Channel 4

It does sound like it may have been dropped due to either legal reasons or the death of a participant as the rest of the week features Penny Smith as the guest, before Maureen Lipman takes over on Monday.

Never been a huge fan of Nick Hewer but caught a bit of an episode the other day and he seemed much better than he was, and I'm not sure it would be in the interests of the show to have yet another host too soon.

C4 daytime needs sorting out though and Countdown needs protecting - it's been messed about too much and the interuptions now for racing don't help. I think returning it to two 3-4 month seasons, scheduled at points of the year where they're least going to get interupted for racing is the way forward. It's probably not going to get a later slot (even though Deal is failing miseably at the moment), but I do think moving the start to 3pm so it lines up with BBC1 and ITV would probably be in the shows interests.

Channel 4 is struggling in the afternoons in general, mainly it seems because of the removal of children's programmes and some popular quizzes on ITV:

http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/Weaver%27s_Week_2013-06-23

Countdown needs ditching

It was a standalone special (which I assume hasn't gone out before this), with a couple playing as contestants. Dave Spikey was in Dictionary Corner.


He is better, but still not a presenter. He is out of his depth in the role, repeating himself and talking over everyone, coming over very awkward and stilted ('How are you Rachel?'; 'I'm very well thanks Nick'; 'Well done'). No bond between he and Rachel/Susie either, they are not a team. It was a piece of stunt casting by C4 and I don't think he's paid off, though I think they're stuck with him until the end of 2014 anyway.

Oh and the 'you be sure of it' and 'kryptonite' lines are becoming tiresome.

Countdown should definitely be protected though. Its ratings aren't that much lower than DoND's these days anyway, maybe they could alternate at 4:15 or something. The later slot might benefit Countdown, which, with overnights as low as 150k recently, looks in peril.

Edit: Back to S69 today. Seems it was just one problematic episode.

That special episode of Countdown was shown at 5am today too. The CA said it was a change to some listings.

Back to this evening, I think it was probably a mistake for The Million Pound Drop to go to adverts just as EastEnders is starting on BBC One. A ratings breakdown for Channel 4 would make interesting reading.

EDIT: Also just noticed that The Million Pound Drop now has product placement. Is tonight the first time?

What form does this product placement take?

I have not actually seen any product placement yet (as far as I know). I just saw the 'P' logo when they came back from the last break.

I think the product placement may be for Skype.

Have these actually started yet? I haven't seen them in the EPG. Unless they take the form of adding "...followed by adhan" to a programme description.



Did the part with Skype have the product placement 'P' logo? I wasn't paying enough attention to be sure. Skype seems to be one of those things that channels get away with mentioning with no editorial justification anyway. See also Facebook, Apple products, films, music etc. so they may not have needed to use the 'P' logo for that, unless money changed hands.

It would be a big risk for Microsoft to pay to have Skype promoted on a live show anyway. It could end up with Skype not working properly however good Skype itself is. There are too many external factors that could affect it. In fact, later on when the team won some money they cut back to the two Skype feeds and they were pixelating very badly due to all the movement of the people cheering and clapping.

Deals seem to be listed in the credits now (they are for Big Brother, quite prominently too) so presumably the same applies for Million Pound Drop.

I suspect this is ultimately up to the company paying for their product to be placed and how subtle they want the placement to be. Who knows if the Big Brother credits list all the companies involved?

I only saw it on 4oD - they just show the Product Placement symbol at the start of each part. I reckoned that it is product placement as there is no real need to mention Skype otherwise (although they do on the news to excuse laptop webcams and 5fps). Facebook and Twitter get mentioned simply because viewers can interact with the show using them - you can't Skype the Million Pound Drop as a viewer.