Dec explained: “It was tough, doing three hours of live telly, we were absolutely getting hammered in the ratings and the shows weren’t great.
“It was a struggle to get any guests, they all went on the BBC. We needed to put in more and more effort.”
And hosts spoke of the lightbulb moment they had when doing Christmas panto in front of hundreds of kids, leading them to bring in a live audience every weekend.
“The minute we brought kids into the studio everything lifted! The minute you can interact with real-life people makes everything better,” Cat said.
The Story of SM:TV Live can be streamed on the ITV Hub now.