[Stooky Bill]

I feel like Comic Relief hasn't been worth watching for a long time, same with Children In Need.

When I was growing up, they were TV events that I would have sat and watched all evening with the family, but nowadays they barely get a mention when they come around. There used to be plenty of sketches and specials of popular shows that made you feel like you were seeing something really special. They seem to be light on that sort of content these days and there doesn't appear to be any sort of real buzz or excitement around them.

Things have changed. As has been discussed here in the past the Friday night programmes these days are the end of the fundraising event, not the event in themselves. There are other programmes in the lead up to the Friday

Everything's changed - audience expectations, the way TV is consumed, and how money works.

The thing that was memorable about both was the slightly loose, ramshackle nature of their live TV programmes. Comic Relief was at it's best when they had no idea what they were doing and they were making it up. CiN similarly for years was mainly Wogan bumbling around and weak amateur regional bits.
That sort of telly doesn't exist these days, production values are much higher and viewers are used to slick polished big budget shiny floor shows.

The need for a long telethon has gone because money can be instantly donated now and it requires no banks of telephone operators to take the money. Now they can put a the text and website details on screen during lots of programmes for several weeks. It reaches more people than one 7 hour programme and raises more money. That wasn't an option back in the days of pledging money, they couldn't man the phone lines for a few hours every few evenings for weeks