Liquid News

I don't think this is anywhere else, if it's in the middle of the one of the official threads then I'm sorry...

It's the last week of Liquid News - the final edition goes out on Thursday (or really Friday), at midnight. It's followed by a repeat of the Christopher Price tribute programme. Although Liquid Assets seems to be carrying on over the weekend - is this not being axed?

It would seem some of the team have already moved onto pastures new with Steph West (now rebranded 'Stephanie West') reporting on the story of the British cavers held in Mexico:

BBC News Report

Its a shame its going.....



Christopher Price first started the show as an entertainment section on BBC News 24. Since then he presented it on BBC Choice until his untimely death in 2002. Certain stand-in presenters included Julian Clary. It was then revamped in 2002 with presenters Claudia Winkleman and Colin Paterson. And a special Friday version of the show was introduced with presenters including Jo Whiley and Mark Frith. When BBC Choice became BBC Three in February 2003, the regular presenters were Claudia Winkleman and Paddy O'Connell.

Amost right - but the timeline is a little off.

Christopher presented both hard news and entertainment news in the late evenings on News 24 - dashing between sets during promo breaks. It was a bit bizarre seeing him do serious interviews on the Northern Ireland peace process, and then start talking about Kylie 10 minutes later!

The News 24 entertainment news was spun off into a fully-fledged slot, Zero 30, a 30 minute(ish) entertainment news show, which normally came from the soft/second sets on News 24 (and occasionally the old The World Today set in BBC World(!)) at half-past midnight.

The Zero 30 team (well a lot of it) then moved to create Liquid News for BBC Choice, when it was decided that Zero 30 no longer fitted into the News 24 schedule. Christopher was the main Liquid News presenter(though Robert Nisbet and Max Flint also stood in, as did Vanessa Feltz...) until his sad and untimely death. He was one of the key faces of BBC Three - presenting themed nights, and also doing a number of key long-form interviews (Which eventually became Liquid Profiles)

A series of guest presenters stood-in until Colin Paterson (previously a reporter on the show) and Claudia Winkleman (a previous guest and stand-in presenter) were chosen to relaunch the show, then still on BBC Choice, as a double-headed show from a new set (which exists today - in a slightly modified form). The show (once described as the channel flag-ship) initially ran 6 days a week Sun-Fri - with the Friday show being a "best of " pre-recorded show - initially presented by Julia Morris (another favourite guest) and Heat Editor Mark Frith. Julia left to do stand-up in the US - and was replaced by Jo Whiley, who continued with Mark Frith until the Friday show finished last Autumn.

Colin & Claudia and Mark & Jo (may have been Julia) continued to present when BBC Choice became BBC Three, though Claudia left to have a baby, and was replaced by reporter Sam Singh, for a while, until the show moved to London / Los Angeles co-presentation with Steph West in LA and Colin on his own in the London studio. This continued until Claudia returned.

Paddy O'Connell didn't start presenting Liquid with Claudia full-time until July last year (though he had stood in for Colin on a number of occasions) but was already a BBC Three face because he had launched Celebdaq early in 2003. Colin was certainly still presenting the show when BBC Choice became BBC Three (in fact he presented the launch night edition from Los Angeles, where he interviewed Christian Slater and Kiefer Sutherland)

Claudia and Paddy only presented briefly together, before Claudia went off to present Fame Academy on BBC Three, leaving Paddy to present on his own until she returned.

Christopher made the programme his own and is still, and always will be, missed. There are few people who have ever been able to reduce me to tears of laughter in so few, sarcastic, hilarious words. Funny, when I was doing my last BBC THREE shift a few weeks ago and transmitting Liquid News I was thinking about him... I'd been a fan from the days of Zero 30 which kept me entertained on long dull late shifts.

All that said I love Liquid News with Paddy and Claudia almost as much as I liked it with Christopher. It's a real pity it's going - I think in a 2320 slot on BBC TWO it would do really well. Being moved about the BBC THREE schedule on a regular basis hasn't helped - there's got to be room for this kind of show on TV in the UK.

Yep - for a long time the show WAS Christopher. Only recently had it really begun to evolve into something different - and this was due to Paddy and Claudia.

It will be missed - especially as the ratings continue to rise (a large chunk of people who watched in the early evening seem to have followed the show to midnight)

The current midnight ratings are usually higher than the 2000 or midnight repeats were - and the midnight Liquid routinely beats any showing of Live at Johnny's, or Celebdaq.

All things must come to an end - though Liquid did remain reasonably unique (if you can say such a thing) - and there is nothing currently to fill the void in the UK. (Access Hollywood is unwatchable - even the UK version - and whilst I like GMTV on Friday it is still not a patch on Liquid in the humour stakes)

As a huge Liquid fan, thought I should throw in my $0.02...

Since it moved to midnight I've been watching it less and less, unfortunately. It's just not an option and I guess I'm not the only person who feels that way (though I will be doing my best to watch all this week!). However when I have caught it I think it's been every bit as funny as the Chris Price shows - just in a different way. Put Paddy in charge of... erm... well anything really, and it's going to decend into utter bizarreness very quickly, and normally with pretty funny consequences. Throw in Claudia talking about otters and so on and you have what regularly turns into comic genius.

Anyone know if they have any special plans for the last edition?

Why have they decided to axe Liquid News?

Stuart Murphy, the controller of BBC Three, said he felt he wanted a change for the channel - that BBC Three had to evolve - and that meant that a 4 year old commission may not be a good thing to continue with (very few other shows have survived that long on his channel).

He was complimentary about the show - but also mentioned that it wasn't generating the ratings he wanted. (Little on BBC Three apart from the drama and comedy that is co-commissioned with BBC One or Two does - with a couple of exceptions. Certainly Celebdaq and Live at Johnny's rated worse than Liquid.)

There were also budget issues - as BBC Three has a lower budget this year than last, and Liquid News was a significant chunk of this. Of course this was mainly because Liquid was a daily, original show which ran 50 weeks of the year - meaning there were 200-300 episodes a year to pay for, unlike the other shows on the channel that may cost a lot more per episode - but the same 10-20 editions get repeated to death across the year - hence the occasional appearance of the "ALL NEW" bug on the rare occasion that a show isn't a repeat.

I think BBC Three is definitely moving in a different direction to that of Choice, and even Three a year ago, and is far less celebrity angled (nothing to do with charter renewal of course...) However Liquid was one of the few Celebrity based shows that took a wry and slightly ironic look at, rather than sucking up to, celebrities (well it did most of the time) - and the originality and wit of the production team and presenters will be missed.

It'll be interesting to see what pre-watershed programmes it is replaced by (and whether they are cheaper/repeated more allowing more money to be invested in the later evening output)

well I know what it will be replaced with.....cr*p!

Exactly! Christopher Price will be turning in his grave

Well, it seems they're at least taking some risk with the new-look extended 7 O'Clock news (But then, it's not really that risky because the ratings haven't got very far to fall...the only way is up!)