Children in Need 2001 - a clunker?

IMHO this year's CiN was not the best-produced piece...
the celeb 15-to-1 was poorly produced, full of stop-start and ego-clashing (very embarrasing for all concerned)
the new style regional opts didn't work (often coming in in the middle of performances, mics not working, one of the opts kept flicking in-and-out but they did nothing!)
old-style region opts dumped (I actually preferred it 'cos it showed what YOUR region was doing for CiN) - presumably dropped for the benefit of Sky viewers...
Stereophonics (the only people who could have saved the show from total clunkerdom) took one look at the proceedings and turned round and went home
Most of the appearances were very 'strained' - mainly pop stars plugging their latest releases, fewer TV stars than usual, virtually nobody from ITV (previous CiNs have had several ITV stars breaking ranks)
Interactive service OK but could have had more information and CiN news as well as the donation connection
All in all, this year's CiN went down like the Titanic... what does anyone else think?
(BTW I'm not disrespecting the idea of charity appeals on TV - when they're well produced, as previous CiNs have been, it works, but this years felt like it had been strung together in a couple of days...)
(BTW it took me a week to post 'cos it's 1st time in a week i've been on net...)
(BTW apologies if I'm repeating someone else's thread... may have missed for above reason..)

I agree. Just before CiN started, I was back in my home town, and was watching South Today, and right at the end of the programme, they had some girl group singing, and they sung two words, and the end titles came up to go to the News headlines.

Tight or wot?

It was the same during CiN. They had a rapper on there (DJ Majestic or something). The same thing happened to him.

Come on BBC, I thought you were proud of regional opt-outs?!?!

Rob.

Well....

The new CiN format was a controversial break from the past - with almost no English regional opt-outs apart from the odd (4?) 5'00' opt-outs for a VT report (with a few regions using a live location to link in and out).

Instead there were fewer, larger regional OBs - but these were shown across England (and the nations at times?), rather than just locally (so were not opt-outs) I think the main Nations DID opt-out - I think both the short English VT opts, and the longer Nations opts were at the 'Pudsey bumper' junctions.

However - it seems to have been quite a successful year...

£600,000 more raised on the night than last year - £12,895,853.

Ratings wise - 11million people watched the Blue Peter Eurovision tribute, and the share of viewing after the 10 O'Clock news was a pretty impressive 49%- very nearly half of the TV viewing public were watching CiN BBC One after the Ten. Before the News the average share was lower - but still a very respectable 35%!

Donations wise - the BBCi website took £310,000 but Digital Television (Sky, ITV Digital and Digital Cable) raised £480,000.

All in all - whilst I may have missed the regional opt-out OBs that we had come to know and love (and cringe through at times!) I can't argue with the ratings and the fundraising - after all the evening is there both to entertain and generate funds for good causes.

As for the content - I was quite impressed at the number of big names they managed to get into one show - all the OBs seemed to have one or two chart acts - and I thought the pace of the show was welll handled - it never seemed to slow down.

Yeah, you're on to something when you can bag a singer of Cher's stature for something like CIN.

However, I don't like the way disabled children are portrayed on there - It's all very 'begging bowl'. More positive imagery please, BBC!

i think that the regional opts on cin this year were a big flop. especially sctoland who insisted on interupting at every single chance they had.

I personally think they should have the old 20mins opt outs, especially as the regions are coming to sky sonn are they not?

BBC Wales opted out of 15 to 1 and the Blue Peter Eurovision thing.