Marathon Running / The Chase (Game Show)

Even Challenge themselves are self-aware of this...^note An image from April Fool's Day 2018 taken from the channel's long-abandoned social media pages.

The Chase, one of the most popular game shows in the United Kingdom, is one of ITV's biggest properties and has been sold across the world. The series has a loyal fanbase. However...

Enter Challenge, a Sky owned channel that focuses on game shows (i.e. the UK equivalent to Game Show Network in the United States). The channel acquired syndicated broadcast rights to the series in 2014, and first they treated the series decently, but by 2016 they have completely shown their love towards the show by airing frequent marathons of the series as the series gets high ratings.

Because of the treatment Challenge gives to this show, their schedule has seen a complete decrease in programming than it did almost a decade prior after Sky purchased the network. Due to this, it sees a lot of programmes shafted over to graveyard slots because they don't get as many ratings as this show does, which was confirmed by a former Sky employee who formerly worked on the channel's social media pages, which were abandoned in 2019.

In fact, it is safe to say that this is the game show equivalent to Cartoon Network's countless Teen Titans Go! marathons. No other game show has seen as much marathons as this one has, and the amount of marathons this show gets has gained heavy criticism from viewers, especially ones who wanted to see anything else other than this one.

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• 2014:
  • The first marathon of this type - titled "The Chase Day", had the show air for the entirety of the day until 7:00pm, when Christmas Specials of other shows took it's place.
• 2015:
  • A 33-hour marathon titled "Bank Holiday Bradley" aired from August 29-31, from 12:00pm-10:00pm on those days. This marathon wasn't exclusively The Chase, as most of it was also made up of Walsh-era episodes of Wheel of Fortune.
  • One of the earliest marathons for the series was on Christmas Eve that year, when the show aired for the entirety of that day, excluding a few Bullseye episodes airing before midnight.
• 2016:
  • Starting this year, there would be occasions when a spree of episodes, at least 6, would air every Sunday.
  • Christmas Day brought along a 14-hour marathon that ran from 6:00am-8:00pm. On December 27, a 10-hour marathon aired from 5:00am-6:00pm, followed up with another 14-hour marathon on New Year's Day 2017.
• 2017:
  • There was a nine-hour marathon for Valentine's Day that was titled "Kiss Chase", which lasted from 6:00am-5:00pm.
  • Easter:
    • Good Friday saw a nine-hour marathon titled The Chase Key Moments, which as with the "Kiss Chase" one, aired from 6:00am-5:00pm.
    • Easter Sunday brought along another 10-hour marathon that aired from 6:00am-6:00pm.
  • As time progressed, the adoration and marathon running factor began to grow and grow, to the point the weekday schedules saw at least three episodes airing at once.
  • Christmas Day that year was one of the biggest marathons for the show. Titled Merry Chasemas, this marathon lasted 64-hours, all throughout Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Sky hardly promoted this one on social media, but there were plenty of adverts hyping it up.
• 2018:
  • The most infamous of the show's marathons was none other than the 2018 Easter Marathon. For over 4 days, or 96 Hours, all you would see on Challenge was The Chase and nothing else. This was the longest-running continuous marathon of the show on Challenge and although the length has since been beaten by later marathons, it remains as such.
    • In fact, they even lampshaded this trope in their April Fools Joke that year by saying that the channel would be permanently renamed “Chase TV”, which would be home to "The Chase and only The Chase!" (pictured above).
  • 2018's Christmas marathon lasted seven days, where the 12:00pm-10:00pm slot would be of this show.
    • On New Year's Eve and New Year's Day 2019, the marathon ended at 9:00pm instead.
    • Overall? 88 Hours.
• 2019:
  • 2019's Easter Marathons saw the show run it's usual 17-hour marathons from 6:00am-10:00pm on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, which was followed on with a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Marathon from 10:00pm-6:00am. Easter Saturday however, only saw a 11-hour marathon that ran from 6:00am-5:00pm, with other shows airing afterward.

During the Easter Holidays, the show aired all day from Friday-Monday from 6:00am-10:00pm The Saturday before Easter Sunday though, the show only aired from

• August 26th saw nothing but the celebrity specials air on Challenge from 7:00am-10:00pm.
• Christmas 2019:
  • A marathon consisting of the first four episodes and a few celebrity specials aired on Christmas Eve from 12:00pm-9:00pm, only being interrupted by an airing of the Roy Walker hosted TV special UK's Greatest Gameshows in the middle of the marathon.
  • An all-day 15-hour marathon aired on Christmas Day, where the main show and the Celebrity Specials aired from 7:00am-10:00pm.
  • For Boxing Day, the show aired a 5-hour marathon from 12:00pm-4:00pm. After a Family Fortunes marathon the next day, the channel went back to it's usual schedule.
  • Another all-day marathon of the show aired on New Year's Day 2020.

• 2020:
  • Once again, another Easter Tradition on the channel...
    • Good Friday saw a 9-hour marathon of the celebrity specials from 2:00-10:00pm, while All-Star Family Fortunes and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? marathons lurked in-between.
    • A 9-hour marathon aired from 7:00am-4:00pm on Easter Saturday, while Easter Sunday had the usual 7:00am-10:00pm slot.
    • Easter Monday was similar to Good Friday, as the show aired after an All-Star Family Fortunes marathon from 1:00pm-10:00pm, with an episode of Pointless Celebrities in the middle of the marathon at 6:00pm.
  • Christmas 2020:
    • The show saw what ended being it's longest marathon on Challenge, like, ever! From December 21st until January 1st, the show had a 16-hour marathon every day from 7:00am-11:00pm. The only other shows on air those days were Bullseye and Weakest Link reruns during the graveyard hours, with Wheel of Fortune reruns on the following week.
    • And despite not being a full day's worth of episodes, this marathon just so happened to last LONGER than the Christmas 2017 and Easter 2018 marathons, being over ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY TWO HOURS excluding episodes outside the marathon! That is 32 hours more than the infamous Christmas 2017 and Easter 2018 marathons combined!
• 2021:
  • Christmas 2021 was surely a sight to be seen... While Challenge decided to avert this trope and miss out on Easter that year by having the channel's regular schedule, the Christmas schedule was as to be expected, a Tradtional marathon indeed:
    • Christmas Eve - The show had a marathon that aired from 8:00am-12:00am that was only interrupted for an episode of Pointless and several other shows in the graveyard slot.
    • Christmas Day saw the usual 17-hour marathon of standard and celebrity episodes that aired from 7:00am-11:00pm.
    • Boxing Day had a 23-hour marathon that only broke away for infomercials at 6:00am.
    • On the days after boxing day until New Year's Eve, the show had random six-hour marathons.
    • New Year's Eve and New Year's Day saw two more 17-Hour marathons that aired from 7:00am-10:00pm.
    • January 2nd brought along another all-day marathon that was only interrupted for a Millionaire' episode.
    • So, in this case, how many hours are we counting this time (excluding graveyard slots)? At least 140 hours.
• 2022:
  • Christmas 2022:
    • Challenge decided to not run a full-day marathon on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day that year. Instead having it air alongside Bullseye. The Chase aired from 7:00am-1:00pm (ended at 2pm on Christmas Day) with Celebrity episodes airing from 6:00pm-10:00pm, with Bullseye airing throughout the rest of the schedule, including the graveyard slot.
    • New Year's Day however, was pretty much a traditional marathon as to be expected, with The Chase running for 16-hours from 7:00am-10:00pm, followed by a six-hour Bullseye marathon.
• 2023:
  • After missing out the previous two years, Challenge decided to reinstate their Easter Marathons for the show. What did they do? None other than a 46-hour 2-day-long marathon of the show on Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday of course! It would have been 48 hours if Challenge doesn't air infomercials for an hour at 6:00am...
  • Christmas 2023 went with a similar route to the previous year although the show didn't gain the special marathon treatment as big as you'd expect. On Christmas Eve, the show had an eight-hour marathon of Season 5 episodes from 7:00am-3:00pm and a mixture of Celebrity and regular episodes from 7:00pm onwards. Christmas Day has the usual all-day marathon from 7:00am-10:00pm that was only interrupted for a Weakest Link celebrity edition at 7:00pm. This marathon also saw The Family Chase air as well, which Challenge doesn't air that often. While Boxing Day had the channel's usual schedule, December 30 and 31 had a 7-hour marathon from 7:00am-2:00pm, once again consisting of Season 5 episodes. It ended off with a nine-hour marathon of random episodes followed up with more Season 5 episodes on New Year's Day 2024.
• 2024:
  • Easter: While Good Friday averted this trope in favour of a Bullseye marathon, the other days are of this show.
    • Saturday had a 15-hour marathon of the Celebrity Specials from 9:00am-11:00pm with two normal editions at 7:00am and 8:00am, Easter Sunday's schedule is the same except that the 7:00am-9:00am slot has Scrapheap Challenge. The 10:00pm-6:00am slot is also nothing but standard episodes, so practically the show has been on for the entirety of the day.
    • Easter Monday also averted this trope for Bullseye as well.