Yet another awful weekend's viewing. Rick Stein AGAIN!! and yes wait for it Rhodes' Food Heroes. We all knew it would happen, but not quite so soon. Why don't you read the comments on the message boards??? I even turned the TV off because I was so fed up.

Come on you people at UKTV cut out the stacks at the weekends and give us more variety in our viewing at the weekends. We have asked you so many times but still nothing is being done.

aw, i like rick stein, his food heroes programmes ar the only ones i could watch over and over again though.

i was annoyed that they are already repeating the abominable Rhodes food heroes, i had been hoping that the repeats of that would disappear into obscurity, but no such luck.

I have to agree with you. They only seem to ever show stacks at the moment and as a result, I rarely watch any more (I was traditionally a weekend viewer).

I used to watch for hours at a time but now manage about 10 minutes of Rick Stein before I wander off to another channel.

It seems to be Rick Stein stacks constantly or am I imagining this?

No , you're quite right ,maddening,every weekend the same,stacks of one chef's programmes until you just give up.So annoying,

i think rick stein is on weekend stacks at the mo because they've been running a local food month on uktvfood to try and drum up publicity for the dreadfull local food heroes with gary rhodes, a bad idea if you ask me, especially as gary's programme has been criticised in comparison to ricks!

Yes Jack - I have been turning over to other channels just to get away from the stacks, and I am fed up with e-mailing them to try and change things as nothing seems to be done. Do you think they want us watching this channel??? Think not.

Rick Stein!!!! Please stop!!!! aaargghhh, I switched off the channel, but came back incase things had changed....they haven't. ho hum

Have you looked at the BARB viewing figures? It would appear that quite a few thousand people may disagree with you.

Just as an example from the most recent figures, week ending 26/11/2006, out of the top ten most viewed programmes (this includes timeshift - recorded) Rick Stein was not only top with 67,000 but also had five of the top ten places. Also all five of those were in the weekend schedule.

As has been said many times you can't please all of the people all of the time, but if you were responsible for the programme schedule would you miss out the most popular according to viewing figures?

The other weeks showed a similar trend that the weekend has the highest proportion, another example is the Nigella Bites weekend, 05/11/2006. Those programmes took seven of the 10 places for the whole week.

Having said all of that I must also confess that sometimes a little variation over the weekend could be nice, so maybe move away from Sunday being more or less a repeat of Saturday for instance.

I am not disputing Ricks shows are good, and probably do get good ratings, as per BARB figures. The reason he is in the top 10 so much is because he is on everyday, every month, if there was a bit more choice of programs on the channel something else may get a look in. The main problem is once one of series ends another comes on, and its only a month or two before that first series creeps round again. I do agree though 67,000 is pretty good for a saturday morning.

Terrydox/Bensonrad - you both are right - but the only reason RS is getting good figures is that people who don't want to watch the rubbish on terrestrial TV who like cooking progs., prefer to tune in to UKTV as there is nothing else, and watching RS repeats is often better than watching the rubbish everyone else puts on. I know that because I do it myself!!! So I don't think the stats are anything to do by really.

If viewing figures are the primary measure can we expect a special "Coronation Street" featuring the recipe for Betty's Hotpot ?

I think you will find that after a week of Food Heroes Franny Craddock could have impressed !

I'm sick of the stacks too! We had a month or so of different shows at the weekend & I feel that as much as we've had guys at UKTV ie Vic, Caroline being the 'face of the website' trying to help, I feel that the return of "Rick Stein all the time" is a bit of a kick in the teeth for all of us who have campaigned for months. The 'new' stuff is mediocre at best, Food Heroes shoud have been a great celebration of Britain's food industry, but in reality it became an outlet for Gary Rhodes & Rosemary Schrager to vent their 'chip on the shoulder' pomposity. We've now got Dick Strawbridge's 'It's not easy being green' which is I'll give a fantastic programme, but has very little to do with food/cooking.

Totally agree Andy who wants to see him going to the toilet with his buch of newspapers. Load of rubbish and not deserving of UKTV Food.

Well I can happily say that the Rick Stein weekends are planned till at least the end of January.

Nigella Bites I can stand........without the inane commentary provided by some idiot, maybe he should be informed a room lined with fitted bookshelves has no bearing on what the girl is making AND has he not realised this is television.......we can SEE what she is doing without his ridiculous blow by blow account

Errrrr what inane commentary provided by some idiot who should be informed a room lined with fitted bookshelves has no bearing on what the girl is making?

I haven't noticed any comentary, or voice, except Nigella herself and those of her guests when she has them.

Is it a service for the blind you have? Maybe turned on in error?

yeah, there is no commentary on nigella, i think it must be a service for the blind

I may be about to be enlightened, are you being serious with your replies or just taking the "Michael".
The voice over that I hear is just so infuriating.

I promise you, I have no voice over at all, I just see and hear all I always did, Nigella, kids, guests, nothing more. Honestly.

I would do a sincere face, but there isn't one. Promise

Rosti, Thanks I shall have to investigate this one further

I logged on this morning to leave a message re this weekends viewing on UK food. I am so pleased to see that alot of you feel the same way about Rick Stein being on ALL WEEKEND! Yes, he is good and interesting but as I work all week, I enjoy seeing a variety of cooking programmes. Please can you stop this as viewers will turn off in their droves! Anyone rememember Carlton Food Network?

Yes, I remember Pat............ long time ago.

Welcome to the boards.

seriously, there is absolutely no voice over!

I went through the various settings both on cable and the TV, Nigella came on screen last night and **%^$££" there was this silly man - "Nigella is breaking an egg"..."the meat is a lovely brown" most infuriating is the fact that it only affects Nigella so it seems like some devious plot to undermine her slot......Hellwire

if it is late at night sometimes they sign things, or put commentary on, try to catch a programme during the daytime