BBC One

Ten minutes early? I thought it was scheduled to finish at 9.40pm?

Couldn't they have nicked a ten-minute Coast from BBC2.

I guess it's a long time since the BBC dusted off a Tom and Jerry cartoon for such an event.

It was but it finished just before 9.30

It seems BBC1 don't have a filler programme, as you say BBC2 has loads of those 'shorts' and ITV1 always have Creature Comforts

You can't really fault BBC1 for this. It's absolutely appalling that the producers of SCD can't keep the sodding programme to schedule.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot of swearing amongst the BBC1 pres team.

They should be prepared for the situation though - live programmes can always fall off air.

Indeed they can, but it's one thing being prepared for a live show not to happen at all and entirely another to be prepeared for an underrun of any length. As I've said in the Strictly thread, I certainly wouldn't have liked to have been in NC1 tonight delaing with an underrun of that amount. Yes, filler programmes used to be available for live programme underruns, but I suspect on a ratings driven saturday night, their use would be very frowned upon. That said, a junction of 5 minutes of trails (I'm sure at least one was shown twice!) is probably as much of a turn off!

To be honest both are to blame, surely there is a montage of the series's best bits they could have run

Hopefully next week when the final over-runs, presentation will just cut them off at the billed time

Starting Outnumbered many minutes early is not great either, I expect there will be meetings on Monday

do they not have access to tom and jerry anymore?

Looks like the ten minutes disappeared to ITV1 who are now running ten minutes late. Presumably will be saved by the lower ad rate for the rest of the evening.

Haven't seen T&J on the BBC for years, but it's not really apt for that time on a saturday night... I can't think of many fillers that would be

No idea how much warning they would have had for the under-run but it's It's not that easy to fill so much airtime at the drop of a hat. Playing lots of trails is the easiest way to do it as they're all in the schedule anyway so it's just a case of copy and pasting.

I suspect that things are a lot more difficult now that playout is being done by a separate company too

Well, if they closed the lines immediately at the start of the show they probably knew for half an hour there wouldn't be a dance off, so somebody would have to fill the slot.

Shame they didn't have access to the Wallace and Grommit Crackin' Contraptions series, a couple of those would have been the perfect filler!