A Question of Sport's disastrous relaunch

MONDAY night saw A Question of Sport return to the BBC television schedules, but it turned into a disastrous relaunch of such a historic show.

A Question of Sport is a national treasure and is currently in its 40^th year.  Although the producers at the Beeb probably did need to give the studio a lick of paint, I was dismayed to see how the final outlook came.  Tampering with the theme tune is something that didn’t work for Grandstand in the year 2000, and doesn’t work again (old theme tune in the video above).  The set design looks like something that you might expect to find in a disused train station and the whole selection process of contestants also begs the question how long the show will remain on our screens.

Matt Dawson and Phil Tufnell still remain as the reliable and funny team captains, whilst Sue Barker continues to host the show, which she has since 1997.  However, alongside athlete Iwan Thomas and former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan were comedian Frank Skinner and entrepreneur of Dragons Den, Peter Jones.

Although Skinner is a massive West Brom fan and Jones used to run a tennis academy, getting celebrities onto a sports-orientated show returns us to the final days of sports gimmick show, They Think It’s All Over.  Why are celebrities on this show?  It is madness!  New rounds were promised, but didn’t come.  The famous Picture Board round has been cutdown from 12 to 6 pictures and only five rounds take place, compared to seven with the old format.

The BBC’s decision to move A Question of Sport to 10.35pm on a Monday night is one of the worst decisions they could have made.  It was still attracting a decent audience in its 7.30pm Friday night slot.  Do they really think that there will be a bigger audience figure at a later timeslot?  It used to be a family orientated show, based on sport.  Now, it is a pale shadow of its former glory self. 

I saw the first show of the new series on Monday night and despite the usual comical banter of Dawson and Tufnell, which is as strong as ever, and Barker’s chemistry with the team captains, the overall format of the show needs a desperate and urgent action review, otherwise A Question of Sport will sadly join the scrapheap of many other shows . . . who’ve gone down this route in the past, and ended up being dropped altogether.