That is bonkers if true - the first deal was arguably deserved as the show often did well when airing on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day, but it's star has fallen in recent years and there is just no justification at all for an annual Christmas special.
I'd actually much rather the BBC commissioned a series instead - I think the show kind of needs that to return to what made it successful in the first place and not be bound by the contraints of Christmas Specials.
-BBC One and Two both change their idents, One on 1/1/21 (with some sort of Circle-like idents?) and Two on 16/1/21 (with the 2s celebrating their 30th birthday, Two creates a spin on the curves where a 2 makes up one side of the Curve (aka Paint will have the 2 being hit by offscreen paint, with the drips of paint falling "sideways" on the other side of the curve, or Car having the 2 stopping make up the curve briefly, etc.), and people like it so much that it stays.
-ITV finally gets sick of asking people to make idents that half the time look like crap and (perhaps as a placeholder?) reverts to the 2013 set, which stays through the year. Regional idents are used before the regional news, having the itv logo replaced with the respective stations pre-2002 logo (or in Border's case, pre-hearts).
-Eastenders temporarily goes 5-days-a-week to make up for the time cut during the pandemic, but it becomes permanent the week of 5/5/2021 because people like it.
-BBC Two repeats as Channel of the Year, actually make a GOOD edit to their idents to show it instead of just slapping "Channel of the Year" on the top of the screen.
-C4 does nothing notable all year.
-C5 gets sold again, this time with ITV making a sucessful bid; 5 becomes a mix of it's old self and repeats of whatever ITV wants repeats of; this makes ITV3 redundant, so they try to sell it to the BBC. They take it and make it a repeat channel of their own (BBC Classic)
To follow up on my previous predictions, Two subtly foreshadows the new ident package by making a direct reference to the last TWO ident at closedown. Then, at startup, the first ident to be shown is Paint, because of course it is. Optics (which I think will work very well with the Curve motif) closes down the channel at the end of the day (aka actual closedowns return, not just going straight from the credits of the last programme into the filler reel).
BBC Parliament won't get rebranded with Reith, but the BBC News website finally will be (fully).
A BBC channel shuts down.
Piers Morgan leaves/is fired from GMB.
Channel 5 repeat yet another programme under a new name.
Okay here are a few of mine, some more genuine than others...
- GB News or Murdoch's News UK to buy out That's TV, Made In, and London Live to claim Freeview channel 8, with a token regional programme thrown into the schedules.
- Oneness returns on 1st Jan just to annoy TV Forum members, before receiving a new look shortly afterwards.
- Gregg Scott announced as new host of Countdown (as Rylan was unavailable).
- With an iPlayer first approach BBC One focuses as a 'BBC Showcase' channel, BBC Two focuses on being a 'BBC Alternatives' channel whilst BBC Three is relaunched as a 'Best of the Nations' channel with national programming, whilst BBC Four focus on 'Classic from the Archives'.
- More TVS archives are found in a secret nuclear air raid shelter.
- Ofcom's Freeview review will decide that another multiplex needs converting to DVB-T2, but they put off implementing it for at least a few years.
- A Covid-19 vaccination publicity stunt involving Z-list reality TV stars and quite a few pricks*.
- UTV rebrands as ITV U.
- After signing a deal with Netflix Prince Harry and Megan Markle are announced to appear as themselves in series 6 of The Crown.
- Channel 5 shows a new episode entitled 'Unrepeatable TV', which is repackaged from a programme shown earlier this year.
Charlie Wells, you may indeed be onto something with the buy out of ‘Local TV’ by GB News or News UK. Considering the repeated nature of the local programming, they could probably get away with producing very little in return for the eighth channel slot.
Imagine that if Harry and Megan appeared as themselves on ‘The Crown’...😂
Since I've made a TVS "prediction" in the last two threads for these, here's this years:
TVS paperwork for archive discovered fully intact across the Vanguard-class submarines and it emerges a quarter of the paperwork was kept on each submarine alongside the "letter of last resort". Alongside the writings that the prime minster creates as the final orders of the government in the event of a nuclear strike on the UK, his/her pick of the TVS archive programmes will be listed, and if the order is given to retaliate, said TVS programme would suddenly appear on the air.
Last edited by Neil Jones on 15 December 2020 10:50pm
Since I've made a TVS "prediction" in the last two threads for these, here's this years:
TVS paperwork for archive discovered fully intact across the Vanguard-class submarines and it emerges a quarter of the paperwork was kept on each submarine alongside the "letter of last resort". Alongside the writings that the prime minster creates as the final orders of the government in the event of a nuclear strike on the UK, his/her pick of the TVS archive programmes will be listed, and if the order is given to retaliate, said TVS programme would suddenly appear on the air.
So if y'all see a TVS frontcap or the like, all I have to say is book the next flight to another country far away. Especially if you're in a big city.
I'll make just one prediction: Sky closes down Challenge, with endless Chase on the final day instead of a proper acknowledgement of the channel's history.
