Tomorrows world is axed

TW rocks, well maybe not the newer version but I always used to watch it, I thought it was cleaver and gave you things to talk to your mates about.

Shame on you BBC! Why not try re-vamping it, not closing it.

It was much better in the Philippa Forrester and John Snow era - why did they have to tamper with it? Even the studio was fine, and then it all went downhill when they changed it to a recorded programme in a weird studio that was meant to be a "futuristic house". They brought the live format back, but it's not nearly as good with boring music, graphics and too many presenters... Although the audience figures have gone down, I think it's partly their own fault for the changes they've made to it in recent years.

I think it's a shame. You shouldn't dump programmes with such strong brand recognition, just because you'd rather have more 'fashionable' (and awful) shows like Katy Hill's Best Inventions.

It was better in the Snow/Forrester era, yes - the last team with Roger Black and Kate Humble of all people never did it for me.

Oh well, nothing we can do about it.

BTW, finally got rid of the millionairefan name, seeing as it was inappropriate now

It's another case of "I never watched it, but the BBC should still show it", which I've never quite understood.

And it was Peter Snow, not Jon.

I think it was Adam Hart Davies & Roger Black etc. that ruined it. Since they started that virtual presenter It's gone downhill. Peter Snow & Phillipa did a much much better job as they actaully seemed interested unlike the current crew. Its still a shame though, after 40 years. I remember seeing them trialing the first CD in 1982 and saying "it will never catch on!"

I think the real rot set in in the mid-90s when a couple of changes happened in close succession.

1. The last series with Judith, Carmen, Howard, Kate etc. were not live. Instead two shows were recorded on one day a fortnight. This saved money, but meant the spontaneous stuff was often edited out, to make things look "slicker"

2. New Editor meant a new look, and all the presenters but Howard were axed, a new team of reporters recruited (some good, some awful) and Carol Vorderman assumed main presenter duties. The show only used a studio for brief in-vision links by a videowall (again pre-recorded) to longer films. This was partially to ape Beyond 2000 it seemed - and partially to allow the films to be sold individually to other broadcasters. For a long time this option was advertised on the Tomorrow's World website...

The show got ever slicker - and the reports were still pretty good, and the graphics content was much improved. However the live-ness had gone, and for many this was as much of a draw as the science...

Then, as the show was duller, viewers started dropping off, so they trivialised the science content in an attempt to win a different set of viewers who might not like anything that actually explained stuff, and increasingly concentrated on the human-interest side.

The Peter Snow/Philippa Forrester era marked an improvement - but the recent move to a live studio just emphasised that they didn't really "get" what made the show work live in the first place first time around...

Oh - and it wasn't on before Top of the Pops any more was it!? (And TOTP also is not the programme it once was.)

The change from live studio to studio based linking of filmed reports was the beginning of the end.

Never used to miss an episode when I was younger, had forgotten that it exsisted until I heard that it had been axed!

Will it? I thought the afternoon news still came with a regional ident?

They have announced allready though that they wanted to end the BBC2 English regions because they can't be transmitted on DTT without significant upheaval which didn't warrant the amount of regional programming on it.

It really is pity that TW has been axed, although I havn't watched it recently (because i've been at work when it has been on), I do like the show; it is the sort of thing that the BBC should be able to do regardless of viewing figures. Maybe five will sign up the presenters and make "Next weeks world", then TW can return in a slightly different but very good format with Howard...

Don't you mean Peter Snow? (Peter's cousin Jon Snow can be found at the same time reading Channel 4 News)

I finally stopped watching when Judith Hann left the programme. In fact, not only her but Michael Rodd, Maggie Philbin and Kieran Prendiville. After Judith left, TW seemed to have 'dumbed down'. I'll try to watch remaining editions to see what it's like today.

I liked it in the days of Judith Hann- something I always remember about the programme when I was little.