One of the UK’s most loved gameshows is making a comeback, with eighties favourite Bullseye returning to ITV 1 and ITV X at 8pm on Sunday October 9.
Host Freddie Flintoff will oversee a thrilling test of intellect and coordination alongside scorer Richard Ashdown and a host of all-star darts professionals, household names who rank among the world’s very best.
Produced by Potato, the award-winning ITV Studios label behind The Chase and Ninja Warrior UK, and shot at Versa Studios Manchester, Bullseye sees three pairs of contestants, each containing an amateur dart player (the ‘thrower’) and their team partner (the ’knower’), compete against each other. Teams test their skills at throwing darts at different game boards whilst answering questions correctly for points and prizes, all the while keeping out of the black and into the red and bearing in mind that, as we all know, there’s nothing in this game for two in a bed.
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Progressing through the show, the three teams are whittled down to one final pair who can go on to risk all their money and prizes in the big money finalé for Bully’s Mystery Star Prize, which is usually a new car, a fabulous holiday, or if you’re really lucky, the somewhat niche, yet iconic, speedboat.
The complete family entertainment format is one of the UK’s most successful and best-loved gameshows and has a broad demographic appeal. The original series, hosted by the legendary Jim Bowen, regularly pulled in audiences of up to 10 million viewers for ITV and was at its peak between 1981 and 1995.
The new version, hosted by Flintoff, drew more than eight million viewers across three transmissions for a Christmas Special in 2024, spurred on by a resurgence of interest in darts among viewers following teenage Cheshire arrowsmith and current PDC world champion Luke Littler’s meteoric rise to the top of the game.
The success of last year’s Christmas special led to a full series being commissioned for 2025, which will air weekly for four episodes, plus a Christmas Special, with precise transmission dates and times TBC.
