[tellyblues]

I would hope ITV consider more things than just the ratings of a poll on a website somewhere about whether to commission/recommission a programme. Things like that are just snapshots in time about what's popular.

Long as a programme gets sufficient arses on sofas, that's the priority.

But of course formats can be tweaked or completely overhauled and then shows run for years themselves; its how they're packaged that makes the difference as to whether they live (and for how long) or whether they die, and how quickly.

In the 70s, 80s and to an extent the 90s game shows ran for years pretty much by default with a more captive audience, and most of them were complete crap in their early days, taking years to evolve into a semi decent format or package. That doesn't happen these days, so if it doesn't work from the off, it goes in the bin.

Not suggesting that decisions should be made on the basis of a poll. It's just a bit of fun seeing how many "bad" shows get recommissioned. Equally, not every "good" show gets another chance - The Answer Trap which was joint #1 in 2021 didn't.

It's difficult to get back viewers with so many other options available, whereas years ago people only had a few channels and, as you say, shows had time to evolve. TV development is more sophisticated nowadays and flaws should be ironed out before going to air. I don't know what happened with Fastest Finger First - maybe someone thought that it being part of the WWTBAM brand meant that viewers would persist with it but the main show is hardly in great health.