The Steph Show

I watched one episode for about 10 minutes, the sight of Keith Lemon turned it off straight away for me. Channel 4 does best with these daytime shows when they try something a bit 'edgy.' like Light Lunch or Paul 'O' Grady.

There was just nothing different about this show to anything else. It was basically the Poundland version of This Morning. I don't know what they were thinking.

If it ever returns and gets to the studio once this pandemic is over with, I can the only chance it has is an afternoon slot, but they need to think out a proper format and selling point before returning.

It’s just a terrible, indulgent piece of commissioning. I’ve no idea why they ever thought launching a derivative magazine show, in a schedule surrounded by repeats and starting halfway through This Morning was ever going to pay off. It’s just daft. I’m sure Steph is a perfectly good presenter but she’s not a star name who is going to bring viewers in. It’s not the sort of show Channel 4 are known for doing and nor does it fit with their schedule. The whole thing is an utterly pointless exercise.

I’m sure they’ll bring it back in the Autumn just to save face, when it will die on its arse once again because nobody is interested and anyone who wants that kind of show is already watching the long established ones on at the same time on ITV, and anyone who doesn’t is watching Bargain Hunt on BBC1. They’d be better off just scrapping the whole thing but they won’t because of the amount of egg they’d end up with on their faces.

Paul O'Grady doesn't really count as he was poached and it was basically the same show on Channel 4 that he did on ITV.

Richard and Judy I always thought worked really well because it was a different spin on what they did on This Morning.

One of the biggest surprises for me with this programme has been the content. It's, at a basic level, Channel 4's version of This Morning - without the same level of stardust or audience recognition.

I expected the show to have a bit more grit - Steph's a fully fledged journalist after all, from BBC Breakfast and with tons of knowledge on business and consumer affairs which could've really played to her strengths. Granted, they've covered some consumer issues, but it feels misplaced. The format of the show is a little all over the place. I think I also expected a bit more from the show as Steph has poached quite a few BBC Breakfast producers and planners - who are obviously good at their job, and have a huge portfolio of work.

I think they need to go back, rethink the format, the timeslot, and hopefully then it'll have a real shot.

That relationship goes back to the likes of Faking It and Wife Swap aswell. There has certainly been unease at C4 favouring certain, perhaps unproven, indies lately - not sure what else Expectation have done though.

See also Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back - another consumer show that ended up being a bizarre, halfway house between two disparate genres which should never have got beyond the pitch.

The Tez O'Clock Show, The Mo Gilligan show, The Big Narstie Show, The Rob Rinder Verdict and perhaps worst of all the Alternative Election which was of course cruelly taken away from Zeppotron and made 10 times worse.


The discontent is justified because these shows are by and large awful. And none of them have rated. And yet they continue to get comedy ent commissions, just last week they got a Mo Gilligan Faceparty based show away. It won't be good, it won't rate, we already know that, so why has it been commissioned?

You wouldn't constantly hire a bad plumber fix the same leaking pipe so why are C4 constantly hiring Expectation to make bad comedy entertainment?

God, that last election show was awful and I think for many indies was when it came to a head. Not sure how they rated but The BIg Narstie Show and Mo Gilligan Show were the sort of things C4 should be commissioning, but if the audience doesn't take to a personality you're trying to push you can only try for so long. I think the big issue is such commissions seem to be so few and far between at the moment they haven't got the good to hide the bad.

Re: Mo Gilligan - I think he’s got the potential to break through to mainstream so I hope Channel 4 stick by him.

The biggest problem with The Steph Show is it felt put together for the sake of it. It did a decent job of providing easy watching at a difficult time for many people, but when it returns it needs to know what it wants to be.

The Rob Rinder Verdict was terrible, it was a format that he wasn't suited to at all.



I wouldn't be surprised if ITV or the BBC ends up hiring Mo Gilligan for a big entertainment show in the near future.

Before the pandemic, wasn't the original idea for The Steph Show to be more of an entertainment based daytime talk show with studio audience (like a UK version of the Ellen DeGeneres Show) rather than the generic magazine type show that doesn't really fit in?

Mo Gilligan is great but agree that the vast majority of Expectation’s comedy entertainment has been dire. The Rob Rinder Verdict didn’t work and the final episode with Stanley Johnson was gobsmackingly bad TV. The Big Narstie Show is crap and whilst I fortunately didn’t see The Alternative Election Night everything I’ve seen and heard since has been terrible.

I’m not sure how they keep getting these commissions away but I am increasingly getting the impression than Ian Katz doesn’t know what he is doing. Some of the commissioning and scheduling decisions have been baffling. Snoop Dogs? I mean WTF. That report a while back about him and Channel 4 was damning.

There’s an over-reliance on existing hits at C4 and I get it because they don’t have a primetime soap to pick up the slack but there’s a lack of new hits coming through and some strange decisions being made.