WATCHING television on a Saturday night instead of going out may seem the ideal way to save cash and beat the credit crunch.
But millions of viewers hoping for a cheap evening's entertainment tomorrow night should be warned more than 60 per cent of programmes on prime-time television will be repeats.
Instead of a new blockbuster crime series or riveting histori
c drama starring the latest heart-throb, television bosses are offering a menu of reheated "choice cuts".
BBC2 will air Have I Got Old News For You with Kirsty Young discussing the 2005 general election results, an episode of Dad's Army first seen in 1975, and a repeat of the comedy Mock The Week based on "current" affairs. It will end the night with highlights of the Open golf at Birkdale, despite having live coverage all afternoon on BBC1.
Dad's Army star Ian Lavender, who played Private Pike, last week said: "It's rather sad Dad's Army has to be repeated ... but there's a need for it because they're not making programmes for the whole family to watch."
On ITV, viewers can look forward to repeats of You've Been Framed!, Foyle's War and Benidorm, while Channel 4 will show Who Drowned Douglas Bader? and Jackass: The Movie, again. Channel Five is replaying Superstars, NCIS, CSI: New York and Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
Campaign group Mediawatch-uk criticised the scheduling, saying all major terrestrial channels, except BBC1 were letting viewers down.
John Beyer, the director of the television watchdog, said: "The main channels should be providing original programming at the weekends when most people view. They can't complain when viewing figures are so low. People are going to go elsewhere and do other things. Because advertising revenue is down, the channels can't afford lots of new programmes so they fall back on repeats."
The channels defended their schedules, saying they still air plenty of original programmes.
A Channel 4 spokesman said: "We have a very low level of repeats in peak time with 80 per cent of our shows first runs. The popularity of our repeats shows the audience values the chance to see certain programmes again."
A spokesman for the BBC said: "Saturday evening is a big entertainment night for BBC1 and we work hard to offer an alternative schedule on BBC2. This weekend we have a new one-hour documentary on Hadrian at 8pm, in the heart of the schedule, and live coverage of the Open.
"It's also an opportunity to showcase the best of BBC4 and to offer viewers another chance to see this week's Mock The Week. Carefully selected repeats are highly valued by viewers and give better value for money."
ITV said: "We have fewer repeats than last year."
Andrew Jones, a former BBC senior manager and head of journalism at Robert Gordon University, said July and August were traditionally a "dead period" before the major autumn launches.
"The kind of situation which viewers will experience tomorrow night is somewhat inevitable. Commercial television is going to struggle to maximise their financial outlays at this time of year and holding off their 'big gun' rolling series when viewers are around to watch them. They are just not prepared to invest their time over the summer."
"There are also a lot of sporting events to cover – European football, Wimbledon, the Open and then the Olympics coming up which swallow up prime viewing time."
Protests fail to halt the re-runs of classic showsTELEVISION repeats are the bane of viewers' lives, with objections being raised frequently about summer, Easter, Bank Holiday and Christmas scheduling.
Last April, the BBC was blasted over its Bank Holiday Monday schedule that crammed more than eight hours of repeats into a 12-hour slot.
Repeats included The Sound of Music and Diagnosis Murder.
ITV1 screened four hours 55 minutes of repeats in the same time slot while Channel Four broadcast six hours' worth.
Don Foster, the Lib Dem culture, media and sport spokesman, said at the time: "There's been talk of repeat-free zones, but it hasn't happened … We're being sold short. The public is fed-up with a diet of reheated programmes."
Last Christmas, broadcasters ransacked their archives for repeats to fill their schedules over the festive period.
The BBC showed vintage favourites Dad's Army, Blackadder, The Good Life and Porridge.
Channel Four showed no fewer than 16 repeats on Christmas Eve including two Raymond Briggs classics, The Snowman and Father Christmas and a Three Tenors concert featuring Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and José Carreras.
But the negative publicity has done little to get broadcasters to change their scheduling. They argue that viewers like to see classic TV shows and films again.
Television insiders predict the situation will deteriorate because the rise in the licence fee was below the rate of inflation.
The full article contains 809 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
