How ITV's Saturday Night's turned crap

I have a feeling I know how or when ITV's saturday night programming turned rubbish.

Take a look at the great shows you saw, You Bet, Blind Date, Brian Conley, The Moment Of Truth, Gladiators... the list goes on, and as we all know, alot of these programmes have gone, and so has the one thing they all had in common:

http://www.coldal.org/images/remember/lwt.jpg

Yes, that is correct, I think the reason that the programmes have turned rubbish is the "death" of London Weekend Television. If they were still here, we would still have some great shows.

It may me a pointless thread, but for god sake, it's the bloody truth.

Any show hosted by Cilla Black does not come under the banner of "great shows", whether they were LWT shows or not.

Getting rid of You Bet!, especially via the back door, was a huge mistake IMHO. OK, things weren't the same when Matthew Kelly left but LWT didn''t have the courtesy to inform us the show had been ditched once it ended.

Only when Don't Try This At Home began (same presenter, similar set) did we realise it was curtains.

you're all one topic arn't you, banging on about Brian Conley all the time.

So when was this "death" of LWT then?

The title of this thread sounds like a documentary that will probably be made by Channel 4 in the near future.

27th October 2002 wasnt it?

Well LWT did make some fantastic programmes for Saturday nights. I always liked shows hosted by Cilla Black.

I don't recall mentioning his name is banging on about him, what ever that means, and what do you expect from a member called "Larry the Loafer"?

To remind everybody, this thread is one of many threads taking the sh*t out of ITV.

I couldn't agree with you more Simon. You Bet was brilliant, especially with Matthew Kelly. I watched an old episode on challenge today from 1994, and it was great. I remember Saturday nights watching You Bet, and they were brilliant nights. I think that it should be brought back.

Saturday night on ITV is dead because:

1. Of the lack of competition in the network now - and that ties in with the LWT situation. When the franchises had to compete for network broadcasting, this competition resulted in better programming.

2. The growth of multi-channel broadcasting resulting in smaller audiences. There isn't the same mass audience tuning in every Saturday night.

3. Most people are simply not in on Saturday nights any more, and certainly not younger people, who advertisers crave. Therefore more effort is put in during the week.

Although let's face it, some Saturday night programmes were always pretty weak in retrospect. I loved Noel's House Party a decade ago, but if I was to look at it now I'd be disgusted with myself. And while Celebrity Wrestling was just an awful concept done badly, you wonder what would happen in Gladiators had been broadcast now, rather than all that time ago.

These are some programmes that were either on on a Saturday, or... wern't:

Gladiators
Noel's House Party
Beadle's About
(one I can't say otherwise I will be told off for mentioning it)

It's pretty hard to remember any more, and I'm not suprised.

Let's not forget, Saturday nights on ITV1 are hit and miss - when they have X Factor and Saturday Night Takeaway on (like they will again in Autumn) they beat the crap out of all the other channels. It's just a shame they can't keep up the quality all year round.

Both of them are entertaining shows, but I still think ITV can do much better.