I think someone mentioned this last week, but given that The Last Leg with Adam Hills has been above 1m for the majority of episodes, anyone reckon it should be recommissioned? (obviously format slightly different with no Paralympics, but once a week thing)

It's more likely Adam Hills will be offered other programmes on C4 before Rio. It's very likely considering the ratings for the games overall that C4 will bid again.

He still works in Australia, and think he's only over here for Edinburgh Fringe Festival and to present ABC's Olympic Coverage. Whether he'd be available for a show is an issue...

But I like him and would probably watch a show with him in, even if they just import his ABC chat show and stick on More4...

Is the dark lord expecting much of a boost for this then, do you reckon?

It's not quite Millionaire is it where someone won £1m through being highly knowledgeable and astute. And it's been all over the papers that it's coming and how much is won. So will anybody outside of its usual 3m or so care?

Red or Black might like to flatter itself by thinking its making TV history tomorrow night, but it's more likely to go down in history for being one of ITV's biggest misfires.

I'd certainly like to see them do something else with him. I've really enjoyed The Last Leg and it left me wondering why the BBC didn't do anything similar for their Olympics coverage (Olympic Good News with Russell Howard maybe?). In general though I think the entire team fronting the Paralympics has done a very good job and Channel 4 should be looking to find more regular roles for all of them if at all possible. It also bodes well for their coverage of the World Athletics Championships next year which needed to win some good will after the disaster of Daegu.

Off hand does anyone know how much focus Channel 4 has on Paralympic sport in general going forward? I think they've proven there's some potential to carve out a strong niche for themselves by giving some more widespread coverage to Paralympic sport outside of just the Paralympic games.

Although the Red or Black win was leaked weeks ago I don't see how leaking today it happens tomorrow and exactly who wins it is going to help ratings.

And personally I think it's Cowell's medalling in the edits of his shows in the last couple of years which has hurt them, and I think the more fly on the wall approach doesn't suit The X Factor anywhere near as much as it did Britain's Got Talent.

I wonder if Dermot filmed any of his old 'welcomes' where he's walking through the crowd? If not, they could show clips of landmarks while Dermot says hello - they definitely need to cut the backstage sections.

It did strike me as odd that they didn't think of this, especially when they ordered a larger series than normal only to have nearly half the episodes be compilations. Unless they did think of it and Russell Howard didn't want to do it.

The Red or Black thing is certainly odd and I think the leaks of the results (for lack of a better description) just point out the glaring flaws with the format. No one cares because its not somebody using skills, talent or knowledge to win or change their life. Its just someone guessing the right colour. Its very hard to get invested in that and its even harder to get invested in it before hand.

When it comes to Cowell's micro-managing its always very hard to distinguish fact from fiction.

I'm really not sure for example that he has flown in to oversee the edit of The X Factor nor am I sure I believe the ridiculous stories that he was up all hours re-editing Britain's Got Talent at the start of the year. The whole thing just seems incredibly unlikely. I think Cowell has just become shorthand or cover for when they need to re-edit or change something. I mean it plays much better in the press to say Simon Cowell is flying home to oversee re-edits of The X Factor auditions rather than after crashing ratings and terrible audience response the production team have realised they've gotten it horribly wrong and are re-editing the shows as a result.

With The X Factor its easy to see what they've done. The 'fly on the wall' stuff in Britain's Got Talent was (mostly) well received and added a nice and slightly fresh dimension to the show so they went into overdrive with on The X Factor because basically nothing else has changed from last year. Overlooking that it worked on BGT because it wasn't this extreme and that in general BGT is just a more fun and relaxed show so it can get away with stuff like that. That's not a result of Cowell meddling or micro-management that's just a result of them being stupid. And probably overly confident and complacent. In fact looking at the panel it seems to me as if ITV (and SyCo) fell into the same trap that Fox and 19 fell into with American Idol. They just got complacent and assumed everyone would keep watching.

In Germany, XFactor's format has been changed. In the auditions stage, the judges have an X symbol which they put up on their chair if they are impressed by a contestant and want them to be in their team. This is a poor, less exciting copy of The Voice's swivel chair format but I wonder if XFactor UK will introduce this next season to try and make the current stale format a bit fresher. Something will have to change, the fans are complaining the whole auditions phase is boring. Other than that, XFactor could revert to the hotel room auditions which used to be popular.

Isn't that kind of thing what they were planning with the post-10PM news show (Can't remember what it was called, Olympics today?). Except it was too formal and came across the wrong way...

So the German version has taken part of the Got Talent franchise and part of The Voice and tried to amalgamate them with The X Factor.

Why not go the whole hog? They could have the mentors eating bugs while the contestants try out ballroom dancing...

Seriously? That sounds horrific. How on earth did they even get away with adding that format point without being eaten alive by fans and the press? There's just no way on earth the British version would be able to get away with that. Its just far too blatant a rip-off of what The Voice is doing to work. Although weirdly its a rip-off that seems to fundamentally miss why it works on The Voice...

Anyway in general its hard to see how many more bells and whistles you can hang on The X Factor or these talent show formats in general so I'm not sure how you make the audition shows more exciting or engaging. Or fresh again. Devolving back to the auditions without the live crowd won't work (at least I don't think it will). I'm really at a loss for how they shake-up the auditions. Having said that I do think they could play with the whole 'team' concept during the boot camp stage. Get rid of the categories and have the judges battling over which acts they want to take to their house for the judges houses stage. That presumably would make boot camp more engaging than it currently is and mean they can get rid of the categories which don't really work at all.


I never actually watched Olympics Today (or whatever it was called) so I have no idea. But the team I remember being mentioned during other Olympic coverage makes me think that was never going to work.

Speaking of the DNC, I find the contrast with the figures for the Republican conference hilarious. MSNBC and CNN more than doubled in total viewers, and trebled in the demo. While Fox News had just a third of the audience (both total and demo) of a week ago.

If the networks are still claiming themselves to be "fair and balanced", then the viewing choices made by supporters of each party seems to imply otherwise...

The Sun say Cheryl Cole will return to The X Factor as Gary Barlow's assistant for the judges houses stage of the competition - which are already underway with filming having already taken place in Dubai and the XF team currently in St Lucia.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...ells-back.html

Olympics Tonight was superb. It was expertly helmed by Gaby and tonally it was spot on for the BBC. It was a bit lighter than the rest of the coverage but still had sufficient gravitas.

That's not to say I don't enjoy The Last Leg. It's good fun, suits C4 to a tee and is exactly the kind of thing they should be doing.

I just think the BBC and Channel 4 have both done a good job covering the Games with their own distinctive approach.

The American news networks are all a little weird.

Fox News' tagline is fair and balanced so they're certainly still claiming to be that but its not clear that even they still believe that's the case. Certainly I don't think anyone else does. I'm not entirely sure where MSNBC stands on this issue. Obviously they're very left leaning (or progressive as apparently its now called) but I'm not entirely sure if they've embraced that or are trying the Fox trick of denying there's any kind of bias. I think they've embraced it more than Fox have for sure. CNN is just in a disastrous position at the moment. I blame Piers Morgan but in truth their problems are a lot more deep rooted than that. They'll just be happy anyone was watching them this week I suspect. Their schtick though is that they're the last unbiased source of cable news and that they're fair and balanced.

To be fair though I think this probably says more about the right and the Republican's position on absolutely any news organisation that isn't overtly pushing a right/Republican agenda. Everything that's left of Fox News basically is the liberal media elite and can't possibly be trusted. They've been incredibly effective at achieving that branding and making it stick.

Gary's Judges House stage filming was delayed so it's still to come. If Cheryl's happy to film a judges house stage she may be happy to return to the show full time next year.

Would she replace Nicole? The irony if so.

This sounds like another deliberate leak to the press to try to generate some interest. As if Barlow could do that behind Cowell's back! If Cole is returning, it's with Simon's full knowledge and approval.

EDIT: The next story will be "Simon was said to be FURIOUS when he learned..."... :yawn:

Certainly has been distinct. The BBC showed hour upon hour of near constant sports coverage on up to 24 channels; C4 has shown hour upon hour of Clare Balding locked up in a bunker studio chatting away, interrupted by regular ad breaks, and even some fleeting glimpses of sport.....

Its almost as if her new album has dramatically underperformed or something...

How dare you suggest she's doing this for the publicity!

Indeed. I apologise. I'm sure she'd never do something so out of character...

...and Clare's pencil case!

The dismal studio is clearly Channel 4's biggest misstep. And Snow's depressing OC battlefield updates. But overall they've done a pretty god job. It was never going to be as good as the BBC.

With Millionaire it took forever for someone to win £1m and because it was skill based people wanted to see it. Red or Black gave away £1m three or four times last year. On Millionaire, people liked to play along, maybe see if they could take a shot at the £1m question. None of this applies to Red or Black. And there's just no momentum or hype around it.

The changes have marginally improved it but no other broadcasters are going to buy it. There's no upside to ITV Studios and the broadcasting side won't miss it either.