Challenge Response
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Here's the Challenge? reponse from their forum. I'm afraid it's not very positive:
*Dear Knightmare fans,
Firstly, thank you for all your comments. Despite not being physically able to respond to every post in this forum (we simply don't have the resources) please be assured that we check your views and comments at least twice a day and appreciate feedback, whether positive or negative.
While we have never questioned the popularity of Knightmare, especially within the internet community, please understand that there are very good reasons why we have chosen not to buy any further series for the time being. Most of these reasons are part of a creative strategy that we simply cannot discuss in such a public forum, due to Challenge? ultimately being a commercial TV channel in a highly competitive market.
That said, at the most basic level, it all comes down to ratings. While Knightmare's viewing figures have been respectable, the show simply hasn't performed as well as other shows have in our schedule and the numbers simply do not financially justify purchase of a further series at this present time.
I would like to repeat that we definitely wouldn't rule out purchasing further series of Knightmare in the future.*
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Oh......poo.
Indeed.
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Yes, I'm sure there's lots of things like that we could respond with. I included some ways they could have improved the ratings in one of my posts there.
I just don't think they want to listen, and it's quite evident they don't want to disclose the full story. I still maintain that I learnt from one source that the ratings were nothing to do with it. And it takes a lot to believe that ratings-wise Knightmare could be beaten by such shows as It's a Knockout.
Quite obviously nothing anyone says on their forum matters. They've decided that KM has a strong internet presence, and have reasoned that it's just fans trying to keep the show going. It's a nice excuse to ignore everything that's said on their forums and via email.
Roll on Beadle's About.
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Quite obviously nothing anyone says on their forum matters. They've decided that KM has a strong internet presence, and have reasoned that it's just fans trying to keep the show going. It's a nice excuse to ignore everything that's said on their forums and via email.
Well, it is in a way! ;D
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What it probably means is that other shows are cheaper to show than Knightmare and give the same or better ratings. Therefore to justify purchasing another series of Knightmare it would have to perform particularly well, so the cost per viewer works out similar to other shows.
Or something like that...
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That's probably the real reason.
Tim Child himself said that acquiring a series of Km is an expensive affair. As you say, Challenge will bring in the same viewing figures but with cheaper programmes.
Still, at least they know that Km holds some viewing interest.
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Yes, I think that's almost certainly some of the truth behind it. It does make pessimistic thinking about the chance of getting any digital channel to show old Knightmare for any length of time, when there are just so many cheap shows around that people will watch.
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It'll be a VERY different story when the new series airs. A massive new generation of fans will come about, joined by loads more of our generation who will have seen it and remembered how much they liked it, and all the digital channels will be falling over themselves to snap up the rights!
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No chance that the viewing figers were bad.. come on.. who watched the crystal maze still? my god its never been off the channel since.. its like on 6 times a day,
Challenge need knightmare on more times at the weekend. at leats 4 times for each ep, it would get much more viwers. and as said before the lack of advertisment doesnt help,
'the show simply hasn't performed as well as other shows have in our schedule' Like to know how many and what shows, most viwers of challenge probs been watching challenge for a long time and have gotten used to the shows, also Old people watch the shows they remember, were as knightmares fan base isint really the age range that challenge aims for. Its not going it intrest your avarage 60 year old strike it lucky fan is it? Challenge didnt do anything to help promote the show.
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I dont Think the response is that bad, at least they have said they would definatly NOT RULE OUT the possibility of snapping up the rights for another series in the future whenever that may be, so at least thats always a plus point.
However If the comment about ratings is true, then it their own fault. For a start, Knightmare was not advertised on challenge at all whereas many of their other programs are so no wonder many other programs have done better than Knightmare
Also it was on at odd times,I wouldnt call 10AM and 5PM good times to get ratings, I can admit that I could NEVER watch the 10AM showing on saturdays cause my dad always watched Soccer AM, and I could never watch the 5PM showing on Sunday as it clashed with Football. Personally if I had my way, I would have put out Knightmare on earlier in the morning(prehaps 9AM) and again in a late evening slot(7-8PM) I could pretty much guarantee these earlier/later times would have brought in much better ratings.
Also It would be suprising to see how Knightmare does when Series 3 is repeated(I will probably watch them all again despite recording all of them) Dont forget that it can take repeats of programmes to finally get good/better ratings. I could give you many examples of this and lets not forget that even Knightmare was like this at the start, as the ratings never really hit a peak of 4-5 million until the 2nd and 3rd series so I'm curious to see what Challenge might do if the repeats enjoy good ratings?? ?? ??
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The ratings for the top 10 Challenge? programmes for every week is available at:
http://www.barb.co.uk/viewingsummary/weekreports.cfm?Requesttimeout=500&report=weeklytop30
Select the date and the channel to narrow the search a bit otherwise all channels are listed.
Oh, and Knightmare isn't in the top 10 in any week.
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I'm really shocked to see It's A Knockout repeatedly in their Top 10. I guess I was wrong on that one.
It's interesting that several people have been searching for the ratings. I've only seen one person accuse Challenge? outright of lying (or at least distorting the truth) about the ratings to get us to shut up, but I wouldn't be surprised if a few more people are at least thinking it.
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Don't knock It's a Knockout. People fall over a lot. Just like Knightmare. People struggle moving around on their own. Just like Knightmare. Too many similarities...
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Oh, and Knightmare isn't in the top 10 in any week.
Although this is true, have you noticed what is so weird about all of the programmes that are in the Top 10 nearly every week(look closely and think hard)
YEP, ALL of the programmes listed especially on 16/02/03 had the benifet of advertising, and look at the week before that(9/2/03) WOW all of those again had the benifit of advertising, and look at the week before that(2/2/03) once again all those programmes had adverts ADVERTISING them, Need I go on and on
Simply put, Challenge had the oppunitity to make Knightmare a success but failed in a HUGE way simply because there was no advertising whatsoever. I mean to Challenge Knightmare was a new programme so they should have let the viewers know about it. I will admit here and now that if I did not tune into Challenge at Christmas, I would have NOT known about Knightmare appearing on Challenge throughout Jan and Feb and then it was only by coming on this website that I knew the full details.
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Well, it's not too surprising that no-one really knew about KM being shown on Challenge? I recall that the adverts for the Xmas schedule consisted of a reel of old and popular game programmes. Although it lasted about a minute, KM's advertising exposure consisted of flashing the famous logo on the screen for about half a second tops.
In spite of this, at the end of Saturday's 5pm episode, the presenter said that KM was receiving about as many e-mails as Takeshi's Castle which has been a really popular programme in the recent past. Is it therefore arguable that had Challenge? released a fair amount of advertising exposure to KM, viewing figures would be higher, or did they do it on purpose to prove their point and justify buying the rights to cheaper programmes rather than those which are highly sought after by fans?
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There are three things I will always loathe Challenge TV for.
One is not putting on more Knightmare.
Two is getting rid of all the QUIZ shows and replacing them with dumbass ACTION shows (Boyard). Where's Catchphrase, Trival Persuit, etc?
Three is Bargain Hunt....no-one watches it! HELLO!?
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