What have they done to Property Ladder?

Property Ladder - OK, not everyones cup of tea but it's one of the more successful property shows of recent years.

It gets good ratings for C4 and has been an important part of the 4 Homes strand over the last couple of years.

Sarah Beeny is a popular presenter, and the show is very watchable as each week Sarah Beeny gives advice to a novice property developer and they completly ignore it.


Now, for some strange reason someone has decided to mess with the format - so now each week focuses on two property developers, rather than one.

We end up with quite a poor show, skipping out alot of the detail - especially on the one development which seemed to be considered secondary to the other - and can't follow the progress of either developer that well!

Now, it's not as if the show used to move to slowly, or that ratings were low - so why have they done it?


I blame Lorraine Heggesey!

She turned BBC1 from a well respected TV station into a laughing stock - and now she's got her hands on Talkback Thames - and seems to have been able to convert an intelligent property programme into something we'd expect within the BBC daytime schedule!

I'm hoping that perhaps this week's format was a one off and that they made two rather uninteresting developments into one programme because there wasn't enough material to do one programme on each.

I agree with you in the sense that it didn't work for me. Whether or not you can blame Lorraine Heggessey for that I rather doubt though.

On a related subject (because it was a feature of tonight's Property Ladder) I am sick of the use of extensive "coming ups" and recaps before and after every break on programmes these days. Channel Four's programmes are particularly prone to this habit - Supernanny and Wife Swap do it and it's generally the same 20 seconds repeated over and over throughout the programme.

Of course I can blame Heggessey! I've hated that woman ever since Richard Bacon dabbled in drugs!


Unfortunately it's not a one-off - the "Next week" promo said they'd follow two developers, and the EPG info said something like "In a new format this series, Sarah Beeny follows TWO developers eachweek"



It doesn't really bother me on Property Ladder, but I get your point. The worst offender is The X Factor, who tell you what's coming up before and after each break!

Yes - I was a bt bothered by the new format tonight - it was confusing to follow 2 houses at the same time instead of just 1. It wasn't slow or laborious before so I don't know why they have done this.

But I expect the format will grow on me. It is a shame though...

Sarah Beeney's breasts are hypnotic.

Yep - The XFactor seems to be the worst offender in this regard. I end up watching delayed via Sky + or Tivo and shuttling through the STCs as they are so annoying. (I also end up shuttling through most of Kate Thornton's links for the same reason - her presentation style is worse than fingernails down a blackboard for me...)

Couldn't agree more...I hate her simpering "I care" style with the contestants too. She does nothing for me at all.

Getting back on topic, and yes Sarah Beeney's breasts are hypnotic!

Quite; if people know what's coming next and they don't like what they see, there's little incentive to stay with the programme.

If you look closely, Sarah Beeny's breasts tend to vary in size quite significantly, during the course of a typical programme. As did the length of her hair in yesterday's programme.

How she manages to achieve this, is beyond me!