[cable]

The difference this time around is the audience, the audience that grew up with them on SMTV is now in their 30s and older. it certainly had a good run 7 years initially from 2002-2009 and 11 years between 2013 and 2024. in that time the television landscape has transformed and compared to the chaos of the earlier series, they have become a bit too perfect, nothing is surprising anymore. They are unlikely to be attracting a younger viewership who have a deeper relationship social media even if they happen to watch with their family. Kids today would think of them as the people their parents watch.

I'm sure ITV would have loved for the show to continue but like with Harry Hill and TV Burp it probably very time consuming for them now they having kids and other business interests, a break is needed. They already rested it and brought it back with the same elements e.g. little ant and dec and undercover, I'm not sure that would work a 3rd time without it appearing repetitive. Nothing should last forever and it will be better to remember it for the good show that it was rather than to drain the life out of it to the point people get sick of it.

I would like to see it return in some form for specials in the future but not necessarily called Saturday Night Takeaway.

[all new phil]

Maybe they’ll revive Slap Bang!

[darrenlit94]

Last night's show was brilliant but the rest of the series has felt like it was going through the motions leading up to last night. I do think that will be it and it won't return as it felt very final. I think ending it now is the right decision as I don't think it's been quite as good for the past couple of series.

One thing I noticed when they showed clips from previous years is how much bigger the audience area looked in the The London Studios compared to Television Centre. Which I do think its lacked a bit of atmosphere since it moved.

[JMT1985]

Last night's show was brilliant but the rest of the series has felt like it was going through the motions leading up to last night. I do think that will be it and it won't return as it felt very final. I think ending it now is the right decision as I don't think it's been quite as good for the past couple of series.

One thing I noticed when they showed clips from previous years is how much bigger the audience area looked in the The London Studios compared to Television Centre. Which I do think its lacked a bit of atmosphere since it moved.

This is interesting as Studio 1 in The London Studios was smaller in size compared to Studio TC1 at Television Centre, by around 3,000 Sq Ft, but Studio 1 at TLS had a balcony audience platform and a main audience rostra for 646 audience members. Television Centre's Studio TC1 only had a platform for less than 500 as mentioned by Dec when they gave out holidays to everyone in the audience. So they moved into a much larger studio, but had a reduced audience platform.

[shropshireguy28]

BARB rating have included catch-up services for many years. It's total viewers that count.

Then wait until ITV's total viewers until you post. You can't say The Apprentice 6m and then ITV 4.56m until BARB updates what ITV 1 got

[Hybrid]

I don't think it's been quite as good for the past couple of series.

I agree, I think a lot of steam was lost from 2018’s series to the 2020 and 2021 series for some reasons more obvious than others.

[iloveTV1]

Given how many things the show has done, it’s a shame there’s not been some sort of ‘best bits’ compilation/look back show to go with the finale. You could probably get a few episodes out of it.

[Andrew]

It was nice to see TV Centre in all its glory, it was like an old school Children in Need night (except more entertaining)

I wonder what the people living in the flats thought when all that was going on outside

[JMT1985]

It was nice to see TV Centre in all its glory, it was like an old school Children in Need night (except more entertaining)

I wonder what the people living in the flats thought when all that was going on outside

As part of living there, the residents have to be informed by TV productions if the exterior of the centre is to be used for television work so I am sure they knew in advance what would happen.

[Larry the Loafer]

Not that anything could be done about it, but the focus on TVC just felt a bit wrong, in my opinion. It's a show I associate very closely with the South Bank studios, and like some have mentioned previously, I felt the show took an atmospheric hit when it moved to the smaller TVC studio. To imply pretty much all of the show's history happened there (I know they didn't say that but there was zero mention of the old studios) just left a bit of a sour taste in my weird anoraky mouth.