I used to watch the Most Haunted repeats on Ftn for a laugh, and was amused the other week to find that Real Lives are still showing those old episodes - they’re even in 14:9. (Real Lives was originally Living TV 2).
Still find it hard to believe anybody took anything Derek Acorah said seriously on that.
I don't know whether it's been happening for a while, but I've noticed that Sky are showing "Challenge acquired programming" on other channels, Sky Two are showing The Chase and The Crystal Maze on weekdays from 4pm, it may bring in some viewers, especially as I think recently Challenge have started runs of The Crystal Maze which don't last right through to the end. (I know The Chase has expanded to Pick as well)
I don't know whether it's been happening for a while, but I've noticed that Sky are showing "Challenge acquired programming" on other channels, Sky Two are showing The Chase and The Crystal Maze on weekdays from 4pm, it may bring in some viewers, especially as I think recently Challenge have started runs of The Crystal Maze which don't last right through to the end. (I know The Chase has expanded to Pick as well)
I haven't seen those two, but the last time I was flicking past Sky 2 in a hotel they were showing Robot Wars.
12 days later
CC
ccskycomedy
It looks like it could be game over for this one great channel. Since the wall post were taken off and social media team changed, Challenge has gone downhill. And now that the whole social media side of the channel is now inactive and the promos have stopped, there is nothing remote promotional about the channel anymore save for continuity announcements and ECP's on Challenge and Pick. Virgin made a mistake of selling out Challenge to Sky.
It looks like it could be game over for this one great channel. Since the wall post were taken off and social media team changed, Challenge has gone downhill. And now that the whole social media side of the channel is now inactive and the promos have stopped, there is nothing remote promotional about the channel anymore save for continuity announcements and ECP's on Challenge and Pick. Virgin made a mistake of selling out Challenge to Sky.
It's easy to forget how bad a state Challenge was in when Virgin were in control. Sky gave it some solid branding (that retro look they had was scrapped far too soon) and some welcomed new commissions. I'm sure once Sky took over they started commissioning programmes like Fun House that I don't think Virgin went anywhere near. Granted it's in a pretty rubbish state now, and Takeshi's Castle is hardly ever seen anymore, but it's an easy way to advertise Sky channels on Freeview, so I can't see it going anywhere anytime soon.
It is strange how it's still the only channel of its kind though. I'm sure UKTV probably have a decent library of BBC game shows they could make a channel out of if they wanted to.
It is strange how it's still the only channel of its kind though. I'm sure UKTV probably have a decent library of BBC game shows they could make a channel out of if they wanted to.
Bearing in mind some of the BBC game shows have appeared on Challenge and didn't do very well (and that UKTV is effectively a commercial operator) ratings wise, it probably goes without saying that if they fail on somewhere like Challenge with its Freeview slot its plausible it wouldn't be sustainable behind the pay wall either.
In any event UKTV have acquired some game shows - Tipping Point for one and I suppose the likes of QI, Mock The Week and Would I Lie To You are not traditional game shows but could be regarded as such.
Nostalgia wears off and channels like Challenge just end up on an infinite loop, so even if you're the biggest Bullseye fan in the world soon enough you've seen everything there is to see. Frankly for most of us even with our favourite shows we often just want a taste of nostalgia rather than to have the full course night after night.
The other bigger problem for Challenge is the genre itself. In the late 90s and through the early noughties there was alot of fairly recent content from the 80s and 90s to build a channel around, but now there isn't a huge amount of stuff from the last couple of decades to add to the schedule - and the biggest hits of The Chase and Pointless already dominate the schedules, along with Millionaire. They've tried other content like Deal or No Deal which would have filled hours but that's just not worked for them.
All that said though I wouldn't read too much into their lack of social media effort - I suspect the actual audience of Challenge and their followers on Twitter etc. don't actually overlap that much.
Obscure stuff like Krypton Factor ’95 was interesting to us but not to the general audience. I still think they made a bit of a mistake when they tried out Countdown, they should have done a later Richard Whiteley series, perhaps one of the ones after the 45 minute format was introduced, rather than the early ’90s series they did show. And they did show classic Fifteen to One with William G. Stewart but that didn’t last long either. Pairing those up at 4pm like a classic Channel 4 weekday schedule would have been fun but again, perhaps not appealing to most people.
:-(
A former member
Not gonna lie, I struggle to see the appeal in watching badly-dated butchered-for-ad-breaks old quiz shows. I love both The Chase and Pointless, but I’m already pretty well catered-for if I want to watch either of those given they’re literally on every day on their respective channels.
I don't see why Sky would suddenly pull the plug completely even if they removed it from Freeview. I can't see what they'd put on Freeview in its place - reviving Sky Sports News on the platform seems unlikely.