Quiz Call

Quiz Call should be on Five at the moment but they are showing Swag instead. Did Quiz Call start and go off air and/or did Five continuity say anything about it?

EDIT: Swag has finished. They are now showing promos and pifs. No continuity while I have been watching.

Edit: "We are still unable to bring you Quiz Call this morning due to technical difficulties in the studio, so instead here is Skeleton Stories on Five".

Is that live continuity or a recording? The fact they mention the program that has the problem and the replacement program by name makes me think that it is live.

Edit: Just used a 'free entry' (0845 rate) and got through to Quiz Call. A live human answered the phone and told me not to call until they were back on air. He wouldn't tell me what the problem was though.

Could it be that Five have a back up programme and pre-recorded announcements on stand by in case Quiz Call run into problems? I know ITV1 did something similar when Bingo Night Live had technical issues:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PW3U8NWK-k

Some irony there in replacing it with a show called Swag! Can't believe Quiz Call is still going though - is it just on the Five slots now, or have they still got a Sky channel?

Yep, it's just on the Five slots now. Their channel closed down on Sky back in 2007 IIRC.

They would be pretty daft not to have, if there wasn't a live announcer

I'm surprised Five still get away with showing Quiz Call. I suppose they are out of the spotlight somewhat.

Quiz Call = Flogging a dead horse.

Although in this case, it's clearly still targeting the drunken brigade on their way back from the pubs/clubs.

All TV stations would have standbys in case live programming fail or don't happen. They're either scheduled directly or are a a pool of programmes that can be run if need be

Maybe except for BBC1.. (remember when Strictly finished early and left with looping trailers for 8 minutes)

No, there would have been a full length standby scheduled against it as well as some shorter items, plus the BBC do have generic standbys.

However whether they'll fill a gap that short is another matter, especially as it takes time for the director to realise that they're running short and then find/load a standby while also maintaining the output in the meantime.

I remember an episode of Brainteaser on Five had fallen to pieces due to sound problems. The show had to be pulled and was replaced with three back-to-back episodes of Russell Grant's Postcards.

BBC One used to show Tom & Jerry a lot, especially when live broadcasts finished early and particularly after Grandstand on a Saturday night. I take it no terrestrial broadcaster has rights to Tom & Jerry since Boomerang launched?

Any other programmes used heavily as fillers as Tom & Jerry was, not just on the BBC? Five used to drop Russell Grant in at random but they seem to have dropped him altogether now apart from where his programme is the first thing they can get their hands on.

Coast comes to mind on BBC 2.
Creature Comforts on ITV.