One of the worst television experiences of my life was working with David Liddimen’s ITV. I did a pilot program for them called Hoaxbusters – recreating classic scams and cons. Every magazine that previewed it rated it Pick of the Week and every newspaper gave it Pick of the Day. ITV pulled it from air three hours before broadcast. If that wasn’t bad enough they then rescheduled and pulled it from the schedule nine times in the next year. I had a full page preview in TV Times magazine three times without the show ever being shown. It was literally maddening. Almost a year after it was originally scheduled it went out at midnight. Almost every newspaper marked it as a repeat since they had seen it in the listing so many times before.
It’s a shame. Hoaxbusters was one of the best things I ever did on television and it was so much fun to do. Here is a scam that we did 13 times both in front of the camera and with reporters as part of the PR campaign. Guess how many times it worked.
John Lenahan's Year of Gratuitous Socks 