It IS THE Last of the Summer Wine!

BBC comedy series should have been cancelled long ago, argues ATV’s telly critic Queenie le Trout.

Once more rumours claim that the BBC want to cancel Last of the Summer Wine and quite right too! In fact it’s been widely speculated for some years now that the corporation wants rid but it’s too popular to axe. Well ATV BOG is here to dispute that!

In 2003 the readers of the Radio Times voted it the television show they would most like to see cancelled, with Heartbeat [also set in Yorkshire, and now axed] coming in second. The show beat dross like Big Brother to win that title – now that is saying something. Last of the Summer Wine received twice as many votes as Heartbeat! Just last year the readers of Country Life magazine voted the show the Worst Thing about Yorkshire.

So readers want it axed and think it doesn’t represent Yorkshire well…hardly making it popular but then there are the ratings.

In its heyday the show attracted over eighteen million viewers but no show commands such audiences now. However, Last of the Summer Wine has dropped down the ratings chart considerably and hasn’t pulled in more than five million viewers for some time. According to the figures the 2007 series averaged 3.2 million viewers while the 2008 series rated slightly higher with 4 million viewers.

Now if any other show had dropped so far down the ratings chart it would have been axed! In fact programmes which have rated very well, on any channel, have been axed before due to controllers not liking them. [Doctor Who or Crossroads for example].

So low ratings mixed with viewers desire to see it cancelled hardly makes it popular, does it? Mix in the long-standing perception that each episode seems to involve three OAPs chasing a bath down a hill, which may or may not have another OAP sitting inside, and you have all the ingredients you need for an axe.

The programme is long past its best-by date and with the sad deaths of several of the actors, such as Bill Owen and Kathy Staff, in recent years maybe it’s best to draw the series to a close. After all 33 years is a good run!