Weaver's Week 2020-12-27

(Goodbye, 2020. You will not be forgotten, nor forgiven.)
(Ratings watch: Update to the end of the year.)
 
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As usual, we note the most popular single transmission for each show. SD, HD, and +1 are included, as is catchup viewing on tv or online up to a week after the show first aired. First and last transmissions in a series are noted.
As usual, we note the most popular single transmission for each show. SD, HD, and +1 are included, as is catchup viewing on tv or online up to a week after the show first aired. First and last transmissions in a series are noted.
-
 
-
Data's available up to 13 December, so we don't have the ''Strictly'' final just yet, nor Christmas ''Blankety Blank''. We'll update the list in January, and remove this line when it's done.
 
=== BBC1 ===
=== BBC1 ===
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{| border=2
{| border=2
|-
|-
-
|| Strictly Come Dancing
+
|| Strictly Come Dancing [final]
-
|| 14/11/2020
+
|| 19/12/2020
-
|| 11889
+
|| 12445
|-
|-
|| MasterChef
|| MasterChef
|| 23/03/2020
|| 23/03/2020
|| 7911
|| 7911
 +
|-
 +
|| Michael McIntyre's The Wheel
 +
|| 19/12/2020
 +
|| 6504
 +
|-
 +
|| Blankety Blank Christmas Special
 +
|| 25/12/2020
 +
|| 6331
|-
|-
|| The Great British Sewing Bee
|| The Great British Sewing Bee
|| 10/06/2020
|| 10/06/2020
|| 6251
|| 6251
-
|-
 
-
|| Michael McIntyre's The Wheel [first]
 
-
|| 28/11/2020
 
-
|| 6176
 
|-
|-
|| Have I Got News for You [first]
|| Have I Got News for You [first]
Line 262: Line 264:
|| 14/11/2020
|| 14/11/2020
|| 5423
|| 5423
 +
|-
 +
|| Celebrity Mastermind
 +
|| 19/12/2020
 +
|| 5286
|-
|-
|| MasterChef: The Professionals
|| MasterChef: The Professionals
|| 11/11/2020
|| 11/11/2020
|| 5256
|| 5256
-
|-
 
-
|| Celebrity Mastermind
 
-
|| 22/03/2020
 
-
|| 5026
 
-
|-
 
-
|| Pointless Celebrities
 
-
|| 14/11/2020
 
-
|| 4828
 
-
|-
 
|}
|}
-
''Celebrity Mastermind'' was an unbilled replacement for David Attenborough. ''A Question of Sport'' also broke 4 million, with ''The Greatest Dancer'', ''The Wall'', and ''Best Home Cook'' just under 4 million.
+
''Pointless Celebrities'', ''A Question of Sport'', and Christmas ''Would I Lie to You?'' broke 4 million, with ''The Greatest Dancer'', ''The Wall'', ''Best Home Cook'', and ''House of Games Night'' just under 4 million.
=== BBC2 ===
=== BBC2 ===
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|-
|-
|| Strictly – It Takes Two
|| Strictly – It Takes Two
-
|| 16/11/2020
+
|| 14/12/2020
-
|| 1986
+
|| 1993
|-
|-
|| Pointless
|| Pointless
Line 373: Line 370:
|}
|}
-
''The Voice'', ''Family Fortunes'', and daytime ''The Chase'' all beat 5 million at least once. There were audiences over 4 million for (deep breath) ''Alan Carr's Epic Game Show'', primetime ''The Chase Celebrity Special'', ''Celebrity Catchphrase'', ''The Family Chase'', ''I'm A Celebrity A Castle Story'', ''The Voice Kids'', ''The Million Pound Cube'', and ''Rolling In It''.
+
''The Voice'', ''Family Fortunes'', and daytime ''The Chase'' all beat 5 million at least once. There were audiences over 4 million for (deep breath) ''Alan Carr's Epic Game Show'', primetime ''The Chase Celebrity Special'', ''Celebrity Catchphrase'', ''The Family Chase'', ''I'm A Celebrity A Castle Story'', ''The Voice Kids'', ''The Million Pound Cube'', ''Rolling In It'', and ''The Chase The Bloopers''.
=== Channel 4 ===
=== Channel 4 ===
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|| 31/03/2020
|| 31/03/2020
|| 6334
|| 6334
 +
|-
 +
|| Big Fat Quiz
 +
|| 26/12/2020
 +
|| 3944
|-
|-
|| Taskmaster [first]
|| Taskmaster [first]
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|| 26/05/2020
|| 26/05/2020
|| 2966
|| 2966
-
|-
 
-
|| Big Fat Quiz
 
-
|| 02/01/2020
 
-
|| 2859
 
|-
|-
|| Hunted [final]
|| Hunted [final]
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|}
|}
-
If you're going to take the various ''Bake Off'' shows as one, then the top ten's completed by ''Four in a Bed'' and the first ep of ''The Bridge''.
+
If you're going to take the various ''Bake Off'' shows as one, then the top ten's completed by ''Four in a Bed'' and a tie between the first eps of ''The Bridge'' and ''Five Guys a Week''.
=== Channel 5 ===
=== Channel 5 ===
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{| border=2
{| border=2
|-
|-
-
|| World's Strongest Man [final]
+
|| World's Strongest Man
-
|| 01/01/2020
+
|| 31/12/2020
-
|| 1613
+
|| 1864
|-
|-
|| Celebrity Murder Mystery [first]
|| Celebrity Murder Mystery [first]
Line 438: Line 435:
|| 19/02/2020
|| 19/02/2020
|| 657
|| 657
 +
|-
 +
|| TV's Biggest Gameshows 50 Years of Fun
 +
|| 29/12/2020
 +
|| 565
|-
|-
|| Britain's Favourite Gameshows
|| Britain's Favourite Gameshows
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|| 19/03/2020
|| 19/03/2020
|| 53
|| 53
 +
|-
 +
|| Breaking the News
 +
|| 29/12/2020
 +
|| 50
|-
|-
|}
|}
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|| 17/07/2020
|| 17/07/2020
|| 33
|| 33
 +
|-
 +
|| Mastermind Plant Cymru
 +
|| 29/12/2020
 +
|| 20
|-
|-
|| Fferm Ffactor: Selebs [final]
|| Fferm Ffactor: Selebs [final]

Current revision as of 11:29, 14 January 2021

Last week | Weaver's Week Index | Next week

2020 was written by a middle school student who wants to show off what they've learned about satire and parody, but wasn't paying attention when the teacher talked about subtlety.

One story has dominated this year, and – almost wilfully – we're going to ignore it. We're going to tell the story of 2020 through the most meaningful – and meaningless – commissions of the year.

Contents

Crackerjack (CBBC)

Crackerjack

We heard in early 2019 that Sam and Mark were going to revive Crackerjack. It was a risk: a lot of people had fond memories of the show, comedy and silly games and a riotous start to the weekend. Those of us a little younger had less fond memories of the show, a failed effort to move with the times led to a stale show, replacing fun and funny with gunge and gunge.

There was no need to worry: Crackerjack! hit all the right notes. It was funny, it was entertaining. Sam and Mark had a rapport with the audience, in a way Ed Stewart didn't. The Crackerjack! Players delivered top-class comedy, theatre of the absurd and the foolish. The games were sensible updates: Stickly Come Dancing, Piedentity Parade, and the closest Double or Drop has come to Eamonn Andrews' original format from nearly a century ago.

Best of all, Crackerjack! was made with great love and affection for the audience. Everyone involved understands what makes a seven-year-old laugh, and goes that little extra mile to make it happen. By some distance, it's the best "new" show of the year.

The Crystal Maze Have I got time crystals for you!

What with one thing and another, there haven't been many new shows for children – plans for Top Class had to be closed along with schools. Project Z had a second series on CITV, recorded last year, and gently advancing the backstory. Pete Firman was the ambiguous host on Don't Unleash the Beast, more concerned about his artefacts than the safety of explorers he sent to face the Beast. Recorded this summer, we reckon the show was compromised by circumstances, and we hope for a second series closer to the original ideas.

The Crystal Maze turned up on Nickelodeon, hosted by Adam Conover. He's the best maze-master on telly since Ed Tudor-Pole, enthusiastic and welcoming and full of energy. Some old editions of The Crystal Maze made it out of a Channel 4 stock cupboard and on air: they felt flat and tedious in comparison.

The Masked Singer (ITV)

The Masked Singer

Mainstream entertainment has had a strong year, when it's been allowed to air. The Masked Singer dominated the first two months of the year, an unexpected and tremendous success. It's a simple idea: get celebrities to dress up in fantastic costumes, and ask them to sing for our entertainment. There's also an interlude where a panel of experts try to guess who is inside the costume.

This column didn't get The Masked Singer, the singing was glossed over in favour of the guessing, and the show pretended it was more important than it was. We're happy to see that lots of people did get The Masked Singer, and lots of people absolutely loved it. A second domestic series has been made, and a couple of series were imported to pad out ITV's schedules over the summer.

I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here It's a three minute game...

Gaps in the schedule were caused by events being cancelled. Saturday Night Takeaway started its series with places in Disneyland for a carefree full studio audience. Then thry took away the end-of-series jamboree and had a somewhat nervous full studio audience. Then they took away the studio audience. Then they took away the studio. Ant and Dec did well to provide any sort of entertainment in such uncertain times, a tribute to their massive talent and experience.

ITV The Voice of This Territory came to a grinding halt when the taped episodes ran out. A little later, Got Talent also ran out of pre-recorded episodes. Both shows returned in the autumn, as if they'd never been gone. I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! made its usual November date, but swapped the heat and humidity of the jungle for the cool of a ruined castle in north Wales. An interesting idea, and one they might well build on in future years.

Netta Barzilai stole the show.

Over on the BBC, Strictly Come Dancing went ahead with a reduced cast, but the differences were so small that we couldn't really tell them. The Senior Eurovision Contest had been cancelled, and replaced by a tribute to this year's performers: it was the show we needed, but not the show people wanted to see on a warm May evening. By November, the Junior Eurovision Song Contest could go ahead, with songs performed in everyone's local studio against a Euro-standard backdrop. The show went ahead without S4C or TG4, both broadcasters chose to serve their domestic audiences first.

There was no way to stop the Eurovision fans. Rob Holley is our hero of the year. In mid-March, he asked if people wanted to watch a classic Eurovision Song Contest, and tweet along their thoughts. It proved to be a popular idea: #EurovisionAgain was a trending topic almost every week. The EBU gave their blessing to these repeats, and helped arrange a single point to watch, and persuaded broadcasters to liberate their archive. There's a permanent benefit to this work: the EBU now has pristine, crystal clear, broadcast quality copies of many old shows, often with stereo sound we couldn't hear on television at the time. Eurovision Again concluded last weekend with a bespoke contest, a mash-up of the best songs to get stuck in the semi-finals. "Playing with numbers" was robbed. Again.

The Wheel (BBC1)

The Wheel In two revolutions, turn right.

We must have missed the rise of Michael McIntyre: an inoffensive stand-up comedian with a plummy voice, occasional contributor to Mock the Week and Heresy, and then exploding onto primetime BBC1. He's remained in the stand-up comedy world, playing to packed houses and drawing huge audiences.

With no other outlet for his talents – McIntyre can't exactly play to packed houses right now – he's invented The Wheel. Star of the show is a giant wheel, packed with seven celebrities. The wheel spins, it eventually stops, questions are asked, answers are given. Money may be won, or it may not. It's a bright show, glossy and glitzy, a little bit more foolish than you, and that seems to be what the audience wants. We'll have a full review of The Wheel early next year.

First & Last Box not-very-clever.

Back at the start of 2020, Jason Manford had a bright show, glossy and glitzy, and a lot more foolish than you. First & Last had one simple objective: be mediocre. Average. Middling. Don't be first, don't be last. The programme started with the Jumping Out of a Cardboard Box round, finished with the contenders naming their own prize, and had a lot of fun along the way. Somewhat buried in the schedules – it was BBC1's sacrificial lamb to The Voice and its Amazing Spinning Chairs – we still reckon First & Last is worth another go. We can't say the same of Little Mix The Search, which got lost in the autumn shuffle.

Glitz and glamour always feel a little out of place on BBC1, it's a jumper that doesn't quite fit. ITV always looks good in a slinky glitzy number, and none looked better than Stephen Mulhern. The king of good-natured gaudy brightened up spring with In for a Penny, archive footage of him meeting random members of the public in exotic locales like shopping streets and public parks.

Rolling in It The penny didn't drop, it rolled.

In the summer, Stephen fronted Rolling in It, a very simple game of skill, luck, and rolling giant coins down a massive conveyor belt system. The show isn't won or lost until the very last moment. It's one of those games we had to play along with, it's almost impossible to just sit there and passively watch. And it's made all the better by Stephen Mulhern, it takes a lot of talent to make the show seem that simple.

Stephen reminds us of a younger and cheekier Phillip Schofield. Television's best presenter had an interesting year: released his autobiography, came out as gay, and gave us another series of 5 Gold Rings – though that was recorded way back last year. This year, Schofe has hosted The Million Pound Cube, a revival of the six-sided challenge show from about ten years earlier. Now played by couples, we're not convinced The Cube worked: it needed more challenges and less repetition. Less repetition, that's what we need.

The Cube We need less repeating.

ITV also had glitz from its younger presenters. Rylan Clark-Neal brought Supermarket Sweep to ITV Daytime, and some celebrity editions for Saturday teatime: the series is not quite firing on all cylinders yet. Alan Carr staged the Epic Game Show, five ancient formats revived and revised. Some of them worked (Take Your Pick was a winner, and it's difficult to go wrong with The Price is Right) but the others failed. There's a second series in the works, we hope they've learned from things that can be improved.

Taskmaster moved itself to Channel 4: house keys, ugly trophy, host, the works. It didn't change in the move from UKTV's Dave channel, which is both a good thing and an annoyance, because if you're going to make the same show, why bother moving? BBC2 brightened up the spring with I'll Get This, a series of entertainments after people have eaten out in a restaurant. We know things are back to normal when we hear they've commissioned series 3. ITV2 gave us Celebrity Karaoke Club, charmingly banal light-hearted entertainment.

Beat the Chasers (ITV)

Beat the Chasers The world's smartest conference call.

Ten years after becoming a daytime regular, The Chase got a primetime spinoff. Beat the Chasers was louder, brasher, and far more compelling than its parent show. After a very brief cashbuilder segment, our player can choose to face two, three, four, or all five Chasers. More opponents means a bigger reward, but more opponents means less of a time advantage. While the introduction is light-hearted, the final round is 100 seconds (or so) of rapid-fire questions, play switches between the sole challenger and the team of Chasers.

It's the little details that make the show. Paul Farrer's fresh soundtrack, riffing off the established daytime programme. The co-ordinated clothes, black with little red details. We feared that Beat the Chasers would be done too much, while it's a moreish show it's one that could lose its lustre very quickly. ITV were right not to commission a new series until the new year.

Part of that is because The Chase has been doing great numbers at teatime. Four million viewers every single night from mid-October, reaching 5 million a few times in November. We've not seen such huge numbers at teatime since the early 1990s, when there were just four channels available.

Tipping Point has also been doing very good business, often attracting 3 million viewers to the simple game. Over on BBC1, Pointless hasn't risen tremendously, in part because it's in repeats for half the year, and in part because it wasn't on BBC1 for three months. Replacing Xander and Richard with Matt Hancock's Half Hour may have had public service value in March, but became an unchallenged establishment voice by June.

Catchpoint Balls, Paddy McGuinness.

Back in primetime, BBC1's The Hit List and Catchpoint both came back with little adjustments to improve the show. ITV had another series of Brightest Family, with celebrities involved. They also gave us a few event weeks of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but the star attraction was Quiz. The dramatised version of the Ingrams' Millionaire trial asked difficult questions, such as whether they'd conspired to do anything.

But we don't want to give you that...

My Generation (Radio 4)

To fill a gap in the schedule, Radio 4 invented a simple decades quiz, and invited people to take part from home. No prizes, it's just for fun, and host Stuart Maconie made an entertaining programme out of an adequate format.

"To fill a gap in the schedule" was the defining feature of the year. Careful plans were thrown akilter, sporting events were cancelled, schedules were ripped up, and printed listings magazines had to say "We have no idea what this channel's showing this week."

The team behind Portrait Artist of the Year made a virtue out of necessity, and got people to draw celebrities over video links. Everyone's got exactly the same conditions, everyone sees the same views of the sitter. The resulting show, Portrait Artist of the Week, was distinctly different from the main series.

Almost everyone amused themselves by devising their own quizzes, and video-calling their friends to ask questions. S4C was the first to put this style of quiz on air: Gêm Gartre invited viewers to beat the professional sportspeople. A little later, Be' Ti'n Gwylio? installed a suite of cameras in the contestants' living room, then retreated to ask nostalgia questions from a safe distance. On the radio, The Talk Sport Quiz was a surprise success, Darren Bent and Faye Carruthers built a little community of regular callers.

Family Fortunes It's cabaret time.

When things had calmed down a little, ITV ordered a new series of Family Fortunes, under new host Gino D'Acampo. It's extended to fill a full hour, and that makes the show run just a beat too slowly. The catchphrase, "Come to Gino, and let's play for Single Money" might just be the most disappointing of the year. But it is real people in a real studio, a cut above those shows where people appear in little boxes from their homes.

It's gone to his head.

If we want people to appear in little boxes, we'll ask our friends to do that. Schlag den Brig III was a fun thing to do for mid-May, one of many challenges saw competitors tried to throw a ball into a little basket they were wearing on their heads. Other internet-only games included Royal Flush's Google That!, Quizzy Dan's eponymous Dan's Quiz, and Ash the Bash found out how long would it take to ask all 500 questions on 500 Questions. A little over twelve hours, the answer Giles Coren couldn't be bothered to find out, the lightweight.

The Chop (History Channel)

Was the real trauma of 2020 learning that so many people are cruel, ignorant, and irremediably selfish?

The Chop

It felt like that while watching the autumn's reality shows. Or, in the case of The Chop, not watching them. The show wanted to find the best woodcarver, in the traditional elimination format, and looked likely to attract an adequate audience for a second-order pay-tv channel.

But the producers of The Chop had failed to spot that one of their contestants had white supremacist insignia tattooed all over his face. After a brief attempt to defend the indefensible – including a ludicrous claim that one tat was a tribute to his father who both died in the 1980s and turned up to the series final – even Sky (the new owners of History Channel) had to admit their show looked bad. It was taken off air, and we'll never see it.

No such sweet relief for Channel 4's The Bridge, a semi-scripted drama where the producers knew the plot points they wanted to reach, and forced the "contestants" to go where they wanted. The lessons of episode 1 were forgotten for episode 2, but The Bridge wasn't as funny as Seinfeld. The racist stereotype of a "full" island was made abhorrently clear when two white people ejected a woman of colour. There was no jeopardy, no humour, no colour, no foreshadowing – and by the end, no viewers.

The Bridge [chop]

Over on BBC2, Race Across the World showed its second (and, for the moment, final) series through Latin America. It was preceded by Win the Wilderness, where couples tried to win a cabin in the middle of an Arctic nowhere.

Comedy Central had a new game show: Gods of the Game. Real sports stars take part in made-up events, while members of the public try (and fail) to beat them at their own games. E4 reminded us of the best moments from Big Brother, chopped up and dissected by Davina McCall and Rylan Clark-Neal.

Five Guys a Week A candlelit dinner for, er, six.

Five Guys a Week was an interesting idea – have five potential dates spend the weekend with their potential paramour, and watch her pick as the show progresses. Interesting idea, but didn't catch light with the public. It's hard to remember now, but Love Island actually had a new series this year. So much has happened since, not least the death of longtime host Caroline Flack. She's at least the third person connected to the show to die by suicide at a tragically young age.

Back in 2019, OFCOM announced that it would require programme makers to take reasonable care of all contributors to all programmes. The television business decided that it didn't want stringent regulation, it prefers to eke out profits at the expense of people's lives. As OFCOM has been completely captured by the business interests, and treats the public as irritants who can be ignored and fobbed off, it's watered down the requirement. Producers will now only be required to take "due" care, and there's an exception for "trivial" subjects and "minor" participants.

Why does this matter? People's lives are being damaged – and in some cases ending – because of television shows. OFCOM has shown that it puts money above lives. Along with the body's pointed and perverse refusal to recognise a political advert when it sees one, and its ongoing war against local radio, this column could be excused for concluding that OFCOM is actively dangerous to society. We might just have to act as if it doesn't exist.

The Big Flower Fight Bouquets all round.

Acting as if OFCOM doesn't exist is already an option for online shows. The likes of Netflix have dipped their toes into unscripted competition shows. The Big Flower Fight was the first game show commissioned by the streaming giant and made on this island. We've not seen an episode (we don't get Netflix, in at least two senses), and won't pass judgement.

Winning Combination (ITV)

Winning Combination

It's been a difficult year for the smaller daytime shows. Even Countdown had to come off air for three months, delaying Luke Johnson-Davies' inevitable path to the trophy. Come Dine with Me and Four in a Bed had to suspend filming, though as both shows have immense back catalogues, nobody needed to notice. A second series of Beat the Chef was announced, but hasn't yet been made.

BBC1 made The Bidding Room, a version of ZDF's popular Rares für Bares that managed to be even more gentle than the original. Bargain Hunt marked its 20th anniversary with a week of special shows. The big success from daytime was The Repair Shop, where people tinker with old tech and bring it back to life. !mpossible, which looked like being the big success a couple of years ago, seems to have settled back into its afternoon slot.

Over on ITV, Tenable continues to have new shows, a show lots of people like but few seem to love. We've seen new ideas, Winning Combination is an entertaining – if repetitive – quiz, and Lingo comes back at the start of 2021.

Very Hard Questions (More4)

Very Hard Questions The triangle: the hardest of shapes?

There's only one Only Connect. The combination of abtruse questions, uncompromising precision, and the sarcastic-but-warm host has grown to be television's premier cleverclogs quiz. It's the star of BBC2's Quizzy Mondays block, with University Challenge on the anchor leg, Mastermind running the back straight, and Richard Osman's House of Games (3) going at the b of the bang. It's two hours of high-quality quizzing, and quite some entertainment.

Many shows have tried to interrupt this flow. Not least Nigella Lawson, whose Cook Eat Repeat elbowed in during November. It didn't work: the cook picked up a few viewers when she wasn't expected, but Victoria and the Hieroglyphs proved more popular by the end of November.

The commercial rival, More4, commissioned Very Hard Questions. It wasn't a spectacular success. Jon Snow was neither sarcastic nor warm, the questions weren't abtruse but dull. They didn't have discussion around the topic of the question, or on a matter completely unrelated. Can Jon Snow improvise? That proved to be the very hardest question of them all.

Corner Shop Cook-Off (BBC Scotland)

Corner Shop Cook-Off

A show so simple even we can follow it. Go to your local corner shop. Spend £15 on ingredients. Make a three-course meal from those ingredients, plus the usual larder of staples like flour, oil, sugar, eggs, and stock cubes. Clare Grogan hosts the show, brings a little bit of glamour to the corner of Scotland, and impressed us with a sharp commentary.

There are lots of lessons to take away from Corner Shop Cook-Off: the importance of community, and what you can make using ingredients from your local corner shop. There's an unspoken lesson on food poverty, the importance of looking after every last penny. And it's a show bringing out a sense of place, through the hour we meet a lot of people in small communities. No surprise that the show's drifted across to network television, Chef vs Corner Shop went for a pilot week on Channel 4.

The other cookery shows continued on their merry way. Masterchef Goes Large and its Celebrity version remained on BBC1. The Professionals also moved across to the main channel, perhaps to fill a void in the autumn schedules. Great Local Menu remained in primetime on BBC2, and gained a short Christmas series – in part because there's a cookery show gone missing. Best Home Cook had another series on BBC1, building up the cult of Mary Berry further.

Over on Channel 4, Bake Off continued in celebrity and professional and amateur versions. With more viewers at home than normal, watching figures went through the roof. The Great Pottery Throw Down had a series on More4, but Sewing Bee remained on BBC1. Caru Siopa was a charming show on S4C, rootling through charity shops for clothes, doing them up and selling them at a profit.

Ratings watch

It's been more difficult to obtain ratings data from BARB this year. We're able to present a top 10 for each of the major channels, and highlights of major commissions and acquisitions on other channels.

As usual, we note the most popular single transmission for each show. SD, HD, and +1 are included, as is catchup viewing on tv or online up to a week after the show first aired. First and last transmissions in a series are noted.

BBC1

Strictly Come Dancing [final] 19/12/2020 12445
MasterChef 23/03/2020 7911
Michael McIntyre's The Wheel 19/12/2020 6504
Blankety Blank Christmas Special 25/12/2020 6331
The Great British Sewing Bee 10/06/2020 6251
Have I Got News for You [first] 03/04/2020 5645
Celebrity MasterChef [first] 01/07/2020 5548
The Hit List [first] 14/11/2020 5423
Celebrity Mastermind 19/12/2020 5286
MasterChef: The Professionals 11/11/2020 5256

Pointless Celebrities, A Question of Sport, and Christmas Would I Lie to You? broke 4 million, with The Greatest Dancer, The Wall, Best Home Cook, and House of Games Night just under 4 million.

BBC2

Race Across the World 19/04/2020 4395
University Challenge [final] 20/04/2020 3399
Only Connect 23/03/2020 3337
Dragons' Den 29/03/2020 3130
Great British Menu [final] 15/05/2020 3046
Mastermind [final] 04/05/2020 2748
Richard Osman's House of Games 20/11/2020 2330
Strictly – It Takes Two 14/12/2020 1993
Pointless 26/11/2020 1919
QI XL 31/10/2020 1885

Pointless was one of those unplanned moves from BBC1; it's pushed Mock the Week from the top ten.

ITV

I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! [first] 15/11/2020 14259
Britain's Got Talent [first] 11/04/2020 10936
Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway 21/03/2020 10672
Quiz [first] 13/04/2020 8840
The Masked Singer [final] 15/02/2020 7571
Beat the Chasers [first] 27/04/2020 7125
I'm A Celebrity... A Jungle Story 08/11/2020 6065
Dancing on Ice [first] 05/01/2020 5872
In for a Penny [first] 28/03/2020 5754
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? [first] 10/05/2020 5716

The Voice, Family Fortunes, and daytime The Chase all beat 5 million at least once. There were audiences over 4 million for (deep breath) Alan Carr's Epic Game Show, primetime The Chase Celebrity Special, Celebrity Catchphrase, The Family Chase, I'm A Celebrity A Castle Story, The Voice Kids, The Million Pound Cube, Rolling In It, and The Chase The Bloopers.

Channel 4

The Great British Bake Off [final] 24/11/2020 11744
The Great Celebrity Bake Off for SU2C 31/03/2020 6334
Big Fat Quiz 26/12/2020 3944
Taskmaster [first] 15/10/2020 3042
Bake Off: The Professionals [first] 26/05/2020 2966
Hunted [final] 19/03/2020 2613
The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice [final] 27/11/2020 2536
8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown 31/07/2020 1817
The Great Pottery Throw Down 01/03/2020 1431
Snackmasters [first] 10/12/2020 1404

If you're going to take the various Bake Off shows as one, then the top ten's completed by Four in a Bed and a tie between the first eps of The Bridge and Five Guys a Week.

Channel 5

World's Strongest Man 31/12/2020 1864
Celebrity Murder Mystery [first] 27/03/2020 1203
The Chocolate Challenge With The Hairy Bikers 19/02/2020 657
TV's Biggest Gameshows 50 Years of Fun 29/12/2020 565
Britain's Favourite Gameshows 14/04/2020 457
Guessable 09/10/2020 403

Other channels

We're only listing new commissions or acquisitions new to these shores. Repeats do not concern us.

BBC4

BBC Young Musician [first] 03/05/2020 196

BBC Scotland

Corner Shop Cook-Off 19/03/2020 53
Breaking the News 29/12/2020 50

CBBC

Crackerjack! [first] 17/01/2020 310
Got What It Takes? 15/02/2020 127
The Dog Ate My Homework 01/03/2020 120

CITV

Project Z 24/10/2020 77

Comedy Central

Guessable [first] 05/10/2020 247
Comedy Game Night 23/09/2020 189
Gods of the Game 05/04/2020 134

E4

Big brother: best shows ever [first] 14/06/2020 966
Celebrity Coach Trip [first] 06/01/2020 614
The Crystal Maze 22/11/2020 447

ITV2

Love Island [first] 12/01/2020 4839
Love Island: Aftersun 03/02/2020 1389
Love Island: Unseen Bits 08/02/2020 1192
Love Island: Australia 15/06/2020 1043
Hell's Kitchen [first] 11/11/2020 610
Celebrity Juice [first] 09/04/2020 568
Love Island USA 27/09/2020 502
I'm A Celebrity... A Jungle Story 14/11/2020 418
Best of Love Island [first] 15/07/2020 418
Celebrity Karaoke Club [first] 23/09/2020 350
Iain Stirling's CelebAbility 23/01/2020 349
Don't Hate the Playaz 14/01/2020 333
I'm A Celebrity... The Daily Drop [first] 16/11/2020 263

ITVBe

Dinner Date 22/05/2020 196

More4

The Great Pottery Throw Down [final] 11/03/2020 1676
Jon Snow's Very Hard Questions [first] 19/02/2020 253
Celebrity Countdown 07/01/2020 146

Nickelodeon

Double Dare 20/06/2020 52
The Crystal Maze USA 27/11/2020 41
America's Most Musical Family 01/02/2020 29

S4C

Gêm Gartre 17/07/2020 33
Mastermind Plant Cymru 29/12/2020 20
Fferm Ffactor: Selebs [final] 11/04/2020 19
Can I Gymru 29/02/2020 17
Caru Siopa 06/04/2020 13
Mastermind Cymru 09/12/2020 12

The Satellite Channel

A League of Their Own: European Road Trip 30/01/2020 1100
A League of Their Own US Roadtrip 09/01/2020 1084
The Heist 05/03/2020 227

Artsworld

Portrait Artist of the Year 11/11/2020 777
Celebrity Portrait Artist of the Year 30/09/2020 93
Portrait Artist of the Week 05/06/2020 77
Landscape Artist of the Year 19/05/2020 59

The channel moved from pay-tv to free-tv in October.

The History Channel

The Chop: Britain's Top Woodworker [first] [last] 15/10/2020 278

W

Masterchef Australia 20/10/2020 399
Masterchef USA 13/02/2020 308
My Kitchen Rules Australia 03/12/2020 187
Top Chef 07/05/2020 150
My Restaurant Rules New Zealand 05/10/2020 93

The Roll of Honour

(All results as transmitted are final)

Quizmaster – Pat Gibson

Christmas University Challenge – Leeds (Jonathan Clements, Henry Gee, Richard Coles, Tim Allen)
University Challenge – Imperial College (Richard Brooks, Brandon, Caleb Rich, Conor McMeel)

Love Island – Paige Turley and Finlay Tapp

Best Home Cook – Suzie Arbuthnot

Cân i Gymru – Gruffydd Wyn for "Cyn i'r llenni gau", performed by himself

The Greatest Dancer – Michael and Jowita

Dancing on Ice – Joe Swash

Got What It Takes? – Georgie

The Great Pottery Throwdown – Rosa Wiland Holmes

The Hairy Bikers' Chocolate Challenge – Ian Hofmeister

RTE Dancing With the Stars – Lottie Ryan and Pasquale La Rocca
Strictly Come Dancing – Bill Bailey and Oti Mabuse

Round Britain Quiz – South of England (Marcus Berkmann and Paul Sinha)

Only Connect – 007s (Frankie Fanko, Andrew Fanko, Andrew Beasley)

Masterchef – Thomas Frake
Celebrity Masterchef – Riyadh Khalaf
Masterchef The Professionals – Alex Webb

Fferm Ffactor Y Selebs – Dyddgu Hywel, Eilir Jones, Donna Edwards

Race Across the World – Emon and Jamil

Mastermind – Dave McBryan

Eurovision Song Contest – contest cancelled
Eurovision Young Musicians – contest cancelled
Junior Eurovision – "J'imagine" for France Télévisions, written by Igit and Barbara Pravi, performed by Valentina

Fighting Talk – Elis James

BBC Young Musician – contest postponed
BBC Young Jazz Musician – Deschanel Gordon

Sewing Bee – Clare Bradley

Brightest Celebrity Family – Shaun Williamson and daughter Sophie and cousin Guy

Bake Off Crème de la Crème – Thibault and Laurian from Cocorico Patisserie
Bake Off – Peter Sawkins

Rostrum Camera – Ken Morse

The Voice of Holland of This Territory Kids – Justine
The Voice of Holland of This Territory – Blessing Chitapa

One Man and His Dog – George Gardner & Bonny & Meg

This Territory's Got Talent – Jon Courtenay

BBC Brain – Graham Barker

The Chop – not aired

I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! – Giovanna Fletcher

Portrait Artist of the Year – Christabel Blackburn

Taskmaster – Richard Herring

Countdown – Luke Johnson-Davies

Coming up...

Boxing Day Monday Holiday Type Day brings a Celebrity Mastermind champion-of-champions show, and House of Games (3) festive special (both BBC1). On Tuesday, there's the first of four Only Connect specials (BBC2), and documentary TV Gameshows Then and Now (C5). For some viewers, Mastermind Plant Cymru (S4C), and Breaking the News (BBC Scotland).

For New Year's Eve, we've got The Hit List and The Wall celebrity editions (BBC1). New Year's Day brings us Lingo (ITV), Taskmaster's New Year Treat (C4), The Archers Anniversary Quiz (R4), and Hewlfa Drysor (S4C).

On Saturday, we meet the second half of players on The Masked Singer (ITV), and the return of The Wheel. Family Fortunes and Beat the Chasers return on Sunday 3rd (both ITV); The Great New Year Bake Off turns up on Channel 4. From Monday the 4th, new episodes of The Bidding Room and Pointless on BBC1, Beat the Chasers continues all week. The Cabins is a new dating show (VM2 and ITV2, nightly).

Later in the week, The Big Fat Quiz of Everything begins on C4 (Thu 7th), and there's new Would I Lie to You on BBC1 (Fri 8th). Same date for the main series of Crackerjack! (CBBC). Paul Sinha's TV Showdown (ITV, Sat 9th) is a comedy-quiz hosted by the Fighting Talk regular.

We expect to return on 10 January. Until then, we wish you all the compliments of the season, and we wish you a happy, healthy, and safe start to the new year.

Photo credits: BBC Children's Productions, Nickelodeon Productions / Fizz / Stephen David Entertainment / Bunim/Murray Productions, Bandicoot Scotland, ITV Studios, EBU / KAN, Hungry McBear Productions, Zeppotron (part of Endemol Shine Group), Over The Top Productions, Wildcard Television, Potato, Possessed and 12 Yard, Shiver, Thames (part of Fremantle), Labyrinth Games, Big Wheel Film & Television and Motion Content Group, Workerbee and Zeppelin, Label 1, Netflix, Youngest Media, Mentorn Scotland.

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