember that, they kept up the line all the way through that it was "the last CDUK for a while" because as you say the intention was they'd be selling the format to someone else, which as you say was Channel 5. But it never appeared because I think the sponsor pulled out and they couldn't find another, and they couldn't afford it otherwise. I think that was also the reason why an intended replacement for CDUK on ITV never appeared either. Was quite a pivotal moment for pop TV, that, within a few months in 2006 both Top of the Pops and CDUK ended, and Simon and Miquita left Popworld. Popworld did carry on for another year, but it was a proper end of an era.
Funnily enough they showed a clip from Cat's last CDUK when she was on The One Show the other day, as Ronan Keating was on it who's hosting The One Show this week. As you suggest, when she left there was a right revolving door of presenters, the Wiki page suggests Holly Willoughby did it every other week with someone else in between. What probably also didn't help was that in the summer of 2005 it actually moved full-time to Sunday mornings for about three months, it used to be that in F1 weeks it would be truncated or moved but seemingly they wanted to give it a regular slot (maybe it was easier to pre-record in advance if it was always the same length) but I wonder how many people got out of the habit, especially when Popworld was on at the same time.
The revamp was pretty ropey too, I think it was a big mistake to stop using the official chart (the midweek version, at least), which always made it look more up to date and more exciting than Pops, in favour of the made-up one. I suppose the target audience didn't mind if they made up the chart as long as they played the records they wanted to hear, but it made it seem just like any other pop show. And the new presenting trio never gelled, Lauren Laverne is brilliant but it never worked out with that trio. CDUK had always managed to marry talk and music much better than whenever Pops tried it, but there was probably too much talk. I know there were three presenters when Ant, Dec and Cat did it, but that was really two for the price of one.