Nick Hewer quits Countdown

I was thinking more generally of where the thread has drifted to about "cruel" formats, but in general if you go on the Weakest Link you would surely expect to get some stick from Anne (as a general point rather than trying to justify the clip you refer to).

On the point about the first series, these shows employ people specifically to find the contestants. I think it's unlikely that it wouldn't have been discussed with contestants on the first series of the Weakest Link, the production would want to know that the contestants recruited aren't going to have some sort of break down on set when Anne said something mean about them.

Wasn't he involved with Celador and the original pitch for Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

I’m not sure he was really involved with Millionaire, but he was a shareholder in Celedor and made several million out of the show as a result.

Yes, he and his wife were both shareholders and made more than £10m when the company was sold.

While The Jeremy Kyle Show was bad, and I'm glad it was cancelled, the format and context of it was "helping" people in bad situations relationship wise and overall. Kyle berating them could be passed off as him being "passionate". X Factor and BGT have debatedly humiliated people based on their lack of talent. But this Weakest Link clip is just an awful and needless attack on a daytime quiz show. I know the format of the show well- take the mick out of what someone is wearing or how they act etc it's panto - but implying someone working class must have an ASBO son? Wow. Most of your audience was probably working class, Anne! Very classist and pathetic and shows ugly traits in our country that are still there. Luckily on the gameshow front we have better quality, more positive shows like Pointless and The Chase these days.

I won't be watching Countdown by the way. Bring back Carol.

Talking of Jasper Carrott, he would be a good host for The Weakest Link if it was to make a return. There was usually a sarcastic leaning to his act.

I think the chances of Jasper being picked for The Weakest Link are slim. It's more likely to go for someone younger.

Probably worth noting, given this forum is to close - it's probably been mentioned elsewhere, but although we know Countdown has had (effectively) the same theme tune from 1982 to present, it has had the same *version* / *recording* of its theme tune since 1996.

The only other example I can think of where a theme hasn't changed at all is Have I Got News For You, since 1990.

Any other programmes out there beat that - the exact same tune? No remixes / re-recordings / reworkings in 24 years?

Hasn’t the Channel 4 News theme been the same since the mid 1990s? Unless I’m missing a more recent remake. Many would say Coronation Street but the current version of that has only been used about a decade.

I was always a bit confused when people used to imitate the Countdown theme with a high-pitched synth drum sound at the very end, as that’s not how I knew it at all (much more of a lower pitch) - it was only years later I realised they were referencing the original version of the theme that stopped being used in 1989, indicating they hadn’t actually watched the show for some time.

HIGNFY’s closing theme has been the same since 1990, but the first series has a bizarre alternate version playing during the opening credits which sounds completely different, which I’ve always wondered about and why it ever existed.

Dateline London has had the same theme since it began in 1997.

The 2004 theme is different to that one. They then launched a shorter version of the theme, and then it was altered again in 2015 to coincide with the flat Channel 4 logo.

I don't think it necessarily means they haven't watched the show for some time, just that the original version is what's stuck in their subconscious. Ask someone to sing the Neighbours theme and they'll likely sing you the full original version with all the lyrics, despite the broadcast version actually being much shortened and missing many lines by now. Or try to sing the Emmerdale theme tune in your head, and I bet you end up singing the original version in a 6/8 time signature rather than the newer (butchered) version which hacked it into 4/4, despite the latter version being in use for nearly 10 years now.

Slightly different situations, maybe, but I think it takes a lot for someone to shake any "original" theme tune recording from their heads, even if they hear a new version daily.