It has to be said, switching on Channel 4 on a weekday afternoon just hasn’t been the same since Christmas. The loss of Deal Or No Deal and the daily visit to Noel Edmonds’ Dream Factory remains something that many fans simply cannot get over.
The decision to cancel the popular show was first announced in August last year, when Channel 4 confirmed that after 11 years on our screens it would come to end by leaving its usual Bristol base and heading out on an ambitious farewell tour. This saw the show filmed at locations including the Eden Project and 37,000 feet high in a Boeing 737, the latter being unsurprisingly the first time a major quiz show has been filmed on a plane.
Bringing a new feel to the show, the tour episodes were a great way for it to go out. However, there is now undoubtedly a hole in the Channel 4 schedule that no amount of Fifteen To One and Come Dine With Me can cover. Quite simply, where are we going to get our Deal or No Deal fix?
Any fans feeling a little bereft do have a couple of options open to them. For example, the official Twitter account is still being maintained and often shares video clips of memorable moments across the show’s history, whether you want to see players hitting the £250,000 jackpot or becoming unfortunate members of the 1p club.
Furthermore, Fabulous Bingo is home to online slot games based on Deal Or No Deal which are not going anywhere despite the show’s unfortunate fate. The Banker’s Riches focuses on taking on the man with the money to win big, while Virtue Fusion’s Quick Scratch is a virtual scratch card which reproduces the theme of the show with red boxes and ringing phones aplenty. There is also a mobile game based on the show which is available for iOS and Android.
However, while there are at least a few things around to ensure the memory of the show lives on, the big question is has Deal or No Deal truly left our screens for good? Well, not necessarily.
Noel Edmonds is reported to have bagged himself a major contract to present three new game shows on Channel 4, including a series which would see contestants bid live on antique items and another where players would be asked to guess the price of specific items.
However, despite his own position being secure, he has always refused to be drawn on the idea that Deal or No Deal has gone for good.
When news of the series being cancelled was announced, he even described the tour of locations as “the beginning of an exciting new era”. Not exactly the words you tend use when your show is about to come to an end.
But it appears he may not have been purely putting an optimistic spin on things. As the show’s run reached its final episodes, its executive producer Richard Hague told RadioTimes.com that the tour did not mean the show was finished.
He said: “People weren’t sure what we were going to do with the format, and then this came along and we did ten great shows. So next year we’ll see if we want to do some more.”
Perhaps even more interestingly, Hague added that a switch of channels might not be off the cards if an opportunity arose to revive the series elsewhere, stating that the show and its format were “not broken”.
So, the future of Deal Or No Deal clearly remains uncertain. While it might have ended, it may not be for good. Much may well depend on the success of the new shows fronted by Edmonds and whether they are able to capture the tone and style which made Deal Or No Deal such a runaway success when it first hit our screens. It may also be the case that while its studio days are over, the appetite remains to take the show out on the road after the final ten-episode run proved so popular, eccentric and entertaining.
With any luck, it could even be back on our screens before the end of the year. But what to do while we wait? Well, you’ll find us playing the online games and refreshing the Twitter account for a start.
Featured image source: Twitter via @DigitalSpy