BBC show lost viewers – and received complaints that it was neglecting its core audience – after makeover
BBC2's Gardeners' World is to go back to its roots after a controversial revamp flopped with viewers.
The long-running programme, which first aired in 1968, was given a makeover last year under new presenter Toby Buckland following the departure of Monty Don, who had suffered a stroke.
Critics including former presenter Gay Search complained that it was targeting new gardeners at the expense of its core audience, and ratings for the last series fell below 2 million.
New features on the show included a '30-minute challenge' in which Buckland would create items such as hanging baskets, and a short-lived Top Gear-style segment in which the three presenters retreated to a potting shed to discuss gardening news and viewers' emails.
Stefan Buczacki, the former chairman of BBC Radio 4's Gardeners' Question Time, said the show had become 'trivial, silly and irrelevant by trying to mimic Top Gear and Blue Peter – and if you trivialise, you lose credibility.'
The show's executive producer, Gill Tierney, said the format would 'refocus' when it returns for an extended run in March.
'Change is always difficult and sometimes you don't get it completely right. We have listened to the audience and have taken the criticism on the chin, which is why we are making the changes we are making,' Tierney told the Radio Times.
'We are simply going to refocus to satisfy the needs of our core audience. It will be a much simpler offering. There'll be nothing fancy going on.'
Search, who was a regular presenter on Gardeners' World for six years, said Don's departure had signalled 'what I and many other loyal viewers saw as a deliberate – and unwelcome – change in direction that caused damage to the channel's reputation for serious gardening'.
'Yes, the show went on, but the audience has been quietly opting out ever since.,' she said.
'Gardeners I've met at horticultural societies or in garden centres are almost unanimous in feeling that the programme is now targeting younger, less experienced gardeners at the expense of older, more knowledgeable ones.'
Buckland will continue as a presenter on the show. A corporation spokesman said it was important to cater to a range of gardening needs. 'There are new people becoming interested in gardening all the time and we need to make programmes that they will enjoy as well.'
Two new programmes featuring Gardeners' World presenters Carol Klein and Alys Fowler will launch later this year.
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