I was surprised to see the Mail's front page today touting Ms Klass as a potential successor to CV. Why would Countdown go for someone whose asking price would currently seem to be, if anything, higher than that of her predecessor? Myleene's not going to do the show for peanuts, nor for that matter would Ulrika or any of the other high profile potential candidates. Surely they'd go for, if not an unknown, then at least a slightly lesser known presenter to fill her shoes, who'd presumably command a more modest salary? Countdown strikes me as one of the few programmes which ISN'T reliant on celebrity names to carry it - it's mainly the game, at the end of the day.
What about changing the time slot to post 9 o'clock, have Julian Clary
as host with Samantha from I'm sorry I haven't a clue in dictionary corner. Guests to take Carol Vorderman's role with computer assistance.
OR
Keep the time slot, and have Sandi Toksvig as host with the usual suspects in Dictionary corner and a computerised CV?
The French version mentioned earlier has - or had when I last watched it - a main presenter and two co-hosts/experts. There's a woman who does the letters (ie reads them out when they pop up on screen via computer and adjudicates in a 'guardian of the dictionaries' role once the words have been submitted), and a man who does the maths (reads out the numbers as they appear on screen and checks off the contestants arithmetic afterwards).
No celebrity guest, but some banter between these regular three and the contestants ensures that it jollies along quite well (as far as I can tell from my not particularly robust understanding of the language!).
They do need to improve their dictionary corner guests. Lately it seems to be the same few faces rotating every couple of months.
I also think with the budget cut especially the number of episodes should be. The six month series have always been too long - they'd be best off having two four month series a year and breaking for a couple of months in the summer and in January.
And certainly when it relaunches with new hosts they need to give it a few weeks break before it returns.
Cutting the show back to a half hour would probably help both the bottom line and the show's popularity as well.
This was an attempt to cash in on the show's success that from what I can see has failed -- the ratings have plummeted since they introduced the format. Whether that is as a result of the extension I don't know -- but what I do know is that it certainly hasn't helped.
Cutting the show back to a half hour would probably help both the bottom line and the show's popularity as well.
This was an attempt to cash in on the show's success that from what I can see has failed -- the ratings have plummeted since they introduced the format. Whether that is as a result of the extension I don't know -- but what I do know is that it certainly hasn't helped.
Surely more so than the extension of the programme it would have been the time shift to the earlier slot that took away ratings. Surely its best ratings came in the days that it went out at 1630.
What about changing the time slot to post 9 o'clock, have Julian Clary as host with Samantha from I'm sorry I haven't a clue in dictionary corner. Guests to take Carol Vorderman's role with computer assistance.
It would be dead in one series. That's not the audience who watch it.
Quote:
OR
Keep the time slot, and have Sandi Toksvig as host with the usual suspects in Dictionary corner and a computerised CV?
Cutting the show back to a half hour would probably help both the bottom line and the show's popularity as well.
This was an attempt to cash in on the show's success that from what I can see has failed -- the ratings have plummeted since they introduced the format. Whether that is as a result of the extension I don't know -- but what I do know is that it certainly hasn't helped.
It was a much tighter format at half an hour - it's far too repetitive now. I think moving from 4.15pm to 3.15pm was more the reason for any ratings fall.