43. If you want Russ Abbot to do it, then you have to accept me and my ideas

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Also:  It's Saturday Night 2. An autograph before you go 3. A new kind of game show 4. A rising exasperation with the quantity of dirt 5. The whole thing suddenly fell apart 6. Synthetic propensity 7. It was destined to be an anti-climax 8. This is your show now 9. The awesome scale of our wastefulness 10. Hands up those who couldn't care less 11. Together We’ll Be Ok 12. Decide the shape of ITV in the 1980s 13. Alan is too commercial 14. It worked like a dream 15. Older men, doing school boy tricks 16. Killing the Golden Goose 17. People love us to be sexy 18. The manure is worth more than the cattle 19. They were big in the States and we noted that 20. I’m still aggressive and I’m still handing out the insults 21. A new style of lunatic humour 22. The Habitat-bean-bag-hessian-wallpaper brigade 23. Thoroughly sinful 24. All carrots should be scraped, sliced and cooked 25. Back then it was radical stuff 26. Whatever they do, we can do it better 27. You'll have to take us as you find us 28. Entertainment that keeps on the move 29. It's the public that has to pay 30. The last we saw of either of them was their sad faces 31. Just shoot the bastard 32. Britain could clearly be facing its darkest hour 33. Any enthusiasm we may have had for continuing discussions is waning 34. It was considered by LWT and then put in a bottom drawer 35. Watch the redoubtable Terry take off 36. I thought it might be terrible and I wouldn’t enjoy it at all 37. Kamikaze Mastermind 38. We haven’t moved into luxury 39. We are investing in people 40. Delivered impeccably 41. He has to allow you to do your bit 42. All the anticipation of the great emotive point 43. If you want Russ Abbot to do it, then you have to accept me and my ideas 44. Let’s get straight into this 45. Unedifying Greed 46. We’ve got the fucking lot! 47. Scope for humour and danger 48. Pure Megablast 49. There’s lots of killing, but not much else 50. I wanted to make sure it was going to be disastrous 51. Oh dear – Auntie’s playing bingo! 52. A Shrivelled Little Thing 53. I shouldn’t have accepted it 54. We would be the spoilsports 55. The Most Sexless Person In Television 56. They’d have strung me up if I hadn’t chosen him 57. Is there some way to play with the internal constituent parts? 58. The most important entertainment programme of my time 59. The plumply pretty female duo 60. The audience just sort of started to freeze on him 61. More pilots than British Airways 62. There's going to come a time when you'll have to go to the BBC 63. A slightly pretentious manifesto 64. Things Look Very Precarious 65. It’s no good doing all the same old people all the time 66. That’s just not funny Bobby, it's corny - just don’t do that 67. Well bottom’s not funny 68. We Are The Funnymen 69. The powers that be listened to Denis 70. Stretchers never go up stairs 71. I was in obscurity until this series 72. I don’t care if he doesn’t like me 73. There’s such a passion for nostalgia right now 74. I Heard A Seat In The Stalls Go ‘Gerdonk!' 75. This is your show, folks, and I do mean you 76. There’s good news for perplexed fans of 3-2-1! 77. Taking on Blind Date would be a real challenge 78. You wanna bet on it? 79. The yarns worked their tried and tested magic 80. The Charge-And-Shout Brigade 81. I sat for a moment in silence, then turned in my chair and left the stage 82. We just weren't allowed into UK terrestrial television 83. Beadle’s A Prick 84. The interviewer always has to know when it's best to keep his or her mouth shut 85. Can you come up with a good solution for the Murder Weekend mystery? 86. He's not a goody- goody hero 87. The Sexism, The Dolly Birds, The Catchphrases 88. The feel of Saturday night 89. 1990 Who would employ an ex-alky with lowered self-esteem 90. It were a right smack in the face 91. Look Straight Into My Eyes And Everything Will Be Alright, That's A Promise 92. That's the last thing I was expecting, Jim 93. The characters and situations are real 94. Oh Man, There Go All My Women Fans 95. A Double Order of Talent 96. If there is an air of spontaneity about it, it’ll be genuine 97. NTV brings you ... empty rooms! 98. You’re BBC, you shouldn’t be here 99. If this doesn’t work out, we’re both snookered! 100. The humour of Beadle comes through humiliating people! 101. To allow such bilge on TV is an insult to the audience 102. Like a cup of cold sick 103. A litre of gin, ecstasy and crack cocaine 104. A reliable tent pole for Saturday evenings 105. It is in the cutlery drawer 106. Welcome to the new Saturday night 107. Congratulations, you have got the fucking Gen Game 108. The programme has done extremely badly and will be dropped after this series 109. Building the excitement and tension to a crescendo 110. He gives us our spirit of unity; we’d all like to strangle him 111. The worst programme currently on terrestrial television 112. I award the city state of Milton Keynes 100 credits! 113. There’s nothing that makes people scream, ‘Did you see that?’ 114. It was of a standard frankly well below what the public would want 115. Waxing An Ape Is My Ambition 116. Don’t Get Mad, Get Even 117. The penalty shoot-out is the greatest ever endgame 118. 200 black boxes are strapped to the back of a cross-section of the nation 119. Better For You, Better For All Of Us 120. I mean who on earth thought that was a good idea? 121. I’m sure the tune was in there somewhere 122. This Time, You Decide 123. King of trash, that’s me 124. It’s about rejection now 125. They lost what Popstars was all about 126. Win the ads 127. A name in search of a series 128. Getting grief from the papers 129. I’m so pleased to be back on television 130. Saturday nights haven't been this interesting for 10 years 131. It’s the Usual Nonsense 132. The trip of a lifetime Epilogue: Why Haven't You Written a Series of Articles on Tuesday Night Telly?

Even before the arrival of Surprise, Surprise, Birt’s public confidence in LWT’s output appeared well founded. By the end of 1983 the station had finally been able to assert a consistent ratings lead over the BBC. “LWT’s huffing and puffing in the past over poor ratings performance at the weekend seems to have had an effect,” reported the television industry newspaper Broadcast in December that year. “For the week ending November 13, 11 out of the top 20 programmes went to weekend programmes … Friday night scored particularly well for ITV with … Family Fortunes persuading some 13.6 million people to turn on. Family Fortuneshelped keep a 14 million strong audience for The A-Team which in turn kept 13.3 million people viewing for LWT’s A Fine Romance, with 10.8 million glued to Central’s drama series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

“LWT performed well on Saturday night, too, with Russ Abbot’s Madhouse and Punchlines attracting a 12 million audience and keeping it there for Hart to Hart and The Intruder Within.” Game For A Laugh, too was drawing in just under 12 million viewers. However, there was some good news for the BBC. Blankety Blank was only just off the pace with 11 million viewers, and The Late Late BreakfastShow was at last beginning to find its feet with 10.3 million people tuning in. Furthermore, LWT’s drama output was languishing, and in 1983 the station was criticised for its reliance on re-runs of drama series in peak-time slots, such as The Professionals. “ITV in general pulled back on its programme-making shortly after I came into this job,” explained Birt. “The industry has been through a bad few years as a result of the impact of ITV finances and the IPA Equity dispute and the difficulties we have had with Channel 4 revenue … ITV is slowly starting again to expand its peak-time programming at its traditional rate. Now as we start to make we will transmit”.

LWT remained vocal in its criticism of the failure of other ITV companies to support the weekend schedule. The station remained convinced that the other network franchises were unwilling to invest in programmes that they felt would never attract a sizeable audience against a strong BBC line up. However, by the end of 1983, things were beginning to change. Central Television in particular, was contributing more and more to a successful weekend line up, and in March 1984 would come up with a game show, that while failing to revolutionise the genre in the way LWT’s Game For A Laugh had some three years earlier, provided ITV with a format that would not only endure, but consistently attract large audiences.

In February 1984, it was revealed that Russ Abbot was deep in talks with LWT after the comedian (soon to leave ITV for good in favour of the BBC) had considered calling time on his Madhouse series. Apparently, a proposition had been made by Central to have Abbot host a new primetime game show. The Price Is Right had for some years been a success on American daytime television. It was one of a number of game show formats touted by Anthony Gruner, head of Talbot Television. “After man has found food, shelter and a mate, then he or she wants to play,” offered Gruner by way of an explanation as to the enduring popularity of game shows. “It’s a basic human trait”.

The Price Is Right had been looked at by British programme makers before, including – according to producer William G Stewart – the BBC, but no one had yet been willing to take it on for fear that its raucous studio atmosphere wouldn’t survive the trip across the Atlantic. The format of The Price Is Right appealed to Central Television, albeit some revisions were considered necessary, such as having the show’s iconic catchphrase “Come on Down!” come from the mouth of the host, instead of a disembodied voice (which was what happened on the US version).

Next the hunt was on to track down a suitable presenter. “I think the first choice was Michael Crawford,” remembers Stewart. “I went to see him, he was quite keen on the idea … but it dawned on me that he was going to turn this into Barnum.”. Russ Abbot seemed a logical choice – popular with all ages and blessed with an ability to interact well with members of the public.

“The way we thought of doing it was using Bella Emberg as my hostess,” remembers Abbot. “and we submitted what we thought at the time were some very good ideas which would have given a different slant to the show. But I think the American part of the production said, ‘oh this is The Price is Right. It’s worked this way forever and it’ll stay that way.’ So I said ‘I’m sorry I don’t want to do it that way. If you want Russ Abbot to do it, then you have to accept me and my ideas and my input.’”

Central had to look elsewhere for a front man. Next on Stewart’s list was Matthew Kelly,who passed on the offer. After careful consideration the field was limited to three: Mike Reid, Joe Brown and comedian and ex-Crackerjack presenter Leslie Crowther. Stewart’s preferred host was Leslie Crowther, while ITV favoured Joe Brown.

“In the end we were a bit of a stalemate,” remembers Stewart. “So I made a suggestion to [ITV]. I said, ‘Look I tell you what we’ll do.  We’ll make two pilots, I’ll make one with Leslie and someone else can make one with Joe and you can then be the people to decide whether I’m right or wrong.’  In the end they asked me to do both pilots. Which I did and I had to say, I really enjoyed working with Joe Brown he was such fun.” In the end ITV went for Crowther.

Next Monday: Let’s get straight into this