[JMT1985]

It is also down to the change of attitude and viewing style of this current generation - Comic Relief was created in an era of just four television channels.  Today we are in a vastly different world, and so the attention span of viewers remains short.

Streaming has helped viewers not to have to wait for anything anymore. Netflix, iPlayer, Apple, Disney, Amazon etc all help to watch shows in huge chunks with no commercials.

YouTube is a great place for example for little clips of popular shows, such as US talk shows, where the current generation would rather watch a Stephen Colbert monologue and maybe one of his interviews, than sit through the entire 62 minutes of his show.

So Comic Relief and Children in Need have chosen to shorten their telethons to three hours, and it still works. I mean in the days of the show running until 2am, was their a vast amount of money raised on those last two or three hours on air?  Especially when come midnight, those telethons seem to run out of steam, and come to a grinding halt, with presenters trying so hard to keep the audience in the studio and the viewers at home from falling asleep.

I would argue though that the change in the landscape is exactly why they should try and stand out with a full length telethon - and often when they ran out of steam around midnight that is when they actually could hit their stride, in the right hands at least.

I doubt Comic Relief night gets much on demand traction via the iPlayer so concentrate on the live show and live broadcast - and if you double the length of that show you increase the amount of potentially viral short form content too.


I do agree though the biggest issue is the lack of comedy and formats that can be called upon to be part of the night - but there is still more they could do.  Something like a Live at the Apollo - LIVE would be great for after the news.    And a live edition of Graham Norton could be easy filler for both Comic Relief and Children in Need.

Well they did try a Graham Norton talk show special one year, where his sofa was increased by a large amount, and it simply fell plat. Graham himself said he would never ever do a live edition of his talk show for any reason, as it is the editing of the show which makes the show's pace run decent. Live edition will simply fall flat on it's face. 

I agree, we need to go back to the early 90s style of Comic Relief, I was watching the 1993 Comic Relief song video of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and it was superb, brought back memories for me as a 7 and a half year old watching this special routine. We don't have that anymore. Some comedians just don't want to be associated with Comic Relief or Children in Need anymore.