Children In Need

Here in the Great East Midlands, the regional stuff came from Derby's Westfield shopping centre, which I thought was a bit odd, given that shopping centres are associated with greed and capitalism.

Last year and the year before, they were based at East Midlands Airport which was much more neutral and the crowd was more varied too. In the years prior to that, they used to gather round an all-weather stage in the BBC car park in Nottingham.

Here they also do OB's from the Boots call centre. As you can see from this clip the volunteers are usually very animated and cheery, but I'm sad to say that this year, most of them sat motionless and looking miserable

Well if it wasn't for the batteries running out of the remote, I wouldn't have seen it at all...

Still there is next year's I can miss completely.

I seem to remember a few years back (2001?) they did pretty much scrap the regional opts, replacing the regional element with lots of concerts in different cities around the UK (so yet more pop acts), with the only remaining couple of minutes opts just a pre-recorded promo about work in the region (well that's what we got in the north west at least). They seem to have slightly reversed that in recent years although the opts are no way as long as they once were!

that never happen in scotland but it was one dogs dinner as there trying to fit everything in.

I have to give them there doo, it so much better this year and and how there were able to slot everything most of the items in was much better that others years

but I still don;t understand why scotland broadcast the corrie and eastender speical around 9pm while the England ( thus showing them again to scotland as scotland stop at midnight) broadcasted them around 1am?

here is the best thing of the night!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7730724.stm

Well here's what we have all been waiting for, a 12 million peak in audience figures.

Don't worry - it was a repeat in England too. CiN seem to think its fun to 'relive' the better moments of earlier on, cos they haven't got enough filler!

I'm still puzzled as to why Jonathan Wilkes was called in to co-present? Or more pressingly, what was Anne Davies's look all about?

I agree that EMA was a better venue, as you say 'neutral' and easy for most East Midlanders to get to. It would've been appropriate this year, given the launch of the Pudsey Baby craft as well.

Does anybody know where we cam get a list of what was raised on each night of CIN, since it started in 1980?

I still think 1991 riased £21 Million Pounds on the night, but I am ready to be proved wrong if someone has actual figures.

That would make this year's event even more spectacular considering the current economic situation.

Dodging back slightly, and off topic even more slightly, I noticed that the QI credits listed the guests as "Bantermeisters" and the QI Elves are now "Data Miners". Weird.

Also, now that the ECPs are to be phased out, will we see an end to double-size double-speed credits?

I too remember big figures in the early 90s but also remember a massive drop in 1994, whether the launch of the National Lottery in the same week as CiN had anything to do with it?

Wikipedia is normally quite good for that sort of thing but doesn't have a list of totals. Neither does the official CiN site on the BBC's website.

It does however list that the first appeal, lasting 5 minutes on Christmas Day 1927 raised £1,143 18s 3d (about £27,000 in today's money). In 1955 the appeal (still on Christmas Day) transferred to BBC Television and became an annual event until 1979, raising a total of £625,836 in those years.

The first 'telethon' format event in 1980, which apparently was really just special links in the BBC One schedule, is widely reported to have raised '£1m'.

It s was car crash telly!

NOTE: if anyone can remember the TV show where Esther Rantzent told us about that first 1980 show ( with terry)

due to terms of the BBC, their could only show happy kids in a playground! which made it backwards if any