[Neil Jones]

I was under the assumption the production of Strike It Lucky switched to LWT because Thames lost their franchise and LWT picked it up. But I only noticed a little while ago that Thames were still producing it up until 1994.

Assuming ITV didn't axe it, did Thames simply stop making it and refuse LWT the rights to the name when they picked it up a couple of years later? If ITV still wanted the show to continue, why would Thames not want to keep making it? They were effectively an indie after all and presumably wanted commissions.

Yeah, Central co-produced SiL after 1993 (or at least presented it), until the original run ended, and then as discussed it was shoved through LWT and another company, for the rebrand in 1996, where it lived for another three years, and then as I think it was Brekkie who alluded to, the domination of the soap swallowed all the slots.

Not sure why SiL ended in 1994 or there was no series in 1995, but must be remembered 1995 was the year of all kinds of long running stuff on ITV having been scrapped, or if they survived had major changes - obvious example is Krypton Factor, and there were changes wanted to Bullseye as well - Andrew Wood has never disclosed them AFAIK, and neither did Jim Bowen - if he even knew about them, but as he died in 2018 we'll never know if he did or not.

Of course SiL wasn't the only thing Thames were doing - they probably made more money off The Bill and flogging that internationally than some gameshow they can knock out quickly via block recording over a two week period that will probably only ever be seen domestically.