Moving to Channel 5

 

Kate Humble on Channel 5

So Eggheads Chris, Kevin & Co. are moving en masse to Channel 5, along with Jeremy Vine, where they will doubtless continue to reign supreme over quiz land. 

The Daily Telegraph observes that the show "had disappeared from the BBC schedules as bosses did not believe it appealed to a younger audience" and quotes its host as saying, 

I did more than 1,000 episodes and it’s one of the most successful TV shows in the history of British television, but I think what’s happened is it’s fallen victim to the BBC’s understandable desire to pull in 16-24-year-olds.

The Telegraph's Anita Singh makes a particularly telling point:

[Channel 5] has been encroaching on BBC territory for some time with shows that appeal to older viewers.  

It emerged last year that the BBC had turned down the remake of All Creatures Great and Small because they did not believe it would attract a sufficiently young audience. The show went on to become one of Channel 5’s biggest hits.

(Poor BBC! You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at that.) 

Channel 5 has indeed been attracting me recently with some fine, informative programmes, many presented by old BBC presenters. All power to their elbow!

Weighty matters

Not a happy bunny after losing

Is it possible to write a post about a BBC journalist not knowing something that the blogger knows - and that the blogger expected the BBC journalist to know - without sounding smug?

No.

Anyhow: 

Tonight's celebrity editon of Eggheads had BBC News channel presenter/Panorama journalist Chris Rogers taking the Geography round against Chris from Eggheads. 

You may remember Chris Rogers from such BBC 'events' as that News Channel interview with the North Korea expert whose was interrupted first by his young son then by his baby and then by his wife desperately trying to get their kids out of the room, or for his Panorama from Ukraine about far-right World Cup football hooligans where - away from the programme - he was caught on camera (off camera), giving a Nazi salute and goose-stepping. 

As such I'd expect him to be good at geography.

But this question - 

Which country lies between Costa Rica and the continent of South America? 

- led him to say "I'm guessing this one". 

The options were: (a) Belize, (b) Nicaragua and (c) Panama. 

He was torn between Belize and Panama and finally plumped for the right answer, Panama (famous for its canal and for being between the link between Central America and South America).

To me that was obvious and something a star BBC journalist ought to just know, straight-off. 

Later came a 'sudden death question':

Latvia shares land borders with Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus and which other country? 

As someone who so-famously reported from Ukraine, I'd have expected Chris to have been a dead certainty to have given the right answer, Russia (famously, Latvia's most troublesome neighbour). But, no, Chris misfired and said 'Ukraine'.

Why do I expect better from high-profile BBC journalists? 

At which point I'll now end the post...