[Gary Baldy]

Challenge have recently acquired Scrapheap Challenge, Dickinson’s Real Deal, and The Family Chase. As well as having tested out the first series of Cash Trapped and 5 Gold Rings on the channel- after a few years of little to no new content,  it looks like more effort and care is being put into it again- it’s lovely. Is it what it was when Sky first acquired it? No, but it’s nice that they’re airing something different again.

[Tvfanboy]

For me I can’t see challenge lasting much longer. Sky need to invest more in to it or I know it’s more costly try to do a deal with gsn so we can air the stuff they air with uk shows thrown in

[JasonB]

The first two are very unusual for a channel like Challenge. No surprise about The Family Chase, expect that to be on for a long amount of time during the day.

[Happy2001]

The first two are very unusual for a channel like Challenge. No surprise about The Family Chase, expect that to be on for a long amount of time during the day.

Scrapheap Challenge is a game show so not that surprising in that context.

[Neil Jones]

Let us not forget Challenge used to air wrestling. Albeit it as a spill over from when Bravo closed, so on that basis anything goes these days. And they used to air Beadle's About as well, which is about as far away from "gameshow" as you could possibly get, even chopping it up as ten minute inserts to fill awkward gaps in the schedule.

[Gary Baldy]

Let us not forget Challenge used to air wrestling.  Albeit it as a spill over from when Bravo closed, so on that basis anything goes these days.  And they used to air Beadle's About as well, which is about as far away from "gameshow" as you could possibly get, even chopping it up as ten minute inserts to fill awkward gaps in the schedule.

I suppose Beadle’s About was a very loose game show in the same vein as Noel’s House Party (which would suit Challenge better) but it was much more of a variety show than many game elements.

The modern day equivalents of Beadle’s About and House Party are probably Michael McIntyre’s Big Show and Saturday Night Takeaway.

Beadle’s About was more in the comedic Big Show mode, whereas House Party had more game elements like Takeaway. House Party and Takeaway would belong oh Challenge more than Beadle’s About and Big Show.

[Neil Jones]

I wouldn't say Beadle's About was a gameshow by any stretch of the imagination. Its just basically Candid Camera in new colours.

House Party (and Takeaway) just wrap various elements around a larger wrapper, but that doesn't make the whole thing a "game show" as such. Some of its segments may be technically "game" but Challenge have said before (on social media or the like) if they wanted a specific segment from one of these shows (such as Run The Risk for example, which they did want at one point), it involved buying the whole episode. For RTR, that would involve buying episodes of Live & Kicking (and the latter year or so of Going Live) so it wasn't worth it.

[BlueFrog]

Challenge wasn't just all about game-shows, for a good while in circa 2003-2007 they had this MASSIVE obsession with poker that got their viewings quite a boost (surprisingly), they aired movies relating to that matter and even had an imported TV drama 'Dr. Vegas' to fit in with the likes of Bravo (which had Alias) and Living TV which had honestly quite a stackful. 

It was cool to see them expand out of their routine but I can see why people would be upset if they did more changes to their normal genre of programming. What's more, for a brief while they cashed in on the recent fairly-cheap reality TV trends and lifestyle programming. They even aired Miss World 2006 for god's sake!

[Neil Jones]

Challenge wasn't just all about game-shows, for a good while in circa 2003-2007 they had this MASSIVE obsession with poker that got their viewings quite a boost (surprisingly), they aired movies relating to that matter and even had an imported TV drama 'Dr. Vegas' to fit in with the likes of Bravo (which had Alias) and Living TV which had honestly quite a stackful. 

It was cool to see them expand out of their routine but I can see why people would be upset if they did more changes to their normal genre of programming. What's more, for a brief while they cashed in on the recent fairly-cheap reality TV trends and lifestyle programming. They even aired Miss World 2006 for god's sake!

Poker was a trend for many providers in the early 2000's, as was Reality TV later in the decade. Also many other channels got in on the quiz channel strands, including various outputs that wouldn't normally touch that sort of output with a a bargepole (obvious example here is Channel 4)

The channel was originally Family Channel which was relaunched in 1997 with a specific aim of focusing on gameshows, so it had that from the off, though it had started as a strand on Family Channel which was later spun off.

The main argument though as far as scheduling is concerned basically boils down to "they show x, y and z which I don't like, so they should stop showing x, y and z and instead show a, b and c which I do like"

[KrazyKei]

I personally don't see why they don't show new gameshows every evening. I get that they would show past gameshows during the day time because everyone is in work but surely if Challenge wants to stay relevant, they would need to invest in new gameshows for the evenings and give itself the chance to appeal to new viewers.