Just before the first ever episode of Ant & Dec’s Limitless Win early last year, Ant McPartlin joked that it would end up bankrupting ITV.
A couple of NHS workers duly scooped half a million pounds on that opening show, and we all started to think he might not be joking after all.
Since then though? It’s all gone a bit quiet on the kerching front, and viewers are wondering how much longer ITV can bang on about limitless wins when no one is limitlessly winning?
For all Ant & Dec’s breathless wonder at the millions on offer, I wouldn’t be surprised if ITV’s omnipotent phone comp irritant Andi Peters had actually given away more in the last 13 months.
The difference, of course, is that with Peters someone is definitely scooping the money. With Ant & Dec someone will definitely be in with a chance of possibly getting the opportunity to perhaps be in a position to win some potentially big money - if they are lucky.
No surprise then that the second series bowed out with no big pay out last weekend.
And it would already appear the viewers are not in possession of limitless patience. The show has lost over a third of its opening audience and is not even in the weekly Top 30.
As I see it, Ant & Dec now have two options.
Either they carry on excitedly showing us their Limitless Ladder, stretching up into the sky like Jack’s beanstalk, and just hope someone finally climbs it before the remaining viewers have given up.
Or they make the questions easier and/or multiple choice for a third (and final) series and let the contestants take ITV to the cleaners.
The first option feels risky. Plus, with the way inflation is going, by the time someone finally wins a million it probably won’t be that big a deal.
The second option seems wiser. The show goes out in a blaze of glory and is remembered as the biggest prize-giver in British TV history.
And don’t worry about ITV’s finances, lads. They can always borrow a few quid from Andi Peters.
