TMB to relaunch Tripe TV

A new TV channel for tripe lovers across the nation will begin broadcasting in autumn 2017, Tripe Marketing Board chairman Sir Norman Wrassle announced today.

The plans for the channel include an extensive range of cookery programmes, as well as a broad focus on what Sir Norman described as "cross-over reality TV shows".

The key points of the new channel - which will be called Tripe TV - are:

• A "prominent" slot on the Electronic Programme Guide (the exact slot will be subject to discussions with providers such a Freeview, Sky and Virgin, but it is expected to be located between The Cupcake Channel and Naughty Grannies)
• Broadcast from 7pm to midnight every evening
• Integrated hour-long news programme at 9pm, edited and presented from Preston by celebrity newscasters Mike and Bernice Williams.

Spatchcock TV re-runs will be a staple of Tripe TV

Tripe TV will also give extensive coverage to reality TV and science programmes. Highlights of the schedule are likely to include F*** Me It’s Graham Rumsey hosted by the foul mouthed celebrity chef, I’m Famous Put A Wasp In My Mouth and The Only Way Is No Sex, a reality TV programme set in a monastery.

Sir Norman said: “We believe there are just not enough cookery programmes on TV. The BBC is doing a great job but we believe there is a market for people who want to watch cookery programmes 24 hours a day 7 days a week."

The channel will also feature re-runs of classic Spatchcock TV shows such as Cooking Hell and Pyragas ir CHiPs.

Tripe TV was originally launched in autumn 2013 on a trial basis via cable to 100 households in Accrington, Lancashire, but viewing figures were disappointing, as it was only rarely watched by more than 5% of those able to receive it.  Specially-commissioned flagship shows such as Can Cook Can't Cook and The Great British Tripe-Off failed to strike a chord with audiences, while afternoon scheduling of movies by director Alfred Spatchcock such as Moss Side Story and Shallow Gravy attracted fewer viewers than when they had originally been shown in the cinema. The channel was closed in early 2014.

"The public's appetite for tripe on TV seems to show no bounds," Sir Norman said, adding "This time, we think we've got the mix just right". 

TMB revises 2017 sales forecasts

The Tripe Marketing Board has sharply upgraded its forecast for UK tripe sales, predicting that tripe  output will expand as fast this year as it did last year and that sales will be much more buoyant than it predicted before the EU referendum in 2016.

Speaking to an audience of meat trade experts in Preston earlier today, TMB chairman Sir Norman Wrassle said the tripe industry was at a turning point and that 2017 could see the first increase in tripe sales since 1954.

"It's too early to tell, but the indicators are all there," Sir Norman said, adding that retailers had reported the smallest ever decline in quarterly sales in the autumn.  "This means that fewer people than ever before are turning away from tripe and it could well mean that sales will actually increase at some point this year," he said.