Okay, so I have been forced to watch this, and a few things I have noticed in the first 5minutes.

[Rant]

Firsty, Three people on stage, but only 2radio mics. Yes it looks sloppy swapping mics between people but are they really trying to do this on such a low budget they do not want to fork out the extra cash for a 3rd radio mic?

Secondly, they had a "live" performance of one of the songs from the show. This "live" performance was in my opinion, definately a mimed one. The singers sounded like they were singing in a 3'x3' box room, rather than in the nice open in-the-round auditorium they were in. No mics to be seen, but that doesn't really mean anything these days with the use of hairline mics. Does this annoy anyone else? Again it seems to come down to a budget issue? Probably due Denise van outen stealing all the money for her pay cheque? 

I have just seen a bit more with the Actors who were "singing" and dancing the song earlier, doing a spoken word part. With a noticable amount of reverb, but it was pretty natural sounding. (It did look like the same space as before, but I could be mistaken!) This enforces my thoughs about a pre-recorded track. Surely with a high-profile (ish) TV programme, they should have been a decent quality and realistic sounding track?

Finally, does anyone know which space the opening was filmed in? I'm guessing london somewhere? I am curious because of seeing an in-the-round professionally looking venue with the stage lower than the seats.

[/Rant] 

Well, not particularly. Good to see some young kids with a bit of talent still! But technically a very unimpressive and uninspiring programme! I guess thats what I get for watching Sky 1?

Moderation: QUALITY CONTROL - all the totally off-topic material, not even of crew room standard has been removed. Please remember that in the Technical section - posts are expected to be, well ........ technical!

To try an inspire a bit more discussion about these kind of shows, I've got a few questions.

1) Has anyone worked on these kind of shows or similar, and found that the budget constraints mean that there are some major impracticalities you have had to work around? If so what are they/how did you work around them without the extra budget?

2) Does anyone else feel that television companies are managing to get away with too much low budget and low quality work?

3) Following on from point two: Television (in my opinion) is one of the main contenders to our form of entertainment (the live kind or any sorts). Does anyone find that people are too easily put off seeing a live show because of a) the price and b) the effort involved in actually leaving the house.

Feel free to expand on these points, or add your own.