Wheel of Fortune to return?

If Countdown didn't go digital...

I think even in the US they still have a hostess, they just press a button on a screen rather than physically turn tiles.

I imagine they'll use that for the revival rather than the spinning letters for cost reasons.

Yes, they still have a hostess. The current duo of Pat Sajak and Vanna White have been presenting since the 80s. When Pat was recovering from surgery in 2019, Vanna took over as lead presenter with special guest hostesses.

Perhaps, but will Joey Essex want to turn over the big letters?

What a miserable thread, the entire source is a quick article in The Sun and already it's been completely written off.

Of course there's going to have "nonsense" and "padding", it's a light entertainment programme presumably on primetime ITV. It's not supposed to be Mastermind, it's supposed to be fun.

I never understand the complaints that light entertainment is "padded out", light entertainment is inherently pointless and none of it matters. Why bother with any of the fripperies? It would be over a lot quicker if we lost all that boring spinning, you could get it over with in about five minutes.

Yes, but it's the amount on nonsense and padding that I think is the problem with modern game shows.

The original Wheel Of Fortune was 30 minutes and we got 4/5 rounds and then the final. There was enough chat with the contestants at the beginning of the show and when one won a round but nothing too laborious. I don't feel that the show needs to be doubled in length in order to fit in Allison chatting to the contestants for about 5 minutes each before the game actually starts or after a game is won slowing the pace down. There'll probably only be one round for each portion of the show, the rest of the time filled with chatting about the round that just ended.

I think the same thing happened with Catchphrase, it was once a fun, fast paced show but now it's so drawn out with jokes and/or chat after each incorrect guess it's just an unnecessarily long show and not as fun as the original.

That's just the modern trend unfortunately, and yak is cheap. Plus of course it has to be padded out to 48 minutes of programme or whatever it is, and of course half hour gameshows only get one break. Extend it to 45 you can have two of the buggers. To an hour, you can have three of them, and now look at the dollar signs in the eyes of the accountant at the network. Ca-ching!

Unfortunately the days of "This is Fred, Velma, Daphne, Scooby, Shaggy and Scrappy from the Mystery Machine, Fred's the captain, Velma's the vice captain, let's get inside, okay what shall we play?" type of pace has long gone (save probably for Tipping Point). Now its a case of hearing Fred's life story, playing the game, hearing Velma's, playing the game, hearing Daphne, etc. Its totally ironic in this era of social media where you can post your life story as you go, you don't need to spill all the beans in front of Bully's Prize Board or whatever... But I digress.

Be thankful it’s not a YouTube Original where you can slot in as many ads as you like!

Hoping they will keep the UK Theme Tune (a remix obviously).

No more "dolly bird" turning letters.

Not too many celebrity answers to the questions/puzzles.

Although YouTube allows videos to be played with an adblock both installed and turned on so ads are pretty easy to avoid on such content.

I think another issue with hour long gameshows, both old and new actually, is more often than not you just get the same round repeated multiple times rather than different rounds throughout the show. For some shows like Tenable and The Chase that makes sense, but others would benefit from more variation in gameplay.