W hy you can’t have

MONEY talks. And in the cash-rich world of telly it positively roars like a home cinema sound system on steroids.

The sweet delight that was our midweek guilt-free pleasure was, it seems, just too tempting.

Maker Love Productions, frustrated that Auntie Beeb’s purse was being kept toooo tightly clasped, plumped for the commercial cash cow.

But the prospectt of milking it might soonoon curdle.

Here, Bill Gibb takes a look at some of the nation’sn’s favourite shows andnd best-loved stars that hat found the grass wasas anything but greenerner on the other side. Frances Quinn

Eric and Ernie, like Bake Off, were a national treasure.

In the same way as Paul, Mary, Mel and Sue give us a warm glow, the country simply felt better when the comedy duo bounded on to our screens.

They had initially come from ITV but they were the quintessential BBC stars.

Christmas wasn’t the same for anyone, the Royal Family included, without the tall one with the glasses and the little one with the short, fat, hairy legs.

The Queen even moved her festive dinner to make sure she could watch, and in 1977, 27 million of us tuned in.

But ITV made the duo an offer they couldn’t refuse – buckets of cash and the promise of a movie – and they channelhopped in 1978.

Minutes from a BBC meeting revealed Thames TV had agreed to pay “very large sums” for Morecambe & Wise to make just two shows a year.

The GGBO-like furore over the “damaging loss” was such that the BBC Governors, worried they’d continue to lose out in bidding wars, actually planned to lobby the Government.

Pleas for a levy on ITV profits were considered, along with discussions about ensuring the public knew it was the “lure of money” that led to the defection.

In the meantime the BBC repeated the recent 13-part series, including the smash h it Christmas show, to sabotage its commercial rivals.

But the movem to ITV, while boosting Eric and Ernie’s banks accounts, soon soured.

Like Bake Off, already set to move without two of its key players, the funnymen had to go minus the man who wrote their scripts, Eddie Braben, who stayed with the BBC.

Adverts, the absence of those killer gags and the move away from their natural home proved disastrous and the audience figures never came close. wanted to have a pint with and a chat about all things footie.e.

And women were won over by his twinkly-eyed charm.rm.

Suddenly, in 1999,9, just days before he was due to present the first Matchatch Of The Day of a newew season, he was unveiled as the newew face of ITV’s footballall coverage on a four-year deal paying him more than £25,000 per week.ek.

He said it was ann offer “too tempting to turnn down” and that the move wouldould give him a fresh challenge.e.

But it was one moreore move too far for viewers.

Lynam left at the end of the contract with the admission:mission: “I went from being a great broadcaster to a somewhat inadequate one overnight.”

In need of a sure- fire Saturday-night hit for the long Strictly-free months, and keen for their own X Factor- style show, the BBC b o u g ht Th e Voice in 2011.

It was getting an established global brand, from the creator of Big Brother, but with ITV also keen, the Beeb had to splash out £ 22m for three years.

Stig Abell