[Neil Jones]

No games were removed. The main edit which were there on Challenge TV from the beginning were the end monologues - in fact the first time I'd seen these in years was when the first 3 series were added to Britbox (I don't think they've added the other 3, sadly).

Unfortunately the Ed Tudor-Pole episodes were not shown for a while and when they were eventually re-acquired during the VMTV era they butchered them - forcing an additional break in abruptly and cutting the zone moves right down. I think the Christmas specials suffered similarly. There are a few games from these episodes where the in game clock jumps.

Thank you, I knew there was more to that.
The end episode monologue edits I've only ever seen seem like that (besides original transmission probably) so I'm used to them.

Virgin made a right hack of the Tudor-Pole series which included moving the break points, adding the extra one as you say (no consistency in any of this by the way - sometimes the extra break was in any old random place (even right before a game) and I do remember the only other logical place for it was prior to the Dome, which they did use) and various other cutty cutty snip snip.

VIrgin did go after the Christmas specials as well, even the O'Brien ones. I dare say the main series wasn't too far away from being butchered either.

I've always been very surprised that Challenge [or some other broadcaster] doesn't attempt to try and find the original recordings for most of these older game shows [FF, Millionaire, to name a few] that got butchered by previous owners and re-edited them for modern uses.

The impression has been painted for quite some time now they don't seem to have much in the way of cash/budget. It probably costs them to get new files from ITV to replace all these Virgin issues and I dare say that would have the knock on effect of screwing up the advert timings if things end up in the wrong clock hour for example if you just swap a file out for a longer one, and Ofcom will expect you to either fix it yourself in other hours, or report the problem to them and watch you throw yourself on your sword.