Text Santa - 2012

Obviously not as there were live totals and live handovers throughout the show.

I expect the links for the highlights show/ preview show and ECPs were done in the afternoon

This was, overall, a really good show for a telethon. Flowed a lot better than Children in Need and actually the content was a lot stronger as well. Loved the Snow Whitechapel skit, the Corrie segment and the Louis/Rylan bushtucker trial.

It actually reminded me a bit of a C4 mashup only it had a purpose.

ITV did a good job of stretching it out throughout the day too. Maybe they should resurrect the ITV Telethon branding.

This made me smile: "Text the word Santa....that's S-A-N-T-A". Never let it be said ITV don't know their audience. Apart from that unintentionally hilarious line I thought the show was dreadful. Like Comic Relief lite but Comic Releif as it was in 1989.

Least they did better than Stand Up To Cancer on C4 (show wise), that was awful in comparison.

Well, I only saw the first hour before popping out for a pint. It seemed OK, and I think the charities they choose resonate with more people.

I thought that was better.

The worst thing about Text Santa for me was 'contrived comedy'. It perhaps needed a few stand-up comedians. Funnily enough I thought Paddy McGuinness did well. There's been far too much Holly Willoughby on TV this year.

I found it a pain that they couldn't do anything self-contained, and seemed to rely solely on special editions of ITV shows. Given that the only two that I care for is Family Fortunes and I'm A Celebrity (and even IAC featured participants who I can't stand) and almost everything had to have some form of The X Factor injected into it, I found the level of entertainment sub par... but I guess that's subjective.

It's far better than just a line up of popstars coming on to plug their latest singles and albums. I think ITV did a good job - they definitely got the balance of charity VTs and entertainment right and most of ITV's big shows did something for them, and most of the sketches were rather good. They could perhaps have done with a little bit more live action, especially earlier in the evening, but on the whole not bad at all.

Hopefully Comic Relief will up it's game this year - the last one in 2011 was very poor and barely featured any live entertainment.

In fairness its just the same as what the BBC do with Children in Need and Comic/Sport Relief. I thought this years was much better than last years, and highly doubt most of it was pre-recorded. If Holly & Phil 'changed' clothes during an ad break whilst live on air then there would be no reason at all for the rest to be recorded during the day.

Interesting to see that Stand up to Cancer raised more, despite it being on a smaller channel and only debuting this year. Are ITV viewers just tight
Seriously though the total (£5m) for Text Santa was very poor imo given the effort behind it.



I agree nothing for the 'non ITV viewer'. Celeb editions of Mr & Mrs, The Chase and Family Fortunes aren't exactly rare either.

They'd probably get more money if they focused on one particular charity or helping one specific group of people, like the BBC and cancer ones do. Cancer is probably a subject that is much closer to home for most viewers too, so would that make people more likely to donate? £5m isn't a great figure especially as it had 5m viewers, but just under £1m for each charity isn't to be sniffed at.