Best Time Ever (Euroish TV programme)

Best Time Ever is a Euroish late-night talk show hosted by broadcaster and comedian Brian Perkins that is broadcast on TV3. The show premiered on 1 October 2018. It replaced Live with Paul Mellor. Unlike the majority of its predecessors, Best Time Ever is broadcast live. The show also stars announcer Michelle Leigh, Jamie Price, and Stamford Amp, the house band.

The program airs weeknights at 11:30pm, immediately following Nightline. The show features a mixture of comedic sketches, games, guest interviews, musical performances and stand-up comedy. The programme usually attracts an average of 4.5 million viewers on average during it's live broadcast, and has over 3 million subscribers on it's YouTube channel.

History and production
Paul Mellor announced in September 2017 that his TV3 late night show Live with Paul Mellor, would end production in 2018 in order for him to join EBC Radio 6 in January 2019.

It was reported in December 2017 that TV3 were eyeing to revive the entertainment show Saturday Night Takeaway as a nightly programme with a new name in the late night slot, and that the original hosts, Brian Perkins and Jules Hewson would return to present.

Ellen Hardcastle wanted to move into the earlier time slot from her late night spot on Last Orders after Live, and she was also considered by many as the natural successor having been the main cover presenter for Live since 2013. Mellor always favoured Hardcastle, but TV3 pushed for Perkins and Hewson to take over the programme effective from September 2018.

Jules Hewson declined to present the programme, citing duties for EBC Stars, Survivor and Dancing on Ice, as well as a lack of interest.

Whilst the initial intention was for Live with Paul Mellor to end in August 2018 and for Best Time Ever to launch in September with a two week gap, Mellor's contract was extended for a further five weeks and Live ended on 28 September 2018.

Three days later, on Monday 1 October 2018, Best Time Ever debuted on TV3.

Ring My Bell
An interactive feature that takes place irregularly throughout the week, allowing viewers of the programme to directly phone up to the studio and to the celebrity guests, with full creative freedom to ask the guests questions as they may choose to.

Win the Ads
Often the final segment on a Friday evening show, a member of the audience is randomly selected to take part in a quiz to win a series of prizes. Prior to broadcast, a TV3 or TV4 programme that had been broadcast during the week is randomly selected, whereupon the adverts broadcast during its commercial break(s) are used to create the prizes. Before the quiz begins, the prizes are placed on a grid, concealed, and randomly rearranged, before being given a number. The contestant has 90 seconds to answer as many questions as they can, based on that week's news stories, with each correct answer allowing the contestant to pick a number as their prize at the end. After time is up, the contestant is given the option to take their prizes or gamble for the chance of winning all the prizes if they correctly answer one final question. Contestants who lose are given a consolation prize of toilet paper.

Big Brother's Big Bother
Introduced in 2022 as part of the return of the Euroish version of Big Brother, in which every week, the audience for Best Time Ever are given the opportunity to vote for an idea to taunt the housemates, such as gunging the Big Brother house, playing loud music in the middle of the night, inviting a brass band to wake up the housemates, exposing hidden secrets about the housemates, and in some circumstances, surprise evictions. The options are revealed every Monday night before the pranks take place live on Tuesday night's Best Time Ever.

Unnecessary Censorship
A feature licensed for use from the American late night programme Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which features clips of innocuous television shows (such as news and children's programmes) deliberately edited (typically with bleeps) to make them appear offensive.

Is Price Right?
A studio competition that takes place on Tuesday night shows, in which one of the audience members is challenged by Perkins to give Jamie Price ten questions they had prepared, usually based on the week's showbiz news. Each question she failed to answer correctly within a time-limit of ten seconds would result in the audience member winning a prize. After the ten questions had been given, Perkins would offer the contestant a chance to gamble their prizes on a star prize, in which they asked Price a further question - if answered incorrectly, the contestant would win all their prizes, but if answered correctly, the prizes and star prize would be put up for offer in a viewers' competition. Later episodes later gave the audience member contestant a consolation prize of a handkerchief reading "I lost on Is Price Right", along with celebrity editions of the contest.