Homes Under The Hammer sparks complaints as BBC makes mistake with houses

BBC was inundated with complaints after a scheduling blunder. Fans were left fuming after two almost-identical episodes of were aired one day after the other.

Featuring in both of the very similar episodes was a church conversion and a cottage in need of full modernisation. The property initially featured in series 27, with the episode being re-run on Thursday.

Presenter Tommy Walsh, 67, toured the in Duxford, Cambs, which was sold for £218,000 in 2021 and turned into two flats. Elsewhere in the programme, former footballer Dion Dublin explored a cottage in Ruskington, Lincsonshire, which was sold to two sisters for £180,000 in 2022.

Just one day later, viewers felt like they were experiencing deja vu as the same two properties where shown again. The second showing featured the same two auctions, with identical tours and interviews.

However, this time the episode was a repeat from series 25, which originally aired in December 2022. As well as it being listed as a different series, the third property on the second show was also completely different.

But that didn't stop fans complaining about feeling like they were watching the same episode all over again. On an internet forum, for Homes Under the Hammer, one fan wrote: "BBC, why are you putting on the same programme twice in two days."

Someone else was more understanding, and gave the channel the benefit of the doubt, writing: "It wasn't the same edition, but it does appear that Friday's 'new' episode featured some of the same stuff that had appeared in the repeated episode the day before, and nobody realised this when they scheduled them on consecutive days. This is unfortunate, but it does happen sometimes."

Over on Twitter, someone else quizzed: "Why are you showing the same episode of #HomesUnderTheHammer you only showed yesterday???? Right now on #BBC1."

Eventually the broadcaster released a statement apologising for the mishap, after a number of complaints were lodged.

They said: "We received some complaints from viewers after the scheduling of two different episodes resulted in similar content being broadcast on adjacent days.

"We have looked into this issue and we can see that the same two properties did feature on consecutive days, this was due to a scheduling error. We are taking steps to avoid this happening again in the future."