Pound Shop Wars (original) (raw)

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2012–2015 British TV documentary series

Pound Shop Wars
Genre Factual
Directed by Kerry Brierley Emeka Onono Andrew Dedman Tom Williams Victoria Bell
Narrated by Caroline Aherne
Country of origin United Kingdom
Original language English
No. of series 2
No. of episodes 13 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers Samantha Anstiss Cat Lewis Dominique Walker
Producer Kerry Brierley
Running time 30 minutes
Production company Nine Lives Media
Original release
Network BBC One
Release 7 November 2012 (2012-11-07) –30 September 2015 (2015-09-30)

Pound Shop Wars is a British factual television series that was first broadcast on BBC One from 7 November 2012 until 30 September 2015. Narrated by Caroline Aherne, the series shows the competition between rival pound shops, focusing on Poundworld. The second series, comprising eight episodes, began on 12 August 2015.

The first one-off hour-long special episode had a 19.8% audience share.[3] According to overnight figures, "The Battle of the Bra" had a viewing audience of 5.42 million, with 23.7% watching it.[4] The third and fourth episodes had viewing audiences of 19.4% and 16.7% respectively.[5][6]

Tim Dowling of The Guardian said the series "was not enhanced by Caroline Aherne's jokey narration, and it had more than its fair share of isn't-he-a-character type characters, but it was saved for me by a surprising discovery: the pound shop business is actually pretty interesting."[7] Metro's Caroline Westbrook said it "certainly didn't disappoint".[8] Bath Chronicle called the narration "lacklustre" and commented on how boring the series was.[9] Andrew Billen from The Times gave the programme three stars out of five.[10] The Sunday Times said "Full marks to the makers of this documentary, who find a clever and absorbing way to tell the story of the biggest current trend on Britain's high streets."[11]

  1. ^ a b c "BARB Top 30s".
  2. ^ Pound Shop Wars: Series 2 Trailer - BBC One. YouTube. 31 July 2015.
  3. ^ Kanter, Jake (7 February 2014). "Pound Shop Wars fights off competition". Broadcast Now. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  4. ^ Eames, Tom (7 February 2014). "Pound Shop Wars top on Thursday night with 5.4m". Digital Spy. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  5. ^ Eames, Tom (14 February 2014). "Inspector George Gently rises to top Thursday ratings with 5.5m". Digital Spy. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  6. ^ Eames, Tom (20 February 2014). "Brit Awards 2014 attracts lowest ratings ever". Digital Spy. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
  7. ^ Dowling, Tim (7 February 2014). "Big Ballet; Pound Shop Wars – TV review". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  8. ^ Westbrook, Caroline (6 February 2014). "The six best bargains which were up for sale in Pound Shop Wars". Metro. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  9. ^ "TV review: Poundshop Wars, BBC 1". Bath Chronicle. 7 February 2014. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  10. ^ Billen, Andrew (7 February 2014). "TV review: Pound Shop Wars". The Times. Retrieved 8 February 2014.
  11. ^ "Pound Shop Wars (4 x 30' Series)". Zodiak Rights. Archived from the original on 8 February 2014. Retrieved 8 February 2014.