[WillPS]

Also I discovered recently (thanks to the existence of a YouTube channel) that Challenge have actually shown the Christmas Specials in the current DOG era (ie with the 3-block C that spawns the "Challenge" text for about 2 seconds after ad breaks), but for whatever reason, haven't chosen to re-air them since then.

One of them, possibly the 'handover' one between series 4 and 5, was shown in December 2023 in the graveyard slot.

[SuperSajuuk]

Was watching back all of S1-S4 of Millionaire recently [as i had them recorded to my sky q box]: hilariously, despite the fact it was broadcast in 2015 with this exact error — at a time when Challenge had a pretty active social media presence and should have discovered this, the reairings of Episode 4 in Series 4 haven’t proceeded to fix it. The error in question is that one of the cases of Chris reading out a phone number for people to call was not edited out, despite every other instance in all other episodes being correctly edited out [not sure how it got missed to begin with]. Considering this is a phone number people might want to call, im surprised that nobody at challenge / sky has looked at ensuring this is fixed 😂😂😂

Another thing i also realised as well is that, despite putting up a message about Tony Kennedy’s “wrong answer being accepted” in editing [which was obviously not something that would have been there back in 1999], they didn’t also highlight the 3 contestants who had their winnings stripped [namely Neil Muir from a Series 2 episode, and Sheridan Booth/Andrew Lavelle from Series 3 episodes].

I do also wonder what happened to the “missing” episodes… i hope those are found to complete the collection [S1 Christmas Special, S2E2, S3E3 and a couple of Series 4 episodes]

[Brekkie]

Presumably as 0891 numbers were retired ringing the number wouldn't do anything anyway.

[SuperSajuuk]

Presumably as 0891 numbers were retired ringing the number wouldn't do anything anyway.

It was an 09002 premium rate number that they were using back in ‘98/‘99 for the contestant registration, so its possible the number is still callable, but rather than calling Millionaire, it calls someone else. 🤔

Since its the only instance in the S1-S4 run from Challenge that wasn’t edited, i’ve long assumed it was simply missed in error, but was surprised it wasn’t corrected after the initial instance of it being broadcast, but perhaps Sky consider the channel gets such low ratings it isn’t worth the effort to go and fix one phone number not being cut out of a programme.

I did a quick google search on a website that provides info on phone numbers, it seems Vodafone owns the number in question but it hasn’t been used since it was re-registered in 5 years, which suggests the number might be active for other reasons.

[Neil Jones]

090x numbers would eventually replace the likes of 0891.

I wonder if the University of Nottingham gets SAEs in application for Family Fortunes, considering that address and contestant appeal was put in over the end credits on that show and the only mitigation was a yellow strap saying the appeal was closed... Somebody obviously decided it wasn't worth remaking them (although the did for Millionaire for reasons previously discussed)

Anyway Challenge missing something that had to be re-edited isn't a new thing for them. I remember when Takeshi's Castle was re-edited to remove all the old graphics (the in-show straps were bigger than the ones they replaced), they still managed to miss at least two of them. One was fixed. The other never was and remained intact until they stopped showing the castle years later, though other networks now rule that roost.

[SuperSajuuk]

I wonder if the University of Nottingham gets SAEs in application for Family Fortunes, considering that address and contestant appeal was put in over the end credits on that show and the only mitigation was a yellow strap saying the appeal was closed... Somebody obviously decided it wasn't worth remaking them (although the did for Millionaire for reasons previously discussed)

I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they do continue to get SAEs lol. It’s kind of interesting as a topic to see how many of these issues happen as a result of incorrectly edited reairings of old game shows on channels like Challenge: probably quite low, but still an obvious risk that is being taken by reairing those clips without the proper edit.

I mean im no professional video editor, or working in the industry, but it should be relatively trivial for even a non-professional to import the video file into a video editor [like vegas movie studio, the cheaper brother of vegas pro], make a quick fix to the offending section [cut it out or cover it over] and then re-render the video file and then put it in place of the original version.

But i guess thats time and effort that Sky doesn’t have for the channel anyway lol, i long for the day when Challenge gets a social media team back in to properly maintain it as in the old days

[Nobby]

I mean im no professional video editor, or working in the industry, but it should be relatively trivial for even a non-professional to import the video file into a video editor [like vegas movie studio, the cheaper brother of vegas pro], make a quick fix to the offending section [cut it out or cover it over] and then re-render the video file and then put it in place of the original version.

Then find 5 seconds of footage of something else to replace the 5 seconds of telephone number you removed, submit the new version to have it checked for legal compliance, have the audio description edited/re-recorded to match the new visuals, have the subtitles file edited to match the timings of the edited video, etc.

[SuperSajuuk]

Then find 5 seconds of footage of something else to replace the 5 seconds of telephone number you removed, submit the new version to have it checked for legal compliance, have the audio description edited/re-recorded to match the new visuals, have the subtitles file edited to match the timings of the edited video, etc.

Not sure why you felt the need to come across as unnecessarily hostile in this response tbh. It comes across as quite arrogant, as it implies you haven't actually watched any of the episodes in question to know how Challenge did the edits for S1-S4 of Millionaire.

In fact, Challenge didn't "cut out" phone number references in any other episode by "using footage from elsewhere" for a vast majority of instances where it was needed to remove the phone number [only a small number of these instances used footage from elsewhere in the episode]: most of the time they simply used a basic thematic transition effect across the offending section that needed cut out and, where necessary, put a thematic graphic of "Lines Are Closed" over the phone number graphic itself [if the phone number would have been left visible due to it being burned into the tapes they received], as they attempted to preserve as much of the episodes as they could while removing promotional content.

Indeed, parts of Series 4 have the most limited amounts of edits possible for this reason, where they just removed the 2 seconds of Chris reading the phone number, covered it over with their transitions and left everything else as is. There is little to no chance it would have needed to be checked for "legal compliance" and the other points are relatively minor: if they wanted to avoid the other edits being needed, they could have just padded a second or two of a fade-to-black or a static Millionaire logo in other places.

[Neil Jones]

I think the overarching point from Nobby was its not juse a case of chop five seconds of video out, because that has more a knock-on effect than it appears - as alluded to, subtitles, audio description.

And I'm pretty sure Sky wouldn't be using some off the shelf computer software anyway to edit their programmes for compliance or playout purposes on any of their channels.

I dare say there are all in one solutions for editing and playout, and there must be considering the amount of times +1 channels have had to be edited pretty much on the fly because somebody flashed their arse on the main channel (not that that's a consideration at Challenge as they don't have a +1).

[SuperSajuuk]

I think the overarching point from Nobby was its not juse a case of chop five seconds of video out, because that has more a knock-on effect than it appears - as alluded to, subtitles, audio description.

And I'm pretty sure Sky wouldn't be using some off the shelf computer software anyway to edit their programmes for compliance or playout purposes on any of their channels.

I dare say there are all in one solutions for editing and playout, and there must be considering the amount of times +1 channels have had to be edited pretty much on the fly because somebody flashed their arse on the main channel (not that that's a consideration at Challenge as they don't have a +1).

I get that, but the point could have been made by him without sounding like an ass about it.

As for software, they’re probably using more professional tools i agree, but my point was more about how its a sign of there being nobody watching the channel [behind the scenes that is] to spot these kind of things and make sure its corrected. Considering clips like this come around very rarely and aren’t spammed out like The Chase, you would have expected any issues to be rectified by the next airing [years down the road], but the fact they’re not shows nobody is fully maintaining stuff and that its probably heavily automated.

Also yes there are probably all-in-one solutions to edit on the fly. I gather Sky don’t have such things though as i don’t think they have any +1 channels now [wasn’t Challenge one of the last ones in their list of owned channels to have one?]