The Fight for Saturday Night

This programme contains some strong language.

# You've got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend

# When I was down, you just stood there grinning

# You've got a lot of nerve to say you've got a helping hand to lend

# You just want to be on the side that's winning... #

If you are the network controller,

the first ratings you look at are the ratings on Saturday night.

There is no hiding place, there is no easy slot.

The Wembley Stadium of television is Saturday night television.

Both the big beasts of British television want that audience.

It's like being the captain of a ship,

because if it does start to go down, you go down with it.

If it hits, you think, "Thank you!

"There is someone up there after all."

Yes, there is pressure, but... You can't not enjoy that moment.

You can't not enjoy being on Saturday night.

It's what it's all about.

-Come on.

-Come on, entertain us!

And it had better be special.

Ever since the dawn of commercial television,

Saturday night has been a battle ground between ITV and BBC One.

No-one ever got fired for finishing second on a Tuesday night,

but the television graveyard is littered with the corpses

of producers and presenters who didn't quite cut it

on Saturday night.

At times, it was dirty. At times, it was personal.

This is The Fight For Saturday Night.

This programme contains some strong language.

Since 1936, the BBC had been flying solo,

but on September 22nd 1955, the TV landscape changed for ever,

when ITV opened its commercial doors for the very first time.

Oyez! Oyez!

Overnight, there was choice, and the fight was on for the hearts

and eyeballs of the great British public.

In the beginning, ratings were no more than a head counting exercise.

But in 1965, controller of BBC One Michael Peacock saw a way

to use them as a strategic weapon,

to lock in audiences for the whole evening.

The important thing I learnt was,

if you could win the 7.00-7.30pm time period,

you could win the evening very easily.

The audience stayed to go on watching shows later in the evening.

Up to 80%, sometimes.

It was before the age of the zapper,

so you couldn't easily change channels.

So I could build a schedule that would be very,

very difficult to beat.

The BBC used this method to dominate the schedules for years to come.

ITV certainly gave them a helping hand with the launch

of their newest franchise, London Weekend Television in 1968.

The late David Frost decided he knew what the British public

really wanted,

and led an audacious bid to take over the London franchise with

the mantra, "We have a duty to lead public taste to a higher ground."

Thank you, thank you very much indeed, ladies and gentlemen,

and good evening.

Well, it's an odd little story.

When I was a kid of nine, I fell out of a window

onto the pavement below and fractured my elbow.

Years later, there was a bursa there which was very painful,

and I had to have it removed.

And I eventually decided I would get on with it,

and I took a week off to get a surgeon to do just that.

I came out of the anaesthetic, so to speak,

to find David Frost looming over me.

"Michael! Good to see you."

He had come in as a visitor and he pitched his great

idea for London Weekend, and would I think about it?

You know, he needed a number one.

The subject that I mentioned earlier,

the subject that concerns us all

is the subject of dying, the subject of death.

He caught me at a time when I was lying there in a hospital bed,

thinking, and that's always dangerous!

London Weekend win the new franchise.

First of all, they steal half the BBC, but they also announced

that Saturday night was going to be an evening of high culture.

You could go home early, couldn't you?

When LWT arrived, here was a new franchise, and all its highfalutin

predictions that they were going to make arts programmes...

I mean, it wasn't really a threat to the ratings.

I wasn't really shaking in my shoes.

We're going to perform The Soldier's Tale,

by Igor Stravinsky.

The English version is by John Arden.

I tell the story, my name is Barry Foster.

The music will be conducted by Gary Bertini,

and the violin will be played by Yehudi Menuhin.

What they wanted to do was not

what the general public wanted.

I thought, "They're doomed".

MUSIC PLAYS

Down the road, he walks alone.

Soldier walking to his home.

It was culture and high-mindedness, concentrated,

when the nation is trying to relax and have some entertainment.

London Weekend had programme ideas which were...

Let's call it middle-class, let's call it further upmarket.

Surprise, surprise, the ratings were very poor.

Within a month, the share of audience had plummeted.

It affected ITV as a whole. It ended in disaster.

How can I make them believe that I'm no more than a dead man?

I had to take the blame.

I was told the board were not happy

with the ratings that we were getting,

and that they felt they could find a new number one.

When things aren't going well,

it's the guy at the top that has to walk the plank.

LWT had aimed high and failed miserably.

They learned a very expensive lesson about what audiences

want from their televisions at the weekend.

It would take a decade or more to recover.

-Mr Moir.

-Mr Grade.

-I beg your pardon - Lord Grade.

-Thank you.

-Do you want to start again?

-No, it's fine!

Did you spend much time worrying about what ITV was

-doing at this point?

-No.

I think we were too worried about supplying ammunition to the front.

I particularly remember Bill Cotton, who had returned from Montreux,

where he had seen a Dutch game show,

Een Van De Acht, One Out Of Eight.

We could see there was something we could take home with us.

THEY SING IN DUTCH

We sat down to dinner with the Dutch,

who were highly flattered the BBC was going to take their little show.

So, you come back, and then there's the big question -

who are we going to get to present it?

SHE SPEAKS DUTCH

Well, I'd had quite a bit of a break before that, where I hadn't

done very much, and things didn't look all that rosy for me, actually.

I thought, "Well, what am I going to do next?"

I went to Bill Cotton to do a talk show, and he listened very

nicely for about an hour,

and then he said, "I want to show you something."

HE SINGS IN DUTCH

-It's all in Dutch, is it?

-All in Dutch, yes.

But it was 2.5 hours long.

He said, "If we just did the games,

"do you think we could do that in 45 minutes?"

So I said, "More like 55."

I said, "But then I think it would get a chance."

# Life is the name of the game

# And I want to play the game with you

# Life can be terribly tame

# If you don't play the game with two

# And I want to play the game with you. #

APPLAUSE

I said to Jim Moir, "What kind of a rating are they expecting for this?"

He said, "If they get about six for this..."

-6 million.

-6 million.

Yes, I didn't mean six people!

I've got more than that down my street.

So, I said 6 million.

He said, "They would be thrilled if they get that."

-Nice to see you, to see you...

-AUDIENCE: Nice!

Oh, yes. 54 minutes of fun and frolics!

And that's difficult to say if you haven't had a drink.

So we did it and, as he predicted, we got about 6 million,

6.5 million for it.

In the early evening of its first outing, it did modestly.

You are absolutely right, my love,

and I'm glad you changed your mind, because it was Oliver Hardy.

LAUGHTER

And then it gradually grew and grew and grew.

And after six, seven weeks, we were getting 14, nearly.

Have a twirl, have a twirl.

It became an absolute rating winner.

You were a schoolmaster, teaching history and English.

-Are you interested in history?

-Oh, love history.

-Old things?

-Yes.

Well, some of your jokes are a bit like that, aren't they?

LAUGHTER

From then on, we had an unbelievably strong Saturday night,

because The Generation Game was at the centre of it.

The Generation Game was a banker, and around The Generation Game,

you could build the rest of the evening.

Right, let's get started then, shall we?

It was a blockbuster.

-You'll be telling me you've heard a voice from the other side.

-I have.

I have!

It was Lew Grade, but the money was no good.

Oh, how awful.

I like you.

Orson Welles, thank you very much indeed. Thank you.

APPLAUSE

The BBC had built up an arsenal of stars.

And so to our first contender. Good evening. Your name, please.

-Good evening.

-In the first heat,

your chosen subject was answering questions before they were asked.

This time, you have chosen to answer the question before last

each time, is that correct?

Charlie Smithers.

And your time starts now. What is palaeontology?

Yes, absolutely correct.

What's the name of the directory that lists members of the peerage?

A study of old fossils.

One of the biggest pieces of armament

in the BBC's Saturday night weaponry was The Two Ronnies.

They had actually been with ITV, they were under contract to ITV.

Bill Cotton and I sat at the Sunday Night at the Palladium.

There was a BAFTA show on.

And it went wrong, there was a bit of a breakdown, we had to fill in.

You and Ronnie went out and filled.

That's right.

And what's-his-name was sitting next to Bill Cotton.

-Paul Fox.

-Yes.

You should be sitting here! Paul Fox.

And Bill lent to me

and said, "How would you like to have those two chaps on BBC One?"

I said, "Yes, please, but aren't they under the contract to LWT?"

And Bill said, "You leave that to me."

And on Monday morning, he went to work and found that, in fact,

The Two Ronnies had ended their contract with LWT

and signed them up.

APPLAUSE

Thank you. Good evening and welcome to the show.

I must say it's very nice to be with you.

We decided actually to call the series The Two Arthurs.

But then we thought, that wouldn't work

because Ronnie Barker isn't called Arthur.

So we decided to call it A Ronnie And An Arthur.

But then someone pointed out I'm not called Arthur, either,

so we rather smartly thought up the title The Two Ronnies!

Thank you, Arthur.

So, it was Bill Cotton that could see you

and Ronnie B could probably carry a whole show,

-which you hadn't done...

-No, that's right.

-..up to that point.

-No, that's absolutely right.

-And ITV didn't really understand what they had, did they?

-No, no.

Not really.

-Just been up the...

-Up club?

-No.

-Dogs?

-No.

-Fish shop?

-No.

-Doctors?

-Doctors! Doctors, just been up the doctors.

LAUGHTER

-Only I've been having a bit of trouble with my...

-Chest?

-No.

-Ears?

-No.

-Water Works?

-No.

-Wife.

-Oh, wife.

Did you feel part of an enterprise that was

really at the top of its game?

I don't think we looked over our shoulder very much,

but I did feel we thought we were in the first division.

Next week, we'll meet a man

who crossed a feather with a lady contortionist

and got a girl who could tickle her own fancy.

LAUGHTER

And we'll talk to an interior decorator

who crossed an elephant with an Axminster rug

and got a big thick pile on his carpet.

That Bill Cotton Saturday night was...

I still have nightmares about it!

Where were you at that time?

I was on the receiving end at ITV

and it was a dagger in my heart every Saturday night.

We had what was known in the trade as channel rejection.

Couldn't get arrested!

I think the test card would have beaten us in those days.

-And now, it's good night from me.

-And it's good night from him. Good night.

The '70s saw the BBC dominant.

In The Two Ronnies, they'd created

the most successful Saturday night double act of all time,

and they'd snatched them from ITV.

Then again, two can play at that game.

# I don't know where you are

# You may be near or far

# So let's get the network together

# It's Saturday night! #

I think we both know that when an artist decides to make a move,

there is no persuading them otherwise.

# It's Saturday night! It's a turn on

# It's a party... #

When he walked into the studio on the first day,

I got the entire crew wearing sweaters with welcome to LWT.

# Remember on ITV We're the channel you get for free. #

The audience all switched on for that first show.

I sent a bottle of champagne down to you to congratulate you.

# I can't see you but you can see me!

# On the network every Saturday night!

# Get the whole of the network together tonight. #

The cornerstone - I won't call it a fixture...

No, goodness, a better word.

The fixture of Saturday night is The Gen Game,

and then you get a call from ITV, from someone, I can't remember who.

He looked a bit like you, actually.

Jerry Springer, probably!

And you'd come to see me to try to inveigle me

over to ITV to do this other show.

At the time, I thought The Generation Game

had run its length.

It felt a bit stale.

I thought, if we do the potter's wheel one more time,

I'll get on it myself.

The promise is we're going to do a show showing all Bruce's talent.

-Bruce's Big Night.

-It was a multi-formatted show.

There was a game show, guest artist,

sitcom and then Bruce would follow that with an interview.

Am I still here?

You had made him an offer

which absolutely was in tune with

what he wanted to do on television.

He wanted to be the great entertainer,

which, indeed, he is.

Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.

How kind. Thank you. Good evening, ladies, gentlemen, children.

-Nice to see you, to see you... AUDIENCE:

-Nice!

I'd been trying to get Bruce to ITV for a long time, for two reasons.

One, huge, public, Saturday-night-proven star.

Secondly, the added benefit that The Generation Game would

probably collapse without him.

From your point of view, you get the news Bruce is leaving.

Do we kill the show, or who do we get?

A guy called Tony, my AP,

said, "Come and have a look at this Larry Grayson."

I went to see him in Great Yarmouth. I thought, "Maybe, maybe."

I liked him. He could talk to people.

Do you know, I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be here

on the game.

Because... No, listen.

Riff-raff.

So, stand by, studio, from the top.

Bruce knew a moment, how to get it.

I think that probably looks all right.

Whereas Larry was surprised by the moment. He was vulnerable.

And that was a success.

You were part of the young team that were trying to crack Saturday night.

Were you aware of that tension and pressure?

I was aware of the importance.

I think from about June that year,

I did nothing except do this show and sleep.

I had no life at all, such was the pressure on me.

I'm not complaining, I'm just saying it was a giant, giant undertaking.

It took over your life completely.

I'm so thrilled, because the ITV mafia

have all got together to make sure that this show

goes out to all the regions at all the same time,

which is marvellous, you know.

There were a number of producers, led by David Bell,

who was the head of entertainment.

The pressure level got to be so great

that when we were in the studio,

there was no script, there was nothing.

It was like directing a current affairs programme.

There was a producer and people standing behind me, saying,

"He's going to put a hat on,

"He's going to walk down stage then he'll pick up the thing...

"Camera three, two... Get a light..."

And I thought, "This is dreadful. What are we doing?"

Making it up as you go along.

Truly making it up as it went along

to the extent that at the end of the second show,

I said to David, "I want to resign."

And he said, "That's just as well, I was just about to fire you!"

-It was a great thrill.

-It was. Well, to...

-Good night, lads.

-LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

Was it, uh...

Was it something we said?

APPLAUSE

Sam...

It could have been worse - it could have been them.

'The show, I thought,'

had so much potential

and I thought it had so many good things in it.

I tell you something, Parkinson's never done this, has he?

Eh?! Cor!

-This is great.

-Have you heard of Parkinson?

-No, no.

Is it like a disease?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Yes! It IS like a disease

we get every Saturday night!

The newspapers, it was David and Goliath.

# It's a little bit funny... #

-It certainly is!

-LAUGHTER

Bruce versus Larry.

What a gay day!

Larry was the underdog...

Not for long, he wasn't!

DRUMS STRIKE UP

BRASS PLAYS

LAUGHTER

Bruce was moved to LWT, didn't meet with the greatest of success,

whereas his replacement, Larry Grayson,

was an immediate Cinderella in the shoe, superb fit

and took us to the races yet again.

LAUGHTER

There's something coming up in the middle.

It looks like a lighthouse!

It was a real demonstration

of the Saturday night ratings war, wasn't it?

I think it was also a demonstration that a format

as good as The Generation Game is

so strong in its own merit that you

can often change the host,

so don't think that you can leave and it will die,

because we find another host.

Different, admittedly, but the format was so strong,

The Generation Game, and there was a press,

saying, "I'm leaving, the nation will follow me..."

And the nation didn't.

It's time for questions again, I always look forward to this,

it's question time...

I'm afraid the audience declined,

quite rapidly and quite seriously.

The press couldn't wait for it.

Began to say, "Didn't he do badly?"

My family and I have been watching your show for the last few weeks

and there seems to be an awful lot of press criticism

and headlines just lately - how do you feel about this?

Well, erm...

LAUGHTER

-Would you really like me to answer?

-ALL: Yes!

The press were out to get us. It was a real knife in the back.

Not in the back, in the front. You know, where they could SEE it.

You get criticised if you try something new, you get criticised

if you do the same old thing.

So we thought we'd try it.

It wasn't as we thought it would be.

Why didn't we think of it?

The public likes to know where it is with its programming.

Here, you didn't get a variety of programmes,

you got a variety of variety.

It was just one person, so...

With all of that pre-press, it made people think that

when the show started,

that glitter was going to come out of the set and it was going to be

SO sensational, and it's like everything else -

if people tell you, "Oh, you MUST go and see that."

When you see it yourself, you're a bit disappointed.

The only thing you can truly believe,

look at the top on the right-hand corner, you will see the date.

APPLAUSE

Bruce's Big Night certainly wasn't perfect,

but it was nowhere near the ratings disaster

that the newspapers would have us believe.

It may have only run one season,

but it did demonstrate to the ITV network as a whole

that it was possible to challenge the BBC's dominance

on Saturday night.

And we weren't quite finished yet.

MATCH OF THE DAY THEME TUNE

-Stand by, studio.

-Good luck, Jim.

Big moment for Saturday night, coming up.

Three, two, one...

What's happening there, then?

It was quite a cause celebre, wasn't it?

I mean, it was front-page news, wasn't it?

Well, it was, Michael, because you promoted it.

You and John Bromley promoted it like mad,

then it became a major event.

There was deep irritation at the BBC.

While you were running BBC Sport, some young shaver

trying to make his way in the world

decided to steal Match Of The Day from BBC

after many, many, many years of it

being a fixture of the Saturday night schedule.

You had no inkling of it, did you?

I had no inkling and I haven't forgiven the young shaver yet,

by the way, but...

If I get his name, I'll let you know!

I got a call from the secretary of the Football League,

Alan Hardaker, saying, "Hello, Alan -

"you're not going to like this.

"ITV have got the football."

You - bless your little heart -

knocked on my door and said,

"John Bromley, who's head of sport for us, and I,

"have managed to do a deal

"with the Football League to have exclusive coverage

"of league football for three years.

"Would you support us?"

"I'LL support you, but we've got to get the board to support you,

"we've got to get the other companies..."

-The network.

-"I've got to get the IBA to agree."

And when the BBC found out, they went berserk.

I remember I put the phone down in shock, called Alasdair Milne,

who was my new Director of Television

and he said, "Come over, boy".

We went over and on the way over, I was thinking,

"They're not going to get away with this." It created a war.

JOHN CRAVEN: The BBC announced today it's taking legal action to try

and stop a £5 million deal between ITV and the Football League.

Because of the way the deal was done, there is now concern

about negotiations for televising other sports.

There's a certain amount of bitterness

-behind this wrangle, isn't there?

-Not really.

A 432% increase, which was the result of London Weekend's bid

for league football, didn't amuse me.

We had a civil suit,

we had a competition complaint

and the European courts.

European courts, everything.

-Fighting on all fronts.

-And...

Seemed like a good idea at the time!

And questions asked in the House - both sides,

Labour and Conservatives having a go at LWT.

Everybody was attacking us.

ITV moguls and BBC moguls, we sat over a table insulting each other.

Happy days!

Eventually, wiser heads prevail...

Well, they sent for two civilised people

and sorted the thing out in a civilised way.

And as I was the can-carrier for the company that had done all this -

thank you very much, Michael -

I had to have a meeting with Alasdair Milne, who hated ITV,

and I never discovered why.

It was a terrible day,

it was dark and stormy and rainy outside,

I had a heavy cold.

There came a point after about three hours of this

when I really thought, "I'm going to have to give in",

but he blinked first

and the Milne-Tesler agreement was signed.

Good evening to you.

I went for dinner that night, a great relief.

Instead of having a glass of champagne to celebrate,

I needed a glass of brandy,

because it really had taken it out of me.

I had two sips of the brandy and then the sound went.

I...rested my hands on the table.

A young couple were having dinner

and I said, "It's all right, I'm not drunk, I just feel..."

And as I said that, I saw members of staff walking towards me

in slow motion

and then I blacked out.

I came to, surrounded by faces looking down.

I looked up and said, "Where am I?"

"And where is Michael Grade, who got me into this?"

And that's it for tonight -

I hope you've enjoyed our first Saturday night of The Big Match.

You had a temporary victory, but we did get Match Of The Day back.

-Eventually.

-Eventually, yes.

It was a dishonourable draw, if you like!

More dishonour that side of the table than this side of the table!

-You may say that, I couldn't possibly comment!

-No!

In 1981, a new show arrived

that wiped the smile off the faces of those BBC Saturday night bosses.

The irony was they'd got there first.

Ladies and gentlemen, the star of the show, Mr Paul Daniels!

Read all about it!

Get your papers here!

Would you believe that?

There was this wacko genius called Jeremy Beadle.

Please meet Jeremy Beadle and David Copperfield.

Jeremy came up with this idea -

most of Jeremy's ideas were founded on Candid Camera.

Do you always go around in Egham being interviewed

and talking into carrots?

No, of course not!

No? Well, you're doing that now!

We just gotcha!

We went out for a couple of days, I think it was,

and we shot wacko stuff.

Basically, we want you to stand in and then you'll be doing

a love scene with Fiona Richmond.

So we brought it back to the BBC and this is absolutely true,

the then Head of Light Entertainment looked at us

and said, "Oh, this is far too belly laugh for the BBC".

LOUD RASPBERRY

Jeremy Fox had bought a show called The People Show,

which was about four people just doing silly things in America.

Then I had been looking at a show called Truth Or Consequences,

out of which came Candid Camera.

So we started to put this show together.

One night, the radio announcer said, "That'll be good for a laugh"

and I thought, I'll write that down, that's a nice title.

Got in the next morning and said, "Anyway, I got the title for

"the show", so I got my scrappy bit of paper out and said,

"Good... G..G-G... Good? Game, game for a laugh.

It came out of a misunderstanding.

Game For A Laugh, the show where the people are the stars!

This is how it happened.

I was at LWT, London Weekend Television,

and I was asked to go on a thing called Punchlines

and while I was doing that, the producer of it, Alan Boyd,

said to me, "If I asked you to jump out of an aeroplane, would you?"

-I said yes and I got the job on Game For A Laugh.

-Henry Kelly.

APPLAUSE

Jeremy Beadle...

APPLAUSE

Sarah Kennedy...

APPLAUSE

..and Matthew Kelly.

Then of course, I HAD to jump out of an aeroplane for Game For A Laugh

and I broke my leg and I became famous.

Hello!

That Saturday night show,

Game For A Laugh, became the Saturday night show to watch.

What you're about to see is absolutely sensational.

But rather than explain it, the best thing to do is just watch it.

We filmed a famous sequence in show one, which was a car wreck.

I'm not going to be able to get out of there, am I?

The guy was in on it and the wife wasn't.

The whole point was two cars were parked too close, he said,

"There's a huge big digger, I can move the digger, I'll get in" and of course...

What I didn't like was, the idea that other people were being made fun of.

And I said right at the beginning,

"You can't do that to people, it's terrible.

Alan Boyd said to me, "Just watch when that woman

"comes into the studio, she's going to be a star."

And she was.

Karen, what on earth was running through your mind?

I thought, who was going to pay for the car?!

That piece of tape is historical

because that was the moment,

the tipping point when the nation who saw that show said,

"What a silly show, when you can wreck car",

while the ratings were, was it 18 million or something? Monster.

And everybody talked about it.

The point was, everybody was talking about this daft show with

these four young presenters.

Just pop your hand in.

And of course it became a title that the nation used

out of context of the programme.

The government were "game for a laugh".

Is he there?

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

And of course what Game For A Laugh did,

it did for The Generation Game, didn't it?

I was killing my old show.

I wasn't scheduling it opposite The Generation Game, I think

YOU were scheduling it opposite The Generation Game.

I can always blame you for destroying my old baby!

It seemed to be a big thing to beat The Generation Game.

Which I quite liked, you know, and I was quite proud of.

What didn't make me proud was that Larry Grayson gave up.

And the generation went away. And I thought that was very sad.

Did you ever dream, when you set out on that path,

that you'd be a key figure in the ratings battle of Saturday

night between ITV and the BBC?

And that you'd play a pivotal role in transforming

the fortunes of ITV on Saturday night?

-Never occurred to you, did it?

-I just wanted a job, really.

Please, join us again next week when we very much hope that

-you'll be watching us.

-Watching you.

-Watching us.

-Watching you!

-ALL:

-Good night!

Game For A Laugh, you really wanted Terry Wogan.

Wow, you've been doing some research! Um, yes, I did.

Michael Grade, yourself, kept nagging me

that you shouldn't want four unknowns.

You said to me, "Are you sure, Alan?

"They're not very fresh or pretty.

"Dress them up more attractively, put better suits on them.

"Shave Beadle's beard off. Can we sort of..." Whatever.

"What about thinking again?"

He wanted to take me to ITV and I wouldn't go,

for Game For A Laugh.

-He's now moved to ITV, working for me...

-Yeah.

And what does he say?

He says, "This crowd have got a lot more money than the BBC,

"it's going to be great to do". But I just thought...

Um, probably not a good idea.

He turned you down.

Yes.

-I can't remember that much about it, but...

-He turned you down.

Michael Parkinson decided that his career lay in Australia.

-He was leaving.

-After 11 years, I've decided to get a proper job.

Bill Cotton, who was a great old pal of both yours and mine,

decided in his foolishness that I should take over the Saturday night.

-You did ask questions that were really... Unseemly.

-Saucy.

Yes, saucy. You said...

You're a fine one to talk.

Well, I mean I'm vulgar, so I can say anything.

The Saturday night thing started

and it was simple enough - you just talk to people.

What about you?

I admit it. LAUGHTER

-I admit it.

-But look,

you don't need a casting couch.

With your attraction, you could have got the girls without it,

and yet why use it?

You'll pay for that!

LAUGHTER

That hasn't gone unnoticed!

I like you, I swear to God.

Game For A Laugh went on to become quite a thorn in the BBC One

ratings war, for many years, and you created another, quotes, in the nicest sense, "monster",

when you had Cilla Black on the Saturday night show.

She always gives me credit for that, but when she came on,

she was terrific.

# Step inside, love

# And stay

# Step inside love, I want you to

# Step inside love

# You know I do, step inside love

# I want you to

# Stay. #

She came on

and she hadn't been singing for a while.

And suddenly, as far as the British public were concerned,

they rediscovered her.

They rediscovered her Liverpudlian cheekiness.

-I'm 40 this year.

-Yeah.

I'm not looking forward to my own 40th.

I was going to ask you, can you remember when you were 40?

Cilla is a very, very considerable piece of talent.

She's been away for a bit, but she's everything - bubbly...

But she's out of people's minds in the industry.

She's not done anything for a while,

she's not on the tip of anybody's lips.

-Alan sees her on the Wogan show...

-I thought, "Hm, that's interesting".

You're just back from Australia. That's why you have the tan.

Well, no - it was before Christmas, I was there in October.

-That's make-up then, is it?

-No, this is not make-up.

I've got a solarium, you see.

I've been keeping it up on the bed.

LAUGHTER

There was an immediate communication between her and her audience

and that was ripe to be exploited.

People said, "Cilla Black! Where's she been? Let's have her."

They keep on saying to me in the street and in the butchers,

you know, "When are you coming back on the telly?"

I got a bit fed up, so when I was asked to do your show I thought,

this is a really big opportunity to go on and enjoy myself.

Alan is now head of entertainment at London weekend, he's in this fight

with the BBC, he's got this dating show and he's looking for a host.

I said, "What about Cilla?" I thought, hm - let's get her in.

At that time, our schedules were

so to speak full

and I think perhaps we missed a trick in not

seeing that she should have been another shot in the locker.

If I had my way, of course we could sit here all night,

with Cilla Black, and she probably would, as well.

We did a pilot and John Birt nearly turned grey.

Here was a rather sexy show coming on and John said,

"I don't think we'll make it".

And I said, "Come on, this is terrific".

I then told a fib.

I said, if you don't do it, the BBC, Noel Edmonds is about to do

a dating segment and once he's done that dating segment, we've had it.

THEME TUNE AND APPLAUSE

Welcome, what a lovely welcome, thank you!

Blind Date is launched to astonishing success,

decimating the early evening for BBC.

What do you do in Dorset, apart from doing...

I'm a vision technician, Cilla.

LAUGHTER

I think you're having me on. What is a vision technician?

It's a window cleaner.

LAUGHTER

What a lovely audience, much better than last week's!

Cilla Black...

-was a Saturday night phenomena.

-Yes.

The show was good, the format was good, everything.

But SHE was special

and the show without her would never be as special.

What do you look for in your ideal woman?

If it's somebody to settle down with, obviously well groomed,

mature, attractive, good family background.

If it's just the wild fling, someone a bit like yourself!

She always says that I chose her

because she was the least sexy person around.

Not quite true, there's a hint of truth in it,

because at the time, when John Birt was being very

fussy about the dating prospect, I did say, she's not the most...

She's not a sexy performer. She's a family performer.

-Yes, she's the girl next door, isn't she?

-There's a hint of truth...

-She's a modern day Gracie Fields.

-Correct.

Come in, Laura!

I feel sorry for you, I really do!

He doesn't know what is letting himself in for!

-On first impressions...

-One hell of a time, baby!

By the time I was very briefly minding the shop,

it's looking a bit old-fashioned, the numbers are falling off,

it's tried various things that shows do when they get to that,

it's gone a bit more outrageous, it's tried to put gimmicks in,

all these things you do which you should never do

because they don't work and Cilla was deeply uncomfortable with them.

The third thing that we decided, we'd done two amendments,

why don't we do a live one?

Hello and welcome to this very special live show and you know what,

ladies and gentlemen?

It is a very special live show,

because this is going to be my very, very last series of Blind Date.

ALL: Aww!

-This is news to you?

-Well, it wasn't news to me.

It was news to me that she did it.

What had happened, Michael, I had lunch with...

By this time, her husband Bobby was dead,

and Robert, the son, was managing her affairs.

What I said to Robert was this, and he will, I hope, bear me out.

I said look, Robert - I'm not telling you this is the last series,

but you've got to start thinking that it might be.

We've been given this chance, it's still not doing the numbers,

I know your mum is not comfortable with these various changes.

It's not a happy time for her.

You might want to have a conversation with your mum

over Christmas about what she might like to...do.

Even though this is my last series...

ALL: Aww!

Isn't it a shame, I've had great fun for 18 years.

He didn't say anything to me on the day of the live show, I was there...

Standing at the back of the gallery when she came out and said it

and of course there was pandemonium.

I wasn't expecting Madam to say what she said at the beginning or

-the end of the show, so...

-CILLA:

-Surprise, surprise!

LAUGHTER

However, given that she HAS said it, I just wanted to come out

and ask you maybe, we're not prepared for this at all

in the sense that we didn't know it was coming at this particular moment, we haven't got a

party ready, champagne and so on, so can I ask you to substitute for us.

This lady has been THE biggest star in British television for at

least 25 years, I've worked with her at the BBC, I've worked with

her at ITV, she is a phenomenon, thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

'I was neither surprised, nor shocked, nor disappointed.'

'I thought she'd made the right choice.'

I thought it was a brilliant and bold move to do it exactly the way she had done it.

If I helped in any way to plant that seed, I'm delighted.

If I didn't, that's fine, it was her idea, it was a bloody good one.

Thank you. Thank you.

Blind Date and Game For A Laugh marked a massive shift.

The audience itself were now the actual stars of Saturday

night entertainment and ITV was dominant.

The BBC had lost its Saturday night Mojo,

but it wasn't going to give up without a fight.

When I became Head of Variety in 1982,

Des O'Connor decided to go to Thames,

Mike Yarwood decided to go to Thames and Larry Grayson said,

"I can't do The Generation Game any more".

No pressure, no pressure. Been in the job a fortnight.

The wonderful Jim Moir called me into his office one day

and said, would I be interested in joining

the Light Entertainment department, his department.

And I'd always been mindful of the fact that people said it's

one thing to be a success in children's television,

it's another thing to get out of it.

I'd stepped out of the safe world of children's TV, into...

-..the Saturday night ratings war.

-The fire, yes.

THEME TUNE

The first series of Late Late Breakfast Show really did bomb

and I was fearful that it was the end.

Luckily, the BBC stuck with me

and we tweaked it and it then started in the second run...

Started to work.

It did, and it started to get ITV interested in what

we were doing, because we were up against Game For A Laugh.

May we see your claim to fame?

HE CHATTERS

That was a cheeky monkey.

LAUGHTER

Ooh! Ooh!

That was a chimp-pansy.

LAUGHTER

We were able to play around with the content of Late Late,

so you do know in this ultracompetitive world,

where the scheduler is moving you around, you know you can

reconfigure the contents of the show.

You're not very well known over here. Are you big down under?

LAUGHTER

What's that supposed to mean?

Are you confident that you can win

-the coveted prize next week?

-Yeah.

Well, it would be the ultimate Adelaide!

HE GROANS

Constantly gimmicks and games and interaction with the public,

which was becoming more and more

a part of what was needed.

SHE "BLOWS" A TUNE

-Wonderful!

-And the show built and built, didn't it?

Yes, I mean it became the big show that everybody wanted to be on.

Good evening, Mr Dalglish. Good evening, Mr Johnston.

Good evening, Mr Grobbelaar.

This idea of "let's go live on a Saturday night,

"let's start the evening off with a big live treat,

"where everybody feels they're at a party..."

You scored the third one, didn't you, that actually means that on goal difference,

you are now top of the league, yes?

If you say so, yeah!

Well, I'm afraid that's all we've got time for...

The decision to end the Late Late Breakfast Show was an easy decision

after the tragic death of one of the participants.

It was.

It didn't take any time at all.

The loss of a life

could not be laughed away

and really,

it turned the brand toxic.

It was a proper decision

to end the show.

I went in to the Television Centre to see Bill Cotton...

And he said, "Look, I appreciate you will be thinking a lot

"about your future and I think you came here today to resign".

And I took an envelope out of my pocket and I said...

He went, "We won't be needing that".

THEME TUNE

PHONE RINGS

Noel's House Party came out of what?

It was either Chablis or Chardonnay, I can't remember...which!

I was then living in Devon - I'd bought this massive estate

and I was chatting to Mike Leggo, the producer who'd come down

and we were drinking wine in copious quantities...

And the premise of the meeting was what,

just to talk about ideas, or...?

Yes, have a brain dump, to really try and...

You know, how do we get a live show together?

And I started talking about the fact that one day

I wanted to do this big house up and it would be great to have house

parties at the weekend. "Ooh, hang on..."

And very quickly, surprisingly quickly, considering how it

dominated Saturday nights for a decade, it just all came together.

This was idiot bloke living in a large house alone,

outside a village of the damned...

Playing daft games in a party environment

and famous people come to the door.

-You make it sound irresistible.

-It was.

Mike and I go up to Jim Moir's office with a sheet of A4

and he listens diligently and whatever.

"Right, OK, all right."

So we walk out and it was like one of those bad movies.

We had got to the door and we are just about to grip the door

handle when Jim says, "Gentlemen, one other thing."

And we both turned around and he went, "Don't fuck up".

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you. Good evening, guests. Whoo! Welcome to the House Party.

'It was quite risky and dangerous, wasn't it?'

It was, though he was used to live television

and incoming sources from all over

and they soon realised that the element of live television

was what made it exciting.

Let's go and meet this week's star of NTV.

LAUGHTER

Agh! Hello.

-Hello, Andy.

-Hello, Noel.

-How are you?

I'm all right, mate. I can't... No!

We went on air with this 50 minutes of madness.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

And then this thing took off.

# We're having a party

# Want to dance and play

# We're having a party

# Want to dance and play

# We're having a party... #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Were you conscious that you were in a battle ground with ITV?

I was acutely aware that it was a battle ground.

I was hired by the BBC on the basis that these were ratings

that need to be won.

I don't know why anyone called it light entertainment because as far

as I was concerned it wasn't light cavalry, it was heavy artillery.

It was always the figures. "Cilla's got 17.2, we've got 16.8." "Oh, my God."

We were fighting over 35 million people. It was a massive battle.

House Party, you have five years, six years, of...

I think round about '95 we were still doing really well.

But '95 coincided with the arrival of the consultants, the suits,

the big change in television for the BBC.

And budgets started to be reduced.

When it came to an end it kind of came as a surprise, didn't it?

I'll tell you the story, Michael,

and then you make what you want of it.

Noel was becoming increasingly disenchanted with the show.

And to be honest we were beginning to become a bit disenchanted

with his disenchantment.

Nobody ever sits watching a TV show and goes,

"Noel's doing very well considering he is having

"10% year on year budget cuts,"

but they recognised the Gotchas weren't as lavish, the calibre

of some of the artistes that were hired wasn't quite so high.

Noel was getting less than pleased with the fact that the

numbers were going down.

They were trying all kinds of tricks, but the tricks weren't quite

sticking and the numbers weren't picking up.

It had been such joy and now it was hard work.

It was a struggle. And then it became tougher.

By the time the trouble was brewing he was coming in on a Saturday

morning, if you were lucky, very often not happy with what

he was doing. He wants this changed, he wants this changed,

which of course on Saturday afternoon is quite difficult.

The situation was, on one notorious occasion,

I didn't present a House Party.

I maintained it was because there wasn't anything to present.

We went through the running order with him, he hated it.

I was looking at the stuff, sitting there in the production office, and

I'm looking at this and thinking, "We've got this and..."

And there was nothing. It was like it was falling through my fingers.

And I remember folding the thing and just saying,

"There isn't a show here."

I got a phone call from Mike.

He said, "I'm really sorry, he's going home."

I got up and I said, "When there's a show I'll be back to present it",

and I walked out.

I put a call in to Noel.

He said, "Paul, you know I've been unhappy for some time.

"I've been saying so.

"That show that I was presented with was not a show that

"I was prepared to stand in front of."

You don't go back...

Well, I did go back and I completed that run.

And what was agreed was, "Why don't we then rest House Party

-"and then develop something else?"

-Something new.

Something new and fresh and it was all very positive.

And about four days later I opened the newspaper and I'd been axed.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

LAUGHTER

We've been axed.

AUDIENCE: Aw!

-Oh, well.

-We sat with Noel and said, "I'm sorry, Noel,

"you can't walk out on a show. However bad it is

"there's ways to fix it and having done it once, and you've been

"unhappy for some time, we feel it would be wrong to ask you to

"continue fronting a show in what are obviously not ideal

"circumstances for you."

So that was it. He stopped.

It's an overworked expression when people say it's the end of an era.

But for BBC Television, for the Entertainment Department,

for me, and possibly you, it really is the end of an era.

I hope your memory will be very kind to us after 169. Bye.

While Noel's House Party was still a powerhouse,

somewhere else in the television forest

a producer called Paul Smith was doing the rounds with a format

he was convinced would be a blockbuster.

Unfortunately, for two years, no-one else did.

ITV had decreed

that they didn't want any more game shows.

There was a moratorium on game shows.

It was said to me by the existing director of programmes,

and I do remember this quote very clearly,

that the public do not want

to watch other members of the public winning large amounts of money.

But it didn't shake your faith in the idea?

It shook my faith in my judgment because we eventually went to

Channel 4, we went to BBC, we went to Channel 5,

and all had different reasons for not wanting to commission the show.

But you did have a champion in Claudia Rosencrantz at ITV.

-She has faith in the show, doesn't she?

-Yes.

She's not been able to sell it to her bosses.

No, and she gave me great strength,

because to know that there was somebody championing the cause,

albeit that they were being beaten down, was reassuring,

only up to a point.

-Your boss changes and David Liddiment comes in.

-Yes.

-And you've still got a passion for this show.

-Yes.

How did you sell it to him?

I said, "I really do feel I have to do this show.

"It's just, I'm obsessed by it."

Onto your desk comes a quiz show idea. What struck you about it?

What piqued your interest?

The notion of a game show where the top prize was £1 million.

That's a very simple idea, but I had one seriously big reservation.

David was worried, rightly, about whether we'd be giving away

£1 million every single episode, which would bankrupt us.

It didn't seem like a very good financial strategy.

The reason I thought that was, this was not just a Q and A,

this was a multiple-choice and there were four answers

-and the four answers were on screen.

-And I said, "That can't work".

I called her and I say, "Claudia, we want to strike while the iron is hot".

And she said, "Well, he's only just got into the building".

I said, "I think that's the great time to get him".

She said, "I think we should wait a while".

I said, "We just need to get in there quickly

"and I don't want to give a chance of anything else to distract David".

And she was very gracious.

She said, "Well, I disagree with you, but it's up to you".

And I said, "If it's up to me, please, I'd like to go and see David".

He said, "Let me come in and I will prove to you that something else

"kicks in once you're faced with serious money and real choice".

I went to his office, Claudia was there.

The three of us sat down and in my briefcase

I had a number of envelopes.

And I said to him, "Do you have your wallet with you?" He said, "Yes".

-How much was in your wallet?

-I don't know. I'm not going to say.

£210. I said, "OK could you write me an IOU for £40, please?"

He got a Post-it and he wrote, "IOU..." He still had no idea what was going on.

And they put this money... He was intrigued.

Claudia was thinking, "Paul, you're screwing this up,

"what are you doing?"

I opened up my briefcase and I took out an envelope

and on it was the figure 250 written and I said,

"Right, there's £500 sitting there, £250 of which you've contributed,

"£250 of which I have contributed.

"We are going to play a game, David, and you might lose this money.

"And if you do you're not allowed to claim it on expenses.

"Otherwise the pain is not going to be sufficient.

"This is going to come out of your money, your earnings. Very important."

He said, "Yes". He still didn't know what I was going to do.

I said, "Fair enough," then opened the briefcase again

and I had a number of cards with multiple choice questions on them.

And we played the game.

"Here's the first question and the four possible answers.

"What would you like to do?"

And he looked at it and he started talking to Claudia.

I said, "Hang on a minute. "Hang on. I'm asking you."

Claudia Rosencrantz, Controller of Entertainment,

-was my Phone-a-friend.

-I said, "OK, fair enough, In which case you are using that Lifeline.

"I wasn't thinking that we were going to have any Lifelines,

"but, all right let's do it with the Lifelines".

They debated it. They didn't know. And he said, "I want to go 50/50".

I said, "OK, it isn't that one, it isn't that one,

"you've got two left". They discussed it a bit more. They went for it.

They got the correct answer. I said, "Well done. You've got £500.

"We're going to go onto the next question." Out with the next question.

I then took an envelope out which had £500 in it,

and I said, "We are now playing for £1,000. OK? Everything going fine?"

He said, "Yes, it's good, good". I said, "You've got £500 now.

"£250 you've contributed, but the rest... So you could stop now."

He said, "No, no, I'm going to go on". I said, "OK. No problem."

So, there we go, we've got £1,000. "OK.

"Here's the next question." He looks at it

and he starts talking to Claudia and I said, "Hang on a minute".

"You've already done Phone-a-friend, OK? You can't talk to Claudia.

"You're on your own."

I realised that

when something was at stake your certainty starts to be undermined.

He said, "What have I got left?" I said, "You've got Ask the Audience".

And his office was a self-contained office looking out onto

a central office with quite a large number of ITV staff in it

and he said, "OK", and he opened the door and he said, "Listen, guys".

He addressed everybody all working away at their computers and so on.

He said, "Does anybody know the answer to this question?"

And there was a lot of discussion,

but nobody... There was no certainty.

There was no consensus. There was no majority.

Now of course there's certain things where you absolutely know something. They're easy.

But there's a lot that you think you know

and you might casually say "Yes" to, but if that "Yes" is

actually £1,000 or £20,000, or £100,000, or £1 million...

-The mind plays tricks.

-The mind plays tricks.

And did you lose your money with Paul or did you quit?

I think I quit in the end.

He said, "I'll take the money".

-He took the 500 quid.

-Yes. And I said, "QED".

I said, "This show governs the winnings. The format governs the winnings,

"cos unless you are absolutely certain of the answer,

"certain of the answer, why would you ever take a chance?"

David said, "Look, let's do it."

And then he said, "Is there anything you're worried about?"

I said, "I'm worried about Saturday to Saturday",

because it was commissioned as a Saturday night show.

I said, "I'm worried about watching a contestant on a Saturday night,

"whether the drama will hold to come back the following Saturday...

-A week later.

-He said, "Let's strip it". I said, "Oh, my God".

I said, "Every night in peak?" He went, "Yeah. Let's do it."

I think by the end of the first run, I think we ran for 14 nights,

we were equalling if not beating EastEnders.

It was like a terminator

just crunching its way through the ratings.

It just demolished, in a way I had never seen before or since,

it demolished everything before it.

While ITV continued to power its way the top of the ratings

with Millionaire, over on the BBC, a young Geordie double act

were taking their first tentative steps into the Saturday night arena.

# Just the two of us

# We can make it if we try... #

-The BBC want us to do a new show, Ant.

-Oh, good. When?

45 seconds?!

BOTH: What?!

LAUGHTER

'We'd been doing Saturday mornings on ITV for a while'

and we got a phone call from the Beeb.

They did these pilots in the summer of brand-new entertainment shows.

And they had one that they wanted us to do

and it was called Friends Like These.

'Ladies and gentlemen,

'please welcome, direct from the Cayman Islands, it's Ant and Dec.'

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

'So we done the pilot and it got commissioned for a series.'

'It got picked up and we did the series,

which ITV weren't that happy about.

So we were on ITV on a Saturday morning

and we were on BBC Saturday night.

And both of them said, "We don't want you to do the other one",

but neither of them would pay for exclusivity, so we said,

"Look we'll just keep doing them both."

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

You've done really, really well all of you, you've done so well.

The whole of Merseyside will be proud of you.

Give it up for Claire...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I've always thought they were talented.

I didn't at that time realise just how...

I think they are right up there.

They are talking to you at home, they put the punters at ease,

they can do the gags, they can sing a song. They will try anything.

They are the full package.

I said, "You're going to have to make a decision between

"whether you want to sit on the BBC or you want to sit in ITV.

"Because you can't do both."

The BBC said, "You should go for lunch with Paul Jackson",

who was then the head of entertainment at the BBC.

And he took us for lunch.

And it was kind of no starters, no dessert, he had to be somewhere else.

I don't think he was that interested in being there.

It was all very Alan Partridge, really.

And he said, "So, guys, what do you want to do?"

And we went, "You know Noel's House Party?" We said, "We want that slot."

And he kind of looked at us like, "What?!"

We said, "We want to do what Noel's doing.

"We want to be that big kind of entertainment show."

He was like, "I think

"you need to serve your apprenticeship a bit first".

And we went, "Fair enough, no problem.

"But just marking your card, that's where we want to be.

"And we will go away and do our homework

"and we'll work our way up, but that's where we want to be."

The boys say at one point you were quite tough with them.

I don't think I was tough. I think I was blunt.

To quote the Commissioning Editor at ITV at the time, which

was Claudia Rosencrantz, she said, "Basically you need to shit or get off the pot".

They said, "Well that's pretty clear".

We said, "OK, then. We'll get off the pot, we'll come to you".

I was the guy who lost them at the BBC.

ITV came back with a very big offer for them and we lost them after one series.

So the first show you did for ITV on Saturday night was?

It was called Slap Bang.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-Yes.

-And it was rubbish.

-Yes.

It was so called because it was slap bang in the middle

of your weekend on a Saturday night.

It's the furthest point from Friday from you being at work or

school till Monday morning when you're back there.

-You don't have to justify it like that.

-This was the pitch.

-No-one remembers it.

Look at this, folks. Look at the size of that forehead.

ANT SPLUTTERS

Do you know this? Do you know this?

-It's so big ITV are trying to sell it as advertising space.

-Right...

I remember the first episode went out at eight o' clock on a Saturday.

-Didn't do very well.

-We had, was it six episodes?

-'Six episodes in the series.'

-'And then the next episode went out at 7.30.'

It didn't do very well. Then 7.00, then 6.30.

If we'd had a longer run we'd be back on Saturday mornings.

-You'd call that a spiral.

-Yes.

-A bit of a spiral.

We couldn't have done it without everybody here, all the crew, everybody in the gallery...

-In our contract we had a second series of 18 for the following year.

-Guaranteed.

-Guaranteed.

-Yes.

They said, "Look, we can't do 18 of these. It hasn't worked.

"I'm not going to recommission it." We were like, "Right, OK".

And kind of, the bottom falls out of your world

because that's where we wanted to be so much.

They were really, really worried that I was going to say, "That's it.

"We tried, it failed, have a nice life."

I said, "No, no, it's my fault.

"The big Saturday night ITV audiences, they don't know you yet.

"So actually I took it for granted that the amount of people

"that knew you, knew you, and they don't.

"So we've got to do it slightly differently."

CHEERING DROWNS SPEECH

Ant and Dec's first outing on ITV may not have been the greatest success,

but their next venture would certainly launch them into the big time.

It all began with a lunchtime meeting with one Alan

and not one, not two, but three Simons.

On 13 February, 2001 in my diary it says, "Simon Jones",

who was my COO type guy,

suddenly said, "I've got a guy to come in. I want you to meet Simon Cowell."

And in walked Simon Cowell and Simon Fuller,

who I knew from the Spice Girls and whatever.

He said, "We have no way of launching new talent and we want to create

"a music show that allows us to get new talent through into the industry".

And they pitched it. Simon Cowell did talk, talk, talk.

-Are you making notes?

-And I have got the famous note.

And this is the famous note which I wrote.

I'll just read first, then I'll let you read it. This is all it is.

"It will be like Gone With The Wind.

"The Sun newspaper will be in. The nation searching for one face.

"50,000 in London alone will be auditioned at once

"in Wembley Stadium." I said, "How are you going to audition 50,000?"

"25 winners go forward.

"Four regionals..." It was regional in the early days.

"..Go to Los Angeles, then they re-enter the country, ten of them,

"like the Beatles entered back to Heathrow. The public vote for two.

"Prize, £1 million. And they'll sing songs like Flying Without Wings."

What happens next?

-Well...

-Because at this moment you haven't got a broadcaster...

Well, the boys thought, "That is it. I just go in with this."

I said, "OK, we'll get a team to put it together".

Now we have a 20-page document.

And they said, "Come on, come on, come on, the two boys are getting irritable.

"This'll do. I'll phone up."

So I agree to go to the BBC because ITV had done Popstars.

So I had to go and see Lorraine Heggessey.

Lorraine Heggessey who was the controller of BBC ONE.

So, Fuller didn't come, so Simon Cowell came.

So I walk in the door with Simon, we do the pitch, and Lorraine says...

"Hmm... Not too sure. Er, music show, sort of karaoke-ish. Not too sure."

"Leave the document, and we'll come back to you in three or four weeks' time.

And I said, "No, we're not leaving a document, but are you saying no?"

"Well, unless you leave the document, for us to go over it,

"we are not interested." OK.

In the meantime, Claudia and David Liddiment phoned me

and said, "Don't take it to the BBC, take it to us."

They had assumed I wouldn't want it,

because I had this big hit of Popstars.

And I rang Alan Boyd,