Children In Need 2017

It wasn't.

Tonight's CA was Michael Selby. Analogue closedown night was Paul Buckle, although Mark Simpson was the final voice to be heard, over the generic BBC logo, seconds before BBC One NI analogue was switched off.

It was a shame as the Comic Relief before that, at The Palladium was the best in a long time.

I think the problem many people here have with CiN is that it's turned into a slick LE show now whereas in the past it was more, for want of a better word 'anorakky'. There's no in-jokes about the BBC, no constant handing over to some DJ in Stoke or the phone room or the BT Tower.
It's got less 'meta' and less shambolic

Spot on, inspector.
For me 'the old days of cin night' was 30% waiting for technical meltdowns, 30% watching Terry ad-lib around technical meltdowns, 20% watch the regional opt out and seeing bits of Pebble Mill you didn't normally see and 10% watching the totaliser rise during the night itself.

When the rough edges were smoothed out due to improvements in technology, and more co-ordinated content from the network show, it lost that certain something...
.. But times move on, and you have to go with it

But it's also that the viewing public have higher standards for how a mainstream TV entertainment show should be like. There's no place for twee and meta on a channel like BBC1 in these days of big shows like X Factor and Strictly. Leave the 'in' stuff for the spin off shows.

Maybe if they had Children in Need Extra or Pudseys Little Brother on BBC2....

It would a better idea than TV Fourm Extra

In the early days the regional presenters were known outside of their patch through Nationwide, so it didn't seem so strange when they popped up on network.

Sorry but that's nonsense. The masses love a bit of twee - it's the cosmopolitan 'elite' that frown upon it. The majority of normal people I speak to are put off by the likes of X Factor or even Good Morning Britain for looking too slick and "American".

Bake Off is probably the definition of twee.

Perhaps twee is the wrong word. Bake Off is very polished mass market reality show, very different to what I'm talking about.

In the past there were shows that kinda just filled time pottering around and looked inwards. Little in jokes about the production, chats with the voice over guys like Mitch or Dedicoat, adlibbing etc Noel Edmonds and Wogan and Saturday morning presenters like Andi Peters did a lot of this sort of thing.

But the things are just different now, TV in general is more slick and tightly formatted. Presenters are more polished and don't rise up from the traditional routes. There's also less of a sense of a TV family than there used to be, the stars of telly don't all hang out together in big building any more.


Well the ratings for the big shows don't bear that out. The most popular programmes of the last decade are all highly polished, immaculatey produced, tightly edited or formatted shows and that's where peoples expectations have changed.

The sort of programme that CiN or the early Comic Reliefs were just wouldn't fly today

Shall we turn this into the 'TV is too professional' thread?

My view is that, yes, CiN used to be much better before TV became slick and polished. But that's how TV has changed since then, and you've got to keep moving forward. I do miss the old days much more than I enjoy the current days, mind.

Regarding the rickshaw challenge and the debate about them doing the same thing every year and this being perfectly acceptable with no discussion necessary.

It's notable that each year the presenters on the regional news get out and about and do different challenges, and so far they've managed to vary them every year. Cycle rides, three legged walks, challenges where they just turn up at various locations and do something in situ. So there is still some element of originality within the BBC.