[Neil Jones]

I suspect because The Chase generates ratings, it subsequently generates dosh.

When Sky won the last round of Premier League action (not December 2023, the previous one) the feeling was they'd effectively ripped the lining in their wallet, and most of the other output had some budget cuts (Challenge of course being pretty much back of the queue for anything) to counterbalance that spending. Never confirmed, but it was around that point the output on Challenge was pretty much becoming a one trick pony.

Since the last deal, Sky are still paying more for the football, but for more content/matches now that Amazon are out of the picture, which in the grand scale of things makes it better value and subsequently cheaper per game and they have a virtual monopoly again. So I suspect that somebody's decided to loosen the purse strings a bit. Possibly.

They probably still have the prints from last time they aired the original series (which of course they had to edit), so its probably just a case of a BACS payment and update the playout schedule. Be interesting to see if they go for anything else, as the oldest thing they have now is Bullseye, which they air from the start in 1981 and the next oldest thing is I want to say Strike It Lucky, which started in 1986.