Page 14 - The Cube News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

A covid thing here. there were certain shows, i and i think the cube was part of this, we couldn't do audiences, it's great l to do — a show that you know. but it's fine because you know the show. | if you put a new show that i probably would be or better with an audience, that might affect it doing well. - you don't want l to take that risk. i think that happened i quite a lot during covid, and i don't meanjust- with game shows, but a sense of familiarity, of people - going back to what they know. i think that's playing out now across our schedules, - and i think... maybe i hope, but the re...

Layla smith is head of objective media group, part of the tv giant all3media and, before that, she was controller of entertainment at itv. i mean, layla, you're looking after a huge selection of programmes at objective. what are your big hits at the moment? well, like what we're talking| about, one of the big things, was bringing the cube| back after many years. so, it was off air for many. years and we bought it back last year in october. it was a £1 million - cube with new gameplay. it's back again this year, i and there are other shows that we are either rebooting formats on from other - t...

Been quite cynical. we could have gone in and said, "let's always play that trick, "let's always give them pink or green or purple "when they don't want it." but, actually, we didn't. actually i think that's the key, hopefully, to it sustaining an audience. layla, you mentioned the cube coming back later this year and, as you say, it had the £1 million specials aired last year. again, for those who haven't seen it, what does phillip schofield guide the viewer through on a typical episode of the cube? well, the cube, it's . a very simple tag line. you have nine lives to playl seven deceptively...

We felt like it needed - new elements to come back, and it wasn'tjust £1 million. that was a discussion we had i with itv about creating a stunt week, but we felt like _ a two—player game would make it far more interesting. we introduced a different lifeline as a result of thatj because we felt like it's great| to have something evergreen. it's a format like — - game shows are so hard to get right. if you've got one that actually works, don't change that. - well, except, at some point, somebody must�*ve decided that it didn't work, at least not sufficiently enough to stay on the televis...

To look at it and think, | "how can we improve? "does it need _ something changing up? "do we change elements of it? "do we freshen up the format?" when it's a game show... it might be different for ruby and clive with celebrity- interview, that's about really brilliant interview, isn't it? l but i don't think that - happened with the cube. so, actually, it's not so much that the format is broken, . but actually, viewers do demand a freshness to their content. - they don't just want the same thing, ad infinitum, _ and that's i think— what happened with the cube. itjust didn't have a fresh- v...