“Scottish NYE TV is utter rubbish. It's embarrassing.”
It was good until a few years ago. Phil & Aly WERE Hogmanay, but then they got rid of them, got rid of Jackie Bird, now Only An Excuse has finished for good and it's all just quite desperate now. I gather they had a new head/controller who saw a very popular winning formula and decided that it must therefore be changed. Probably trying to attract a much younger audience who are (usually) out partying and not watching TV anyway.
Oh, Clive James was fantastic - I always got an actual buzz when his NYE programme was about to start, because I knew it was going to be hilarious and really something special.
No idea what has happened to BBC1 (England) in the past few years. Whichever artist they choose, they always seem to massively over-promote them - like an ultra-proud parent desperately trying to get their child a part in the local pantomime, by insisting that the producer will not have ever seen somebody as talented as they are.
I only caught a few minutes of Olly where's your troosers and he seemed.... OK, but nowhere near the amazing, dazzling star that the BBC had bigged him up to be. Alicia Keys the other year was awfully flat, too (although she usually is, even on her recordings).
Maybe they should just get a decent pub singer/group (sorry, Robbie - I said decent) with the sole intention of giving everybody a good old entertaining time, without any delusions of personal stardom or unachievably stratospheric talent.