R&J repositioned
Wednesday, September 17, 2008 by Graham Kibble-White
Richard and Judy’s New Position – that’s the naughty name for the duo’s new show.
Revealed today to the press at – yes – this afternoon’s UKTV launch, the First Couple of Television spoke about why decided their time was up at C4.
“About a year ago,” said Richard, “we’d finished the last series of the Channel 4 show, and signed a new one year contract. Judy looked at me and said, ‘What if they’d given us a two-year contract, would you have wanted to sign that?’. My first reaction was, ‘Yeah’, but then I thought, ‘Hold on…’
“Then we had a week’s conversation,” he continued, “and we realised that actually we’d done This Morning for 13 years, and we’d done the Richard & Judy show for C4 for six years, at that point, with another one to go. And that format – it’s a magazine format, not a chat show – well, we couldn’t really take it anywhere else. We phoned C4 and gave them lots of notice that we were thinking of moving on.”
Having turned down an offer from ITV to go to the south of France for a year to run a vineyard for a reality show, the duo then opted for a deal with UKTV and their new channel, Watch, which launches on October 7.
Richard again: “This UKTV thing began to emerge. It seemed like the very best offer on the table, for two reasons. We’ve never really done a chat show, only a magazine show. We tried a few on ITV some years back, but they were only half-hours, and you need an hour. UKTV offered us an hour, and 8pm, a brilliant slot. But the main thing was, as far as we’re concerned – and we’re not trying to be political here – everything’s going to be digital in a few months time. That’s how everyone’s going to be watching television.
“I think, and Judy thinks, it’s a good move at the right time.”
Have a look at the brilliant R&J trailer on Watch’s official website: www.justwatch.co.uk
Who did they hire to come up with that name, Richard Curtis? I see that Madeley is still a sucker for whatever he’s read in the latest edition of New Media Age: “everything’s going to be digital in a few months time.” Him and Judy have made a bad move, I think. Regardless of whether they’ll get any viewers, there’s a more fundamental problem here, and that’s they’re no good at chat shows. They are journalists and are best doing magazine formats – not glitzy celebrity-heavy affairs. Also, in that trailer Judy looks like Joan Sanderson from After Henry (not a good thing).
It feels like Watch and I think of that name without thinking of James Earl Adair… But it seems like they want their portfolio to be self important by recruiting R and J. For Richard and Judy, its one last payday before retiring to do whatever they want… I give it a few months….