Channel 4

Don't they always present a couple of awards on the E4 show? Certainly they seemed to be behind at one point but hurried through a couple of awards and dropped the long breakbumpers for one of the breaks in order to finish on time. To me it seemed to have went all as planned.

Yes, they do, and they used to do some on ITV2 when it was on ITV, to give the post-match show some kind of point. Clearly they were never going to be on C4 in that order, because the C4 awards built up to the big climax, whereas neither of the E4 awards were anything special, probably the least interesting of the night.

Did they use to do awards on ITV2? I know they showed some pre-recorded awards, which must either have happened before the main programme or during the adverts of the main programme but I don't remember the programme continuing on ITV2. I think one year the ITV1 programme overran and so the same thing was being shown on ITV1 and ITV2 for a few minutes. I get the impression in later years that the ITV1 show was on a delay so they could do the less interesting awards during the advert breaks and then show some of them on ITV2. They didn't have to worry about keeping to the duration of the advert breaks as they just varied the amount of delay depending on how long the non-ITV1 awards took. Maybe this year, when it was clear they were going to overrun, they shuffled the awards around so that the boring ones ended up on E4.

There was one year when the programme somehow managed to under run. I wonder how that happened. I think ITV1 filled with some clips of Carry-on films.

One thing I missed this year was the award presented by the sponsor. In previous years someone from Smile or a bottled water company would come on stage and speak about their company and present one of the awards. I'm not sure how they got away with it to be honest.

In other news, I just caught the end of Deal or No Deal. One thing caught my eye and another caught my ear. The credits had "Picture coutasy of Rex Features". Did anyone see what picture they showed? I did watch the start of the programme and I only saw the standard family photographs. The thing that made me p**** up my ears was the continuity annoucner. He said "Next Channel 4 News reports on the death of the Czech president Vaclav Havel". Talk about a spoiler. Surely he should leave it up to Jon Snow or one of his colleagues to tell us the news of the day.

And finally, I take it everyone is looking forward to Home for the Holidays with Vernon Kay on Channel 4 at 20:00 this evening? I've just watched Vernon Kay's All Star Family Fortunes Christmas Special on ITV1 to get myself in the mood, it featured a Channel 4 advert for Home for the Holidays in one of the breaks.

It might be some sort of newspaper cutting that was featured.

They showed a picture of Mr Blobby during the game

For what reason? Couldn't they get one from Edmond's private collection rather than go to Rex Features?

EDIT : The timings seem a little out on Vernon Kay's Home for the Holidays. At the end of the first break they came back before the promo for Bruno had finished, they just went to another break and the sponsor credit played out before the 'end of part' titles had finished and then when they came back we were treated to a paused start of part sting (no sponsor credit played out at all this time).

So far, this has been the most exciting thing about the programme. I am slightly disappointed. Why is it live when they are just showing VTs anyway? Couldn't they have recorded it in October? I'm sure Tess Daly would prefer Vernon Kay at home this Christmas and not doing this. She had the decency to record the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special.

I think Vernon Kay is a very selfish lover. What do you think?

EDIT : They are now playing the 'climb to the top of a tower and stand up on the top' game like in Vernon Kay's Beat the Star.

They've been doing that for a few weeks now. Presumably it's for the benefit of people who might lose interest in the few seconds between the CA introducing the programme, and the first headline being read.

The show on ITV underran twice, in 1992 it underran by a few minutes and, when Paul Merton went up on stage to collect the final viewer voted award, Ross asked him to stay there for a bit longer and carry on doing a bit of stand-up (Beadle's About was on after it and Merton said "The longer I talk, the later Beadle comes on"). The big underrun was in 1998 when it was scheduled in the longest slot it ever had, two and a half hours from 9pm to 11.30, and finished at about 11.10. Then they showed a few fillers and at about 11.20 a generic network announcement said "Now we return to the British Comedy Awards", but they didn't, they just showed the nomination clip packages again.

I've just seen the IKEA Happy to Bed-time advert during Home for the Holidays, but the time was a good 5 minutes behind. Is the time set by a Channel 4 clock, or is it selected and placed manually?

I'm still not sure what the fascination with this ad is.

Maybe it you clooks?



You don't see what the fascination is with an on screen clock? On TV Forum? You don't see what the fascination is? On TV Forum? You don't see the fascination? On screen clock! What?

Nurse, the blinds...

It's odd but he is right, clocks are a icon of TV Forum and I should know better than to question what clocks mean to the forumites.