Challenge - June 2016 onwards

Yet, go back 5 years and people were saying Sky was its saviour.. compared to Virgin...

Something shocking has happened with the schedule for Saturdays in February - a new addition to it that isn't hosted by Bradley Walsh or Alexander Armstrong! Unless I totally missed it and it's been there all long, in which case, erm, ooh look a spider! *runs away*

Okay its only the return of Michael Barrymore's Strike It Rich Saturday lunchtimes (in addition to Strike It Lucky a few hours later) so its not totally new to the channel but its a smidgeon more variety. To be honest I'm surprised Crystal Maze is totally out of the schedule at the moment as it tends to be a good ratings winner.

Challenge, in the last few days, posted a capture of an old evening schedule from 21 years - Busman's Holiday, Through the Keyhole and Treasure Hunt - and asked people out of these 3, which would people like to see back in the schedule. The overwhelming response by the public was TREASURE HUNT. People are still voting now and it has drawn over 90 comments as far as I can remember. So, will they listen and put Treasure Hunt back onto Challenge (hopefully from Series 3 onwards) - or, is it just a excuse to generate comments and likes and still show us boring shows such as The Chase every waking hour of the day???

Actually my EPG hadn't updated when I wrote the above as it looks like its Strike It Rich today is one-off for the 21st anniversary of the channel (IIRC last time they couldn't quite decide whether their birthday was due in February or September).

Challenge when they last aired Treasure Hunt only had the first two series; they have shown more previously (including back when it was the Family Channel).

Seen the Strike It Rich session, but I've only just noticed the end game runs in a different way to the Strike It Lucky era - in the Rich era they just mixed up each column with an arrow, question and hotspot so there was more chance of getting a hotspot as you travel across, whereas in the Lucky era it wasn't uncommon to see a question and two hotspots in a particular column.

Of course its been documented previously that the format for Strike It Lucky/Rich was crap. Even in its original American format it was crap. Playing the entire thing for laughs with a comedic host and the ever increasing eccentricity of contestants (more so in the Rich years) and then giving inappropriate prizes - bungee jumps to 93 year olds for example - all this just gelled with viewers and it ran for the best part of 14 years here - no other international adaptation of the American format lasted more than a year.

It tells you all you need to know when the contestant introductions would take up over a third of the show.

Even Barrymore said the format was crap.

best of Lucky - in 1993 there had 28 episodes then it become rich.

Michael Barrymore is much missed from our TV screens, it's a shame his attempted comeback after Celebrity BB didn't come to anything.

Did anything come from his new production that he promoted on Twitter last year? Barrymore hasn't tweeted anything since last April so not really sure if this is still in production or in limbo?

The production company filming it put that picture on of us on set. I can't say, just yet. Still a lot to film. How's you Sue? X https://t.co/Oows6Be4O5

— Michael Barrymore (@MrBarrymore) March 12, 2017

But yes, shame he isn't on our TV screens in new stuff anymore though in all honesty even when ITV had dropped him after the Stuart Lubbock saga, Challenge were still perfectly happy to have him on their channel while that played out.

Can't wait!

We're delighted to announce our brand spanking new channel rebrand!

Welcome to Chase TV! 🏃🏃 pic.twitter.com/ndvFNS2pvf

— Challenge TV (@ChallengeTV) April 1, 2018

Must try harder.

He’s about as missed as the plague.

I disagree and knot get the square

I disagree. He receives plenty of support and calls for his return, especially given the calibre of "talent" around nowadays.