Countdown with Richard Whitely

[mwooldri]

and Carol Vordermann - definitely strange after both of them left. Richard Whitely - RIP, we'll miss you. Carol Vordemann, we'll miss you but IMO ITV Productions did you a disservice.

http://static.guim.co.uk/Guardian/media/gallery/2008/jul/28/television.television/[e-mail]

http://www.channel4.com/countdown

For those who don't know, Countdown is a quiz show on UK's Channel 4 - it was also the first program on the channel when it launched. Richard Whitely hosted it from its launch until he died in October 2005. Countdown is older than Channel 4 - Richard hosted early versions locally on Yorkshire TV until it launched on C4 in November 1982, and for the first two years also continued in his role as evening anchor of Calendar, the local TV newscast. He thus earned the nickname Twice Nightly Whitely. There's been two hosts since Richards' death, the latest host Des O'Connor announced he would leave at the end of December... whilst Carol Vordermann's contract was not renewed, basically because ITV Productions wanted to give her a 90% pay cut - she was willing to take 33% to stay with the show but was told rather unkindly that "the show survived when Richard died, the show will survive without you." Carol was on #800,000 UKP a year, her replacement, a recent Oxford graduate named Rachel Riley (Carol graduated from Cambridge) will be on #100,000 UKP. (where's the pound key where you need it?). The main chair will be Jeff Stelling, presently a presenter on Sky Sports.

Yes, it's a copycat. But there's more than one Countdown, and this Countdown's older than MSNBC.