I want to talk about something related to an Italian TV program that, while having happened a little less than a year ago, still cracks me up.
So, as you might know, football/soccer is a huge deal here in Italy, so there would obviously be many programs that talk about it. One of the biggest programs was "Quelli che... il calcio" ("Those who... football/soccer"). This program aired for almost 30 years, and, while looking like a normal variety show, with guests, comedic bits, songs and something more, the ace in their sleeves was that they were essentially the closest thing you had to watch the games without watching them.
In fact, they aired on Sunday afternoons, while most Serie A games were played, and had special guests going to the stadiums and providing commentary on what was happening in that game (they were usually celebrities who actually supported the teams involved).
It was nice because, back then, it was a way for football fans to have a wider understanding on how the games were going if all they could afford was national TV, especially in their early editions in the 90s and early 2000s, when internet was at its beginning so you couldn't exactly check online to figure out.
This was the norm, and it had become one of the mainstays of Italian television. You could have been certain that, even when there were only 2 or 3 games playing simultaneously, "Quelli che... il calcio" was going to be there and talk about them.
However, in 2021, Serie A decided to shake things up, and, now their games are almost always played on their own, with rarely any overlapping, with clear exceptions (such as, for instance, the final one, where goals and objectives are at stake).
This meant that "Quelli che... il calcio" had to change something. Either they were going to air on their usual Sunday afternoon slot, and talk about whichever game was playing (which could have been an issue since, with only ONE game to talk about, perhaps only the supporters of the teams involved would have tuned in) or, as they did, they chose to air on Monday nights, after all the games had been played, and discuss about them all.
They could no longer provide commentary, but the other things (guests, sketches, music and so on) were still there, so no big issues, right? Right?
It barely lasted a few months before being cancelled, due to low ratings.
To me, that seems a bit funny, because the show, which had been on for so long that people could have taken for granted that it would have been there, had to remove ONE thing, and people stopped watching it since they were apparently tuning in BECAUSE of that one thing.
It's like, I don't know, if a long running TV show fires an actor and then the ratings drop as they realize that the millions of people watching it were there BECAUSE of that actor, or if a band replaces its singer and suddenly they go from worldwide success to falling into obscurity with just one album.
Indeed, it feels weird that, this year, "Quelli che... il calcio" won't be on TV to talk about Serie A, but I cannot imagine a larger "yeah sorry we actually didn't care about all the other things we just wanted the one thing you removed" example.