Children in Need 2016

What a depressing whinge this thread has turned into.
Yes, Terry has gone and he was a legend and a hard act to follow but Children In Need has to go on and he would want it too also.

Yes, the faces are younger and less experienced but there aren't many people of Terry's calibre to take over so we have to accept that this is going to be where the change is really noticeable. It is still a good cause and that is the whole point. It has always been a mish mash of bits and pieces and never hidden from that. Not everyone will like everything but that's life. Don't like, don't watch.

The purpose of Children In Need is to raise awareness and raise money which is what they have successfully done year after year after year.....

I have a feeling that due to Terry dying there will be a record amount. Let's hope.

The problem with the regional bits today is they're actually quite detrimental to how much is raised on the night itself. I spoke to someone a few years ago who said that the amount they raise during the night falls off a cliff during the opt outs and the national programme really has to build the momentum back up again when they come back. They've tried to axe the opt outs before but the regions kick up a fuss because it's the only time of the year their yearlong CIN activities get any real recognition outside of the local news.

The main problem with these bits is you're going from a (generally) slickly produced big entertainment show to something that feels very small and is normally produced by news/factual people that ends up making it feel quite forced. I'm not really sure what the workaround would be.

Yes there was a year when I recall instead of a live North West studio bit we got a couple of short pre-recorded sections with Gordon Burns about where money has been spent in the region. Must have been about 2000. Then I think for a year or two after that they did a load of regional concerts, which they went to across the night (as a networked show) which at least got some of the pop stars out of the studio. Then it all went back to how it had been before - GMR presenter in a bath of beans etc. I can imagine the politics of changing that as it is the BBC in-house charity and the regions are a huge part of that. (the less said about Fearne Cotton a couple of years ago referring on air to a part of the BBC London opt when they went back to Elstree, the better).

On the subject of Terry, I always thought perhaps in the last few years he might have started to cut back a bit on his presenting hours, perhaps doing the first bit up to the news, then maybe coming back at the end, but still being the "figurehead" of the whole enterprise (much as Lenny Henry does with Comic Relief). That he didn't shows how passionate he was about the show, but does mean it's all the more noticeable now he's gone. But had he still been with us I imagine something would have given at some point. There comes a point where 7+ hours of live TV is a bit much to ask of someone of that age.

Well he had started doing pretty much fhat, going from 1-2 co-hosts to 3-4 and notably doing less post-watershed.

Mod Edit: Nope nope nope.

And now back to the "Children in Need 2016" thread, which contains some posts that viewers may find distressing.

It's the luck of the draw of who you get and where they go on an OB. BBC London's have improved over the last couple of years, going from what used to be in TVC/Elstree, presumably produced by network, to visiting other parts of the capital.

I've mentioned this before, but Ipswich had S Club 7 come to Portman Road to give a concert in 2001, and the national show was meant to show lots of it. Sadly, they had to withdraw owing to illness, so the S Club Juniors sang instead, and the national CiN show had to show the Mayor of Ipswich shave off his beard live on BBC 1 instead of seeing S Club 7.

That was 2002 I think, by which time they were on the verge of breaking up - they performed 'Have You Ever' live on CiN 2001. (bizarre thing to remember but I was thirteen at the time, and still big into my Steps and S Clubs...)

Wasn't 2001 the year Tim Vine did a really badly-timed joke about plane hijacking? Wonder if that was as awkward as my memory suggests.

The thing was in those early days was that in many cases the link up was the thing - the selling point, and the content came second.

The early CINs were much more about the mechanism of getting in the money, crossing here there and everywhere to find out the total from Radio Stoke or going live to the top of the Telecom Tower to see people answer phones. Very dull. That was before national call centres, plastic cards and texts made phoning your local radio station to donate obsolete. Also there was little else on and live TV from multiple locations was more impressive.

CiN wasn't the only programme like that, the Noel Edmonds Christmas shows of the era were just him going live to various places - Australia, Plymouth, a plane, a helicopter etc. In these days of Skype we can all see our Aunt in Melbourne every day


CiN and Comic Relief are so much better today, slicker and after all the years they know how to do that balance of appeal and entertainment that works

ITV Telethon also had regular regional updates for ten minutes every half hour and they used to go around the regions for updates on the national section too.

I miss the regular regional opt outs on CIN; at one stage they were good. The last time we got a good one in the North West was in 2011 live from Media City. It was almost like the old days but then after that they reverted to locations again.

Are these opt outs recorded or live; I am thinking recorded.