ITV Drop Axe On Bingo Night Live

ITV’s interactive Bingo game show “Bingo Night Live”, which had a 99-game run, has been given the chop after poor viewing figures caused the network to rethink their priorities.  First broadcast in June, the show ran until the middle of this month, but it failed to be cost-effective and a series of changes along with a general aura of uncertainty constituted a death-knell for the innovative new project.  After five months of collaboration between the channel’s television and online platforms.  330 games and out, farewell Bingo Night Live, we hardly knew ye.

When ITV launched the interactive project on the 4th of June it was hosted by former celebrity Melinda Messenger and ran five hour-long shows a week.  A budget cut meant they couldn’t afford Melinda any more, and also saw the show’s frequency cut to three nights a week.  Briefly in the news in October when a player in Margate won £60,500 – at that time a world record for online Bingo – the show then ran until the 15th of November, five days after the end of the season was announced.  At that time the rumour mill seemed to agree that a new season would be commissioned.

A source from the network said that while the show had been a worthwhile experiment, the viewing figures had been low.  While it attracted a reasonable number of online players, very few of those could be bothered playing for cash, and as a consequence the show failed to be commercially viable.  ITV’s online bingo platform will not be affected by the failure of Bingo Night Live, but given the result of the interactive experiment, it would seem that this is one idea that has run its course.  Melinda Messenger had not been asked to comment at the time of going to press.