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ITV confirms it has axed three prime-time shows

Change Your Tune, Our Shirley Valentine Summer and The Big Audition will not be baack

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ITV has axed Change Your Tune, Our Shirley Valentine Summer and The Big Audition following poor ratings.

The prime time shows have been all been cancelled after just one series due to “embarrassing” ratings.

They were beaten in viewer numbers by some of the BBC’s low-budget shows, including The Big Painting Challenge and Eat Well For Less.

Gregg Wallace fronts Eat Well For Less (Credit: BBC)

A TV source told The Sun newspaper’s TV Bizarre column: “At one point the three shows were hailed as exciting new entertainment formats for ITV.

“However, they’ve all proven to be quite the opposite and saw ratings drop week on week.

“So they decided it’s not worth throwing any more money at them.

“It’s pretty embarrassing given how much they were bigged up.”

Lee Smithurst hosted Change Your Tune (Credit: ITV)

Change Your Tune, which saw people who could not sing try and transform their voice through rigorous training, fared the worst in viewer numbers as it only drew in 300,000 people in its final episode.

This was followed by 700,000 viewers for The Big Audition, which saw the general public take part in real-life auditions for their dream job.

Just 1.8 million viewers tuned in for Our Shirley Valentine Summer, where eight female celebrities – including Lizzie Cundy and Melinda Messenger – traveled to Greece in a bid to find love.

Our Shirley Valentine Summer won’t be back (Credit: ITV)

ITV executive Carolyn McCall admitted: “While overall our schedule is performing strongly, not all our programmes performed as we had hoped.

“So some, for example Change Your Tune, Our Shirley Valentine Summer and The Big Audition, will not return.”

This news comes as ITV previously announced it had axed it’s long-running comedy sitcoms Birds of a Feather, Bad Move and Benidorm.

birds of a feather
Birds Of A Feather was recently axed (Credit: ITV)

Kevin Lygo, ITV’s Director of Television, said: “We had success with ‘Birds of a Feather’, that was our most successful sitcom in years, but it’s come to a sort of natural end.”

Will you miss any of them? Leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix and let us know what you think.


Kaggie Hyland
Editor-in-Chief