C4 poaches Paul O'Grady

Because I think it would be a bit odd, as the first episode had quite a bit of Paul going on about it being the first show and what it was originally going to be called and all that rubbish.

How were the new competitions shoehorned in?

They just ran the new competitions where the old ones were before.

Paul still introduced the competitions but they were billed as "OUR BRAND NEW COMPETITION". Also whenever he mentioned Guess The Theme Tune a banner appeared at the bottom saying "We can no longer take entries for guess the theme tune"

Very lazy of ITV not to put something that isn't a repeat in this slot - bring back Crossroads.

Quite true actually. I personally think they started with this show where he was reading out reviews of how great the show was doing and slagging off Richard & Judy simply to lure any viewers who don't know what's going on re his move to C4 into a sense of this being a new series. Of course the majority won't fall for it (if not all) but judging by ITV's previous immaturity in this whole saga this does look like something they would do.

He used to slag off Richard and Judy at least once a week back then!

On the most recent series Paul used to make more of a fuss over the competitions, which therefore would have been harder to edit out (the car revving noise, Susan Foreshaw introducing it etc), maybe back in the first series the competitions were more stand alone so easier to edit.

Also the 'this is a repeat' straps may have already been put on because this first series would have been repeated on ITV1 Nighttime which they didn't do more recently

The first episode was probabaly all "welcome to my new brand new show on ITV1 etc etc" so they probabaly didnt want to draw attention to that.

To be fair ITV expected a new series of Paul O Grady to go out from March had he not gone to C4, so have been left with a gap in the schedule.

Bring back Home and Away - ITV havent had much sucess with this slot, apart from The Paul O Grady show, since that moved to FIVE.

On 2nd thoughts though Home and Away is probabaly better off on FIVE as they dont cut the episodes to bits as much as ITV did and also dont take it off air for long breaks.

Home and Away is in a much better slot on Five.


Surely even repeating the Des and Mel compilations would have been better for ITV.

Even though it comes across as sour grapes, I guess it's better than ITV1 digging up repeats of the likes of Catchphrase again!

Depends what you call sucess. Paul O'Grady only matched and then slightly beat Crossroads' 2002 ratings in his final few weeks.

POG was of course cheaper to make than Crossroads but as far as ratings go, they're equal.

Anyway, I'd rather watch a POG repeat than that 5 O'Clock thing they had on a few weeks ago. Repeats of You Bet! with Darren Day would be even better than that returning.

An even better idea - repeats of You Bet! with Matthew Kelly!

On second thoughts no - a third break would be inserted and the credits genericised.

Put some classic Bully on!

On that note...goodnight.