No Question Of Sport

[ScotHill]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-6773...

Who would ever have thought that employing Paddy McGuinness as a host could sink a TV show.

Watching A Question Of Sport while eating a Caramac aged 7 was one of the highlights of my childhood week, particularly if the Picture Board round was of someone upside down and the gang all had to crane their heads around to try to see who it was.

[wolfracesonic]

Hate to tell you about Caramac bars as well, not sure you could handle all the bad news at once…

[Eric Mc]

I got tired of "A Question of Sport" when I began to fail to recognise, not only the subjects of the questions, but also the participants in the show.

That was about 30 years ago.

I remember Clive James speculating that perhaps the programme had run its course - and that was around 1982.

[simon_harris]

The show was tinkered with in the name of diversity and they ruined it. The dynamic between the previous host and team captains was what made the show.

[rdjohn]

I struggle to understand that funding could be the real issue. The BBC, once again has simply screwed-up by trying to chase a specific demographic.

Top of the Pops must have been the simplest show to get right, but they even managed to screw-up that simple proposition.

[Paul Dishman]

It’s the Paddy McGuinness kiss of death-first Top Gear and now Question of Sport

[Nethybridge]

It's not, as some onlookers have said, the death of a beloved ratings winner,
it was well past it, but it indicates how time and time again the BBC gets it so wrong.

I'm sure they have focus groups, polling agencies and viewer vox pops that give them info on why people are deserting the format, and I'm fairly sure it wasn't Sue Barker's age or the white, straightness of the captains.
It's the passion to attract younger, more diverse viewers, the very viewers who don't
pay the license fee.

[JagLover]

Nethybridge said:

I'm sure they have focus groups, polling agencies and viewer vox pops that give them info on why people are deserting the format, and I'm fairly sure it wasn't Sue Barker's age or the white, straightness of the captains.
It's the passion to attract younger, more diverse viewers, the very viewers who don't
pay the license fee.

Sue Barker was a great presenter IMO and they should have kept hold of her for this and Wimbledon as long as they could. Instead they seem to have decided she was putting off young, hip audiences (who don't watch broadcast TV) and needed to be put out to pasture.

[McGee_22]

All the BBC had to do was find a engaging and half knowledgeable retired sportsperson to host it to maintain its validity to the viewers - installing Paddy, a so called presenter who is neither funny, original or even broadly appealing or good at presenting was just a stupid move.

At least some good news has come out if it though, Paddy’s reputation as a show-killer is cemented onto his CV.

[Evercross]

Who could have predicted that.

Waaay back when I said McGuiness was a talentless hack who rode the coat-tails of Peter Kay to notoriety and had no perceivable star quality beyond perhaps a lowest common denominator appeal I got slated.

Seems the silent majority agreed with me.