Challenge

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I hope it's not just the first and second series of Treasure Hunt they're going to repeat - it wasn't until Series 3 that it became any good! The first two series, the first one especially, were really poor.

Why didn't they air the Speyside episode yesterday?

Some news of programmes not shown recently.

Treasure Hunt Series 1, Episode 2

Stars in their Eyes Series 3, Episode 2

Blankety Blank Series 4, Episode 7

I think they have made the wrong call with Stars in their Eyes. I am sure they would get complaints if they were to show that episode of Stars in their Eyes but I don't think that is a good enough reason not to show it. Maybe it is time that Challenge[TV] (and possibly other channels) added a generic "This is an old programme and its content may reflect attitudes of the the time it was originally broadcast" and then just show everything uncut.

I am surprised that tapes are still involved when it comes to Challenge[TV] acquiring Treasure Hunt. Surely Challenge[TV] are quite unusual in 2014 in requesting tapes, aren't they? I don't know who owns the rights to Treasure Hunt but I would imagine whoever it is will be storing them in digital form somehow. Which makes me think that any tapes sent to Challenge[TV] would actually be brand new, i.e. copied to tape from the digital archive. Challenge[TV] wouldn't be sent the 1981 tapes would they? I hope not.

The episode of Blankety Blank that wasn't shown featured Jimmy Tarbuck. As discussed earlier in this thread, I imagine this is Challenge[TV]'s issue with this episode. The fact that they also say "at the moment" (twice) makes me think that this episode may be shown depending on the outcome of any future legal proceedings.

In which case Series 4 was perhaps not the best series to choose to show at the moment, since four of the sixteen episodes feature Jimmy Tarbuck. Additionally, they didn't show episode 1, skipping straight to episode 2, and then showed episode 2 again yesterday evening instead of episode 10!

Tapes are still the industry standard way of distributing and storing TV programmes. They will be almost certainly be digital videotape of course

Sky wouldn't be sent the originals, these would probably be old 1" or 2" tape and therefore unplayable. However that doesn't mean the copies they have will be brand new stock or problem free, even if they worked fine the last time Challenge showed them

If they aired it though they'd have to pay royalties to Glitter and no one wants to do that.

Given the daytime screenings had moved from 2.30 to 12.30 at the last minute, and were no longer billed as new on the EPG, I'd assumed they were just going to show the same episodes this week as last week and then abandon it, but no, today's episode hadn't been shown before. Although the run does end on Monday.

But with this, and Stars In Their Eyes, they can just show selected episodes if they want. It's not like it's got a running storyline where they have to start with Series 1 Episode 1 and show every episode in order or it doesn't make sense. The only one I'd really like them to show is the episode with Bernie Clifton because apparently he tried far too hard to upstage everyone and continually interrupted, and after the show Tel asked the producers not to invite him on again because he was awful (which they didn't in Wogan's tenure).

I can't believe there's any argument for showing that episode of Stars In Their Eyes. It's blatantly obvious why they wouldn't want to, and why people wouldn't want to watch it.

Interesting about the Speyside episode. During the Family Channel era reruns of the mid 90s, the Speyside episode would be the first episode shown from Series 1, with the Bali episode - the first ever episode - being shown right at the end if the Series 1 run... Notable of course for the different set. One assumes this was either a pilot episode or they filmed the show in Paris using the French version's set.

Watch out for episode 8 of series 2 in Cambridge also. It's notorious for The Family Channel superimposing blue-on-white clue captions as the original text from the tapes they acquired was unreadable. I understand it too got dropped from later runs.

So it now looks like all the Tarbuck episodes had already been blacklisted, meaning the episode that had the 'issue' with it and had to be replaced must have been the 05/11/81 episode (Janet Brown, Frank Carson, Windsor Davies, Shirley Anne Field, Liza Goddard, Pete Murray). As for missing out episode 1, perhaps that's another tape that didn't arrive at Challenge Towers. If all remaining non-Tarbuck episodes are shown, it does indeed work out that the series should finish on Monday, so hopefully it'll be plain sailing from now on, and Bernie Clifton should turn up on Friday.


It doesn't seem like Challenge have got much value for money buying Series 4, seeing as they only seem to be able to show 10 of the 16 episodes, they might have been better off getting Series 2 instead!

Or maybe there got a discount for S4? Since it was testing the water, it might have been cheaper option.

Actually if you'd read the rest of the follow-up threads rather than cherry-picking the portions that support the points you want to make, you'd have found this follow-up: