About Live & Kicking

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Live and Kicking was the fourth programme to occupy the Saturday Morning slot, and its first programme was broadcast 17 years to-the-day that it all started with Swap Shop.

The BAFTA award winning Live and Kicking had it's debut in 1993, and is the longest running programme in the slot having entered into it's eighth series in 2000.

The programme survived having four completely different presenting teams through it's run. The original presenters Andi Peters and Emma Forbes were replaced by Jamie Theakston and Zoë Ball, who in turn were replaced by Steve Wilson and Emma Ledden, who in turn were... well, we'll come to that a little later.

Once again, the tried and tested format of live television, guests, pop music, cartoons, competitions and live phone-ins was used. As they say... if it ain't broke - don't fix it!

Another thing that's been unique to this incarnation of the Saturday Morning format is the sheer number of supporting 'cast' it's had. Take a look at the Data Sheet to see for yourself!

After the end of the seventh series, a special edition of the programme Music Live and Kicking (incidentally, the first time the programme was broadcast in digital widescreen) was broadcast as part of the BBC's Music Live project.

The programme had two spin-offs, L&K Friday with lasted for two series (during the programme's fifth and sixth years) as a half hour Friday version of the programme within the afternoon's CBBC sequence.The first series was presented by Jamie and Zoë, but the second was presented by Steve Wilson (who would go on to present the seventh series of L&K) and Liz Fraser. The introduction of the digital channel BBC Choice saw a weekly edited version of the programme's highlights (lasting about 90 minutes) called L&K Replay - this disappeared when CBBC on Choice was launched.

The seventh series of the show saw the ratings drop, and the curtain seemed to have come down on this incarnation of the Saturday Morning show, when on July 4, 2000 it was announced that both Steve and Emma had left the show by mutual agreement. The BBC said that they were looking into the future of the show, and did not rule out replacing it. See the Ceefax image to the right.

All lay quiet for a couple of months, until early September when it was announced that the show would be returning with a new presentation team of four. Katy Hill (ex of Blue Peter), Ortis Deley (L&K series 7, Short Change, Why 5), Trey Farley (MTV Europe) and Sarah Cawood (Nickelodeon, Channel 5) were joined together to front the eighth series of the show, which had been given a major facelift.

In an announcement on March 20, 2001 it was revealed that the eighth series was to be the last. The ratings had not recovered sufficiently to warrant carrying on with the programme. A new replacement was to be launched in 2001 running all year, rather that the traditional October - April slot.

And as a final twist, it was revealed that Live & Kicking was to run across the summer, just like it's replacement would. The show was relocated to the BBC's Glasgow studios on April 21, 2001.

The final Live & Kicking was broadcast on 15 September 2001.