Richard and Judy expected to call time on TV double act -
Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan's low-rating chatshow on Watch channel to cease production six months early

Ben Dowell reprting for the guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 May 2009

Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan with J.K.Rowling (pic Ian West): 'We were a bit too far ahead of the curve'

Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan are expected to call time on their television double act with the news that their low-rating chatshow on the digital channel Watch will come off air in early July, six months before the end of their contract with the broadcaster.
The pair will present the final edition of their show, recently renamed Richard & Judy, on the digital channel Watch when the current series ends on 3 July.

Madeley and Finnigan had the opportunity to continue the show until December but a break clause in the contract allowed them to cease production in the summer and they have said that they will now pursue other projects "together and separately".
The pair, who have worked together onscreen for the past 21 years since the launch of This Morning, have already intimated that they may pursue solo careers after the end of their Watch show.
Madeley revealed in an edition of Radio 4's Desert Island Discs broadcast in March: "We both feel we have done pretty much all we can do as a partnership in terms of the talkshows but I think probably we both feel the need to diversify.
"It has been over 20 years doing the same kind of thing and there are tantalising possibilities in terms of solo projects or one-off projects together."

The new show saw Madeley and Finnigan – who made their names on daytime first with ITV's This Morning with Richard and Judy and then with a new Channel 4 show following their defection in 2001 – become the star attraction on the new UKTV channel Watch when it launched in October last year.

However, their Watch show averaged just 47,000 viewers in its first fortnight and one edition attracted just 8,000 viewers.
This was a far cry from their heyday presenting This Morning With Richard and Judy on ITV1 when they commanded between one and two million viewers, a high figure for daytime. Their early evening Channel 4 show attracted a similar average audience after their defection.
"Ratings had not been in line with expectations and new audience research has prompted Watch to re-focus its direction towards family-skewed entertainment and away from topical-discussion-based output," a spokesman for the pair said.

Madeley and Finnigan added: "Some you win, some you lose. It's a shame we couldn't get this one to fly because both we and our brilliant young production team were genuinely proud of the show and the guests it attracted. But it became obvious that it wasn't the right fit with a brand new pay-for-view digital channel.
"Many of our former viewers have told us they simply couldn't find us there. When we started we said we wanted to get ahead of the curve, as British television inevitably goes digital. Looks like we were a bit too far ahead of the curve!
"Perhaps a bridge too far too soon, despite UKTV's strong support. But TV is all about taking risks and that means sometimes you fail. It was a really worthwhile experiment and we don't regret it at all. Now we're both going on to other projects, together and separately."

Initially called Richard & Judy's New Position and later renamed Richard & Judy, the hour-long show aired at 8pm before being moved to a 6pm slot in January and was their first foray into early evening programming.
Cactus TV, the independent production company that has produced Madeley and Finnigan's shows for Channel 4 and Watch, said today it was in discussions with media partners over continuing one of the most successful features of these programmes, the Book Club and Summer Read.
Both launched in 2004 as part of Channel 4's Richard & Judy and are credited with boosting UK book sales and the profile of a number of previously unknown authors.
Featured titles are known to increase sales by as much as 3,000% overnight and the Book Club has turned at least eight authors into multi-millionaires.

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