Bargain hunt on BBC daytime TV – A business idea gone wrong ?

I am sure that lots of you know the popular daytime tv program “Bargain Hunt” but how many of you have actually noticed that the show is flawed ?

After watching a few episodes recently (procrastinating again) I noticed a major flaw in the idea of the program. One of the first rules in business is to buy items / services for as cheap as possible and sell them onto someone else for as much profit as possible. With this in mind, the program starts off by sending two pair’s of contestants to antique fairs to look for items which they think they could take to auction to sell on for a profit. Sounds simple enough yeh ? well it is actually totally backward.

The normal people who are at the antique fairs are the people who will be at the same auctions, looking to buy bargains to sell on at the antique fair for a profit ! I would say that 9/10 shows that I have ever watched over the months, has resulted in the contestants making a loss – and the “antique experts” cannot understand why.

Whoever the brains behind bargain hunt is, Seems to be suffering from role reversal and needs a basic lesson in business strategies. Do I detect a hint of the BBC wasting licence payers money again ?