maybe they are trying to improve the panel, rather than axe the show

Out of Intrest what would an average show get in the 1970's. I'm guessing 21m viewers was only for big shows such as the gneration game ?

Speaking of Five, now that it's going back to its original name, wonder what will happen to Fiver and Five USA. Five USA is easy as it can become 5USA but Fiver's a bit harder as 5er doesn't have the same ring to it. My guess is Five USA keeps its name but Fiver gets another rebrand.

Bit unsure why Five USA is showing Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves as there's nothing American about the film apart from Kevin Costner's accent.

To be fair I'm not sure Jayne Middlemiss and Kate Walsh are going to make a great presenting team on their own.

If they are serious about continuing with it, it needs a new name and a new direction.

A bit, but I'm doing the same

If Channel 5 want to make a real go of it, they need to axe the remaining 2 females and bring in people such as Sarah Cawood, Scott Mills etc to host it as a magazine format, rather than an attempt to be like a less OAP version of 3@three.

There is a lot of support for Ian on the Facebook page, people threatening to boycott the show, could it be the first ever reported zero viewers on terrestrial TV?

people boycotting LFS5, that is the funniest thing ive read all week

Scott Mills would be very good. Maybe joined by someone like Caroline Flack?

EDIT: Slight problem in that it would clash with his Radio 1 programme.

I'm surprised that it wasn't leaked to the usual suspects 1/2 an hour before it came on air, it would have got good ratings, at least 0.8, I'm sure.

They should just axe it and replace it with factual and/or repeats. Its days have been numbered since they cut it by half an hour and with the people who supported it going, it doesn't stand a chance of survival.

Indeed. On the other thread a poster remarked that the ratings will plummet without Ian. I pointed out that they couldn't get much lower!

Someone made the predictable gag...

I don't think anyone will notice if it's boycotted, it'll go from 10 viewers to 2 - now a massive differance, lol.

I think Radio 1 DJ's/those style of personalities is the way for them to go really for a male presenter. There seems to be a real lack of young male presenters around. Someone like Reggie Yates or Rickie Haywood Williams from MTV could work also.

There isn't really the same problem for female presenters, perhaps even be as unimaginative as stealing Emma Willis back from Channe 4. She'll be looking for work again in September anyway. Looks like she made the right decision by jumping when she did even if it was for an axed show.

I wonder what this means for the news about Natasha Kaplinksy might lose her job? Desmond is being a bit ruthless at the minute and i wouldn't put it past him.

Poor Ian, they should have at least kept him until they were sure of changing into whatever format, and give him a proper goodbye.

Has anyone noticed that DS/BBC/Sky/Guardian hasn't reported it, I guess that even TV reoprters have shut LFSF out from their minds.

Yes he should have got that at least. Didn't he give up his radio show on either 5 Live or Talksport in order to do the show each night?

Ian wasn't great but surely there is alot more wrong with the programme than just him?

http://twitter.com/Jamesholland

If anything Ian was the one holding it together. Its a terrible show and he wasn't that good on it, but from what I've seen he never took it seirously and was probably the only one worth watching. I can't imagine Kate & Jayne will have the same pulling power, the audience could well drop off below 100,000 by the end of next week.

Didn't see this answered but basically they're bringing forward the Thursday night schedule 24 hours and airing Emmerdale and Corrie at 8pm and 8.30pm, and Tonight at 7.30pm with Police, Camera, Action at 9pm. Interestingly Angus Scott is down to host the Liverpool game - it's a few years since he did anything for ITV Sport (I think he went to Setanta).

I'm not to sure. For me he was not a bad presenter and bounced well with the Kate and Jayne.

I'll probably wake up tomorrow and out Desmond has axed The Wright Stuff

Or replace him with someone else, I wonder if he isn't coming in because of Desmond and they're trying to patch things over. I doubt it though as I'm sure the media would know of it by now.

I don't think they will axe The Wright Stuff. As far as I know it is rating quite well for the time of day. There's even going to be a primetime outing looking back at some of its best bits in a few weeks time to mark 10 years of the programme.

isnt The Wright Stuff, a show Desmond understands?

Yeah, he's not an idiot - he knows it gets good ratings so he'll want to keep it.

I'm sure the Daily Star or Express will be covering this explosive story tomorrow.

Ian has left??

Could this mean the show may sink to the worst rating in the history of ratings on Terrestrial TV??
Ouch.