Originally Posted by
cylon6:
“Calling Little & Large rubbish is just as subjective as saying Countdown is boring. How can you say Channel 4 keeping Countdown on life support just to fill a few hours with minimal ratings is different from the BBC keeping Little & Large going when ratings dipped is beyond me.
Are you saying Channel 4 should keep Countdown going until every viewer switches off? "But that's not the best way to make television is it?" Didn't you say that? 
”
Very good. The difference is that Countdown may be playing to a small audience - although I will say again it's hardly any worse than the rest of the daytime lineup on that channel - but it's a extremely loyal audience who are not being served by other programmes on the channel or any other channel. It's not just the ratings you have to look at, it's the AI score as well which I would assume, because the majority of the audience is actively participating in it, is very high.
It's like the argument we had here about Blue Peter a few years back, people just looking at the rating and going "oh, that's low, it used to be higher, it should be axed", failing to take into consideration the hugely changed broadcasting environment, where both that and Countdown used to have captive audiences. The fact is Blue Peter is still getting thousands of letters and competition entries so the people watching the show are actively engaging with it and really want to watch it. The same is true here.
And I will argue again, Countdown is doing something different to the rest of the C4 daytime line-up. They need to get rid of all the Come Dine With Me retreads and uninspired game shows that could run on any channel before they think about getting rid of the one thing in the daytime on that channel that remains distinctive and actually has a loyal audience. Totally different to Little and Large.
Originally Posted by Pizzatheaction:
“I was 15 when the final Little and Large series went out, so it probably finished at the right time for me. Strangely, a few months after the final series ended, they aired some repeats (on Fridays at 7.40pm), which was quite rare for Little and Large. If they'd been shown at 7pm (which they couldn't be because of Wogan) they could have had some quite impressive viewing figures against Cannon and Ball's Plaza Patrol on ITV. The ITV sitcom certainly boosted Terry Wogan's ratings on Fridays.”
PEDANTRY ALERT: Plaza Patrol was actually on Mondays, the appalling ITV sitcom on Fridays at seven in the summer of 1991 was actually Very Big Very Soon, starring Paul Shane as a crap talent agent. It was very strange to see those Little and Large repeats in that summer, though, as you say (although they did in previous years sometimes stick a few repeats at the end of a series to fill a gap).
I've said this before but I remember reading in Fast Forward in 1990 that Little and Large had been axed, and then a few weeks later they reported it had been reprieved. I was eleven when the last series went out but even at that age I could tell they'd had a massive budget cut, I remember it didn't have any opening titles and the set was tiny. It was a bit of a bonfire of variety acts in 1991 because Russ Abbot and Les Dennis also had their last series that year. Russ was the first act I knew was going down the dumper because his final series was moved from Saturday to Friday which in those days was a massive demotion. And then there was another big cull in 1994 when they axed Jim'll Fix It, The Paul Daniels Magic Show and That's Life.
Originally Posted by Pizzatheaction:
“I'd forgotten all about Haggard until this week. I never watched a whole episode, but I saw some clips and it looked pretty bad!”
There were two series of Haggard, of course, but the second was presumably on the shelf for ages because it wasn't shown until the summer of 1992, two and a half years after the first one, very early on Saturday teatimes and then by the end of the run it was at the mercy of the individual regions, many of whom shoved the last episode or two out on Sunday afternoons.
Originally Posted by Chris1964:
“Lets not forget Little and Large were a success over many years for the BBC (they actually had a couple of decent rating series for Thames before moving to the BBC). They probably got a bit more flak than they actually deserve given that millions of people did tune in over a decade or more. The link as replacements for Morecambe and Wise would have been unfair for anyone in truth.
I didn't dislike them, I can remember an early sketch doing Summer Nights from Grease that had me in fits-Sid as Olivia Newton John has to be seen to be believed.”
And it's worth pointing out that Little and Large weren't signed as replacements for Morecambe and Wise, because Morecambe and Wise were still at the Beeb when they arrived - their first show was on 27th December 1977, two days after Eric and Ern's last BBC show (and there was certainly no inkling at TV Centre that Morecambe and Wise were going to leave, Bill Cotton was famously massively shocked when he found out). As you say, they'd already been on ITV and I remember my gran used to have a spin-off book from their Thames series.
The Grease sketch was at Christmas 1978 and apparently they were desperate to get it on air as soon as they could so they could be the first to do a parody of it. They used to be quite quick in spotting stuff that appealed to kids, the 1980 Christmas show is on YouTube and Eddie sings Baggy Trousers and Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps. Which is not very funny, but it was very topical.
