Saturday Night Takeaway 2021

I would definitely watch Dancing on Ice if they started putting stuff like 'The taxes! The finger thing means the taxes!' in the background.

Series starts 20th February.

Ant & Dec's #SaturdayNightTakeaway returns Saturday 20th February at 7pm on ITV. https://t.co/e9CmyQZbJb

— TV Zone (@tvukzone) February 10, 2021

Wow couldn't ITV give the date during the promos over the last month? Never understood "Coming this February" but never stating the date - why the secret back in January?

Because they don’t tend to have dates on their promos. If it’s over a week away, it is almost always a coming soon or this month.

Yes, because there's no need to reveal a date so far in advance - you can't set your recorder for it, so what does it matter? All you need to know is that it's coming. The same reason film trailers always end Coming Soon rather than the actual date.

Of course, as the schedules for each channel are only signed off ten days in advance, it also means they don't have to embarrassingly change them if for whatever reason the dates slip.

That is something the Aussie networks are quite bad at. They're bad at scheduling anyway and often only lock in schedules barely a week ahead, and with great frequency pull shows and move them anyway, but on the rare occassions when they do announce a date ahead of time they'll more often than not end up moving it - usually as there is alot of tit for tat scheduling down under.


It wasn't tricky to work out when SNT would start if you really needed to know, and sometime they will run a promo with "Coming Soon" and then add a full date slightly nearer the time, but more than a week out, but usually they just change it within the week. It tends to be in the run up to Christmas they'll advertise more than a week out with specific information, but as Steve said for the rest of the year schedules are locked in much later most of the year than they are over the December/early January period.

Last year once the Masked Singer ended Takeaway started, same the last 5-6 years when Takeaway ends BGT starts but don't see the problem with them holding the date especially this year with Covid restrictions in case they had to pull it. Last year Alan Carr's Epic Gameshow was advertised a number of times and pulled for example.

*Inconsistency Klaxon*
So, last year on the Christmas trails on BBC One, from a lot more than 10 days out they were promoting programmes with both the day and time.
So, it's one rule for Christmas and one rule for everything else?

I'd argue at Takeaway is the lynchpin of ITV Saturday winter schedules, it is as every bit as important something being shown on Christmas Day at 7.40pm - so should be no harm even in the middle of January having an end board on the trailer saying 'back from 20th February'

Yes, schedules are published further in advance at Christmas.

Indeed, but for the rest of the year it's ten days. As mentioned, you could argue that there's no need to keep it a secret because it was fairly obvious it was going to be on that day, as that's when it always begins, but Epic Gameshow was dropped from the schedules at the last minute because they realised they were going to have to spin out the remaining content for longer, and even the biggest shows can be subject to last minute changes - all the battles in the past over Strictly vs X Factor, The Voice vs Britain's Got Talent, Big Brother vs Survivor, when programmes were moved forward, even just a day or two, to work as a spoiler.



But what can you do with that information in mid-January? It's clearly different in announcing something's going to be on Christmas Day, or New Year's Day, because that in itself is big news as it emphasises a programme is big news. But as to whether it's going to be one Saturday as opposed to another, who cares? As I say, you can't set it to record, you'll have forgotten it by the time it comes round, and while it's obviously different at the moment, it's not going to be something you need to know to decide if you're going to cancel any plans for that night.

And also, there has to be some surprise and mystery about television, even if it's obvious when it's going to be on. Noel used to say about the House Party that the holy grail for an entertainment show was something that had a strong format but didn't look like it had a format so the audience weren't sitting there going "this is when they do this, now they're going to do that" and it got very boring and predictable. And it is more exciting saying "Coming soon" at the end of a trailer. It's supposed to be a teaser, not a binding contract.

The schedulers tend to react to what the competition is so what might work one week might not work another, they tend to see what the competition will air on a Tuesday two weeks before a programme airs then makes changes before the deadline 24 hours later. Some programmes will be firmly in place but others can be shifted and replaced with other programmes within that period.