Challenge TV launched on Freeview!

Aspect ratio problems have affected the channel ever since it first broadcast in widescreen. Sometimes widescreen programmes were cropped to 14:9 with black bars above and below the picture (instead of just showing the programme in cropped 4:3 of course...) and these programmes were never reverted to 16:9 when the channel began widescreen broadcasting, thus the picture is stretched (this problem is very noticeable on the Dave channel).

There's been some dodgy editing in tonight's play your cards right.

Is the Challenge+1 EPG all to cock for anyone else on Sky?

Yeah, correct timing, but jumping to the next programme when the current one begins. Weird.

Also, what the hell is with their Gladiators running order? We've just had the 1997 final, followed immediately by the 1996(?) Ashes final.

Not so long ago they had some random 90s episode followed immediately by one of the Sky1 episodes.

Just lodged a complaint with Ofcom. I'm disgusted that Sky have chosen to schedule Fun House in a slot clearly aimed at Children enjoying their school holidays and then have it carry sponsorship for an 18+ Gambling service.

Wholly inappropriate.

To be fair I don't think them airing Fun House is aimed at kids. I think it's for the youngish nostalgia hunters who remembers the show from their childhood and are watching that solely for the purpose. That's the general consensus of the whole channel. Kids have aeons of channels dedicated to them which will show what they want to watch. They aren't going to specifically watch some 90's show that they don't remember even if it's better than some of their rubbish these days.

I think all your complaint will do (if anything) will force Challenge to tighten up it's airing of childrens programming which might just make them remove it altogether.. So well done for that. I personally was hoping for a bit of Finders Keepers or Get Your Own Back on the channel at some point. But maybe I'll just gamble on Sky Bingo instead.

Funny how it's appeared in the morning schedule during the school holidays, then, as it has done previously. The only other slot I know it has had was Weekend mornings, same thing applies.

It's totally inappropriate sponsoring a kids programme with gambling adverts. If the programme were going out in term-time or post-watershed, I would take your point.

I agree with RDJ. The only kids who'll be watching this will be if their parents or siblings say, "Here's something I used to watch when I was a kid." I doubt anybody of Fun House's then-demographic will be looking for children's programmes on Challenge. They've got their own channels for that.

I wonder if the fact that Sky Poker claim to be sponsoring Challenge rather than the individual programmes will alter Ofcoms response.

WillPS, would you have still complained if a Sky Poker advert appeared in the ad break during Fun House or was it just the fact that it was a sponsorship credit that you objected to?

Funny how the 4:3 programmes are still going out incorrectly...take it no-one monitors the output that closely, or perhaps no-one cares?

Or they monitor it from DSAT only. I haven't seen the aspect ratio problem on Sky. I am watching Shooting Stars in 4:3 right now.

You could pester this guy on Twitter. He looks after transmission for Challenge...
http://twitter.com/#!/adamwilcox

He probably won't be able to help but he will be very polite about it.

Widescreen programming, what little there was of Challenge at the time, was always broadcast in 14:9 before they went widescreen fully. Their Bullseye remake seems to live permantely in 14:9 and goes out in 4:3, in my experience anyway. You'd have thought somebody would have had new copies made by now.

Dave is a strange setup - random Dragon's Den episodes in 14:9 and others in full widescreen. Only slightly stranger than running an original 60min programme in an 80min slot considering the adverts should only add about 12 minutes to the length of the original programme.



Fun House itself ran for 10 years on CITV. While technically it fits in Challenge's remit for the channel, it's actually an odd choice of acquisition. Quite how they've ended up with it is anybody's guess. Must be the trend at the moment, I mean Rainbow re-runs continue to this day on Nick Jr, probably the last place you'd expect to find it.

But yes I would probably argue as well that the repeats are purely nostalgic only, aimed at those in the key 25-34 demographic who are old enough to remember the show from 1989-1999. If that is the case, Challenge isn't a dedicated kid's channel, isn't aimed at the under 18's anyway and therefore could away with the advertising they do gambling wise.



Get Your Own Back still occasionally shows up on the CBBC Channel, though predictably when it does, only from the last three series. It's last airing according to the BBC's Programme guide was February 2009.

Finders Keepers was seriously not as good as we all remember it to be. Unless we all saw that atrocious 2006 remake that ruined the magic. or that half-baked effort to "improve" things when Jet from Gladiators turned up.