Eurovision 2024

[Jono]

BBC charity show Celebrity Scissorhands cost £1million in licence fee cash but raised a measly £36,000, TV Biz can reveal.

And just £2,500 of that came from viewers’ phone votes.

The two-week BBC charity show featured celebs, including Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry and Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills, being trained as hairdressers.

The Beeb paid to set up a studio salon and the action was aired on daily hour-long prime-time shows and streaming on BBC3, with catch-up programmes on BBC1.

Host Alex Zane handed over £23,000 to Children In Need on November 17 from the proceeds of the show.

But TV Biz has discovered that production company Endemol stumped up at least half that amount — which went to various children’s charities — while only £2,500 was raised from viewers voting for best celebrity trimmer.

More cash was raised by viewers who had haircuts in the salon, and passing celebrities, including Sharon Osbourne — whose dog Minnie was styled on the show.

Scott Mills’s Radio 1 programme also raised money, which came in after the TV show ended, bringing the total raised to £36,000. The paltry phone amount only emerged when Endemol met with BBC bosses to discuss bringing the show back for this year’s Children In Need.

A TV source said: “Endemol were keen to make it again, but were then told the BBC discovered it did not make much on the phonelines.

“But the phonelines weren’t open constantly as they are for other viewer vote shows — they were only open for four hours a day.

“And they were asking people to vote for their favourite hairdresser rather than evict anyone so the BBC were pleased with the response.”

Last night a BBC spokeswoman said: “Celebrity Scissorhands raised more than £36,000 for Children in Need, which is a fantastic amount of money. The series worked really well in engaging the BBC3 viewers and successfully raising further awareness of Children In Need to a younger audience. We are discussing the idea of Celebrity Scissorhands returning.”

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2001320029-2007080294,00.html

[*becky*93]

its for charity at the end of the day it will lose money

[Jono]

I don't think the viewing figures were that bad, I swear half of Norfolk were watching the live coverage when I was on. But seriously it had to be better than the Only Fools On Horses pap, I didn't really believe that was hitting the right target audience. Bearing in mind the celebrities didn't even get an appearance fee.

So for this I think the use of the license fee was justified. Had they have put more of it on BBC One and BBC Two I think it would have been worth it, but most of the output was shown on BBC Three.

[Monitorabbit]

Moyles said this morning the BBC should give him half a million and he'd donate £100,000 to charity - problem with that is no media people would get work or exposure ,and we wouldn't get any entertainment. After saying that, have to admit I'd only watch again if Scott was on - maybe he could co- host or something, or introduce a daily highlights show on BBC2?

[Kelly]

It was an awful, awful program. I only watched because Scott was on it, which my step-dad pointed out to me only two days into it. That man knows me too well. :-?

[~bex~]

I too only watched because Scott was on. I think the show would have done much better if it was on BBC 1 or 2, or even if it had still been on BBC 3 but had been better advertised - the only reason I knew it was on is because of Scott talking about it, and I suspect alot of the viewers were people watching because of Scott.