Anyone know why the central ident was played out in silence on challenge?
Because for the first few months the ident did play out as silent. The same happened with the first series of "Auf Weidersehen, Pet!" that the ident played out in silence.
My ears picked up the Central jingle on one of the episodes on Challenge. It's not silent, but very quiet. Turn the volume up and you can hear it.
Lots of issues with missing tapes at Challenge [TV]. Its quite worrying that a programme from 1987 (Going for Gold) can have 10 episodes missing. I don't know how missing the episodes are as I don't know how these things work. Who would hold the original episodes of Going for Gold? The BBC? Reg Grundy? Both? Maybe Challenge [TV] could get hold of the missing episodes if they tried harder/paid more or maybe they really are lost forever.
They have also reported missing episodes of Family Fortunes (2 episodes, I believe) and of course there was at least one episode from Bullseye series 3 that they didn't show due to tape damage.
I think even after TV companies started fully arching shows in the 1970s, people didn't think these shows would ever be repeated or people would want to watch them again, unlike shows like comedies, dramas, documentaries, other culutrally historic programming like Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, so maybe the care wasn't as great with these tapes. Somebody posted on here about Gordon Burns stating he doesn't get a repeat fee for The Krypton Factor because they didn't think the shows would ever be repeated and so it wasn't in his contract.
Who knew that a decade later a new channel would start broadcasting all these old shows, and actually survive and continue broadcasting. Challenge is really the only niche channel that's really survived in the UK hasn't it? Channels like Simply Einstein, Tara TV and The Computer Channel/[.tv] have all bit the dust.
Depends who you ask. The channel is called Challenge but they often refer to themselves as Challenge TV on Facebook, their own website, YouTube, Twitter and on air. I think most people who talk about the channel would probably call it Challenge TV. Also the name of this thread is Challenge TV too.
I think even after TV companies started fully arching shows in the 1970s, people didn't think these shows would ever be repeated or people would want to watch them again, unlike shows like comedies, dramas, documentaries, other culutrally historic programming like Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, so maybe the care wasn't as great with these tapes.
It was the Python team themselves that saw the value of repeats. If Terry Jones hadn't overheard a stray conversation at television centre, the chances are we wouldn't have any of the really early Python series to watch again.
He heard they were heading for the bulk eraser, and within two days had got some money together to buy the master tapes off the BBC. Python (Monty) Pictures now own the rights to the series - not the BBC, but do have some sort of revenue sharing deal with them (hence the BBC logo at the end of international broadcast) when they are broadcast around the world.
The first four series of Family Fortunes had 26 episode eachs, which means that episode 101 went out on Challenge at 6:30 tonight, therefore Bygraves should apear on the 6:30 airing on Monday.