Community hub
Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
The Paul O'Grady Show
The Paul O'Grady Show was a British comedy chat show presented by comedian Paul O'Grady, first shown on 11 October 2004. The programme was a teatime chat show consisting of a mixture of celebrity guests, comic stunts, musical performances, and occasionally viewer competitions.
The format was originally devised by Granada Productions (now known as ITV Studios) and was broadcast on ITV until December 2005, before moving to Channel 4 in 2006, where the show was produced by Olga TV. The show originally ended in 2009 when O'Grady announced a move back to ITV, adapting his format to prime-time for Friday nights at 9pm, hosting Paul O'Grady Live from 2010. However the show underperformed in the ratings, averaging just over 3 million viewers, and ended after two series in 2011 amongst reports O'Grady was "keen to move on".
Three years later, the original teatime format returned to ITV on 11 November 2013, airing at its traditional time of weekdays at 5pm. It concluded its twelfth run on 13 December 2013. It returned for a thirteenth series on 28 April 2014, which ended on 30 May 2014. The programme has averaged 2 million viewers in its 5pm slot. A third and final revived series began airing on 20 April 2015 on ITV and ended on 29 May 2015.
The show ran weekdays, Monday to Friday, for one hour from 5:00 pm. Each episode follows O'Grady being introduced, walking to his desk with one of his pet dogs; originally Buster, a Shih Tzu and Bichon Frise cross, until his death shortly before the show originally ended in 2009, and Olga, a Cairn Terrier who regularly appeared after the series returned in 2013. O'Grady read out viewers' letters, sometimes with disgust at the things viewers have sent (which included vibrating soap, a viewer's dead goldfish wrapped in tissue and children's letters asking if Paul wears a wig or dentures).
The remainder of the programme consists of interviews with two or more celebrity guests. Children were also featured in segments of the show such as reviewing toys, games and films, or demonstrating skills (such as speed cup stacking). The show was broadcast live from The London Studios.
ITV previously had trouble filling the 5-6pm slot with a popular programme, with two daytime soap operas failing to achieve significant ratings in the slot. Night and Day launched in 2001 but moved from its teatime slot in 2002 after falling ratings. Similarly the revived version of Crossroads occupied the slot from March 2001, however it too saw a decline in ratings particularly after major cast and production changes towards the end and was axed in mid-2003. Furthermore, daytime versions of popular gameshows Catchphrase and Family Fortunes had also been tried out within teatime during 2002 but had also failed to succeed, leading to their subsequent original cancellations. The Paul O'Grady Show was seen as the saviour of this teatime slot.
ITV commissioned The Paul O'Grady Show in October 2004 following O'Grady's appearance as a guest presenter for the (somewhat similar formatted) lunch-time entertainment show Today with Des and Mel. ITV management were so impressed by his initial standing in – a replacement for regular host Des O'Connor – that he was brought back several more times, and subsequently O'Grady was given his own show (O'Grady also became good friends with co-presenter Melanie Sykes, who went on to stand in for him on O'Grady's own show on occasion).
Guess the Tune (which became well known as The Organ Game on the Channel 4 version, and the second on ITV), a phone-in-competition where O'Grady plays tunes on his organ and the contestant has to guess them correctly to win up to £2,000, became a popular feature of the programme. The tune that O'Grady played leading into the game was a truncated version of "Sing As We Go", by Gracie Fields. Also a stalwart of the show was O'Grady's Shih Tzu/Bichon Frise cross dog, Buster, who appeared for a full five minutes at the start of each programme since the ITV incarnation of the show.
Hub AI
The Paul O'Grady Show AI simulator
(@The Paul O'Grady Show_simulator)
The Paul O'Grady Show
The Paul O'Grady Show was a British comedy chat show presented by comedian Paul O'Grady, first shown on 11 October 2004. The programme was a teatime chat show consisting of a mixture of celebrity guests, comic stunts, musical performances, and occasionally viewer competitions.
The format was originally devised by Granada Productions (now known as ITV Studios) and was broadcast on ITV until December 2005, before moving to Channel 4 in 2006, where the show was produced by Olga TV. The show originally ended in 2009 when O'Grady announced a move back to ITV, adapting his format to prime-time for Friday nights at 9pm, hosting Paul O'Grady Live from 2010. However the show underperformed in the ratings, averaging just over 3 million viewers, and ended after two series in 2011 amongst reports O'Grady was "keen to move on".
Three years later, the original teatime format returned to ITV on 11 November 2013, airing at its traditional time of weekdays at 5pm. It concluded its twelfth run on 13 December 2013. It returned for a thirteenth series on 28 April 2014, which ended on 30 May 2014. The programme has averaged 2 million viewers in its 5pm slot. A third and final revived series began airing on 20 April 2015 on ITV and ended on 29 May 2015.
The show ran weekdays, Monday to Friday, for one hour from 5:00 pm. Each episode follows O'Grady being introduced, walking to his desk with one of his pet dogs; originally Buster, a Shih Tzu and Bichon Frise cross, until his death shortly before the show originally ended in 2009, and Olga, a Cairn Terrier who regularly appeared after the series returned in 2013. O'Grady read out viewers' letters, sometimes with disgust at the things viewers have sent (which included vibrating soap, a viewer's dead goldfish wrapped in tissue and children's letters asking if Paul wears a wig or dentures).
The remainder of the programme consists of interviews with two or more celebrity guests. Children were also featured in segments of the show such as reviewing toys, games and films, or demonstrating skills (such as speed cup stacking). The show was broadcast live from The London Studios.
ITV previously had trouble filling the 5-6pm slot with a popular programme, with two daytime soap operas failing to achieve significant ratings in the slot. Night and Day launched in 2001 but moved from its teatime slot in 2002 after falling ratings. Similarly the revived version of Crossroads occupied the slot from March 2001, however it too saw a decline in ratings particularly after major cast and production changes towards the end and was axed in mid-2003. Furthermore, daytime versions of popular gameshows Catchphrase and Family Fortunes had also been tried out within teatime during 2002 but had also failed to succeed, leading to their subsequent original cancellations. The Paul O'Grady Show was seen as the saviour of this teatime slot.
ITV commissioned The Paul O'Grady Show in October 2004 following O'Grady's appearance as a guest presenter for the (somewhat similar formatted) lunch-time entertainment show Today with Des and Mel. ITV management were so impressed by his initial standing in – a replacement for regular host Des O'Connor – that he was brought back several more times, and subsequently O'Grady was given his own show (O'Grady also became good friends with co-presenter Melanie Sykes, who went on to stand in for him on O'Grady's own show on occasion).
Guess the Tune (which became well known as The Organ Game on the Channel 4 version, and the second on ITV), a phone-in-competition where O'Grady plays tunes on his organ and the contestant has to guess them correctly to win up to £2,000, became a popular feature of the programme. The tune that O'Grady played leading into the game was a truncated version of "Sing As We Go", by Gracie Fields. Also a stalwart of the show was O'Grady's Shih Tzu/Bichon Frise cross dog, Buster, who appeared for a full five minutes at the start of each programme since the ITV incarnation of the show.