The ABC will take the opportunity of Stan Grant’s departure as host of Q&A to revisit a range of previously abandoned plans to revamp the struggling weekly public affairs discussion program.

The list of options for restructuring the program includes an idea first floated two years ago for combining the current Q&A format with the popular UK comedy panel show QI.

Spokesperson for ABC TV, Tess Patton, told me it was no secret that Q&A was struggling to maintain its audience.

“While everyone here at the ABC is sad about Stan Grant’s decision to leave the show, especially for the reasons he’s given, we also see it as an opportunity to make major changes to the program,” Ms Patton said.

“We had a brainwave a few years back for melding Q&A with QI with the aim of making the political panel show ‘quite interesting’ instead of its current repetitive, predictable, and tedious incarnation.

“We thought we could combine both programs to create a new one QIA, or under its full title, Quite Interesting Answers. (below)

“It would have involved a host and two teams of two guest panellists with points awarded to or subtracted from each player for the answers they provide depending on how interesting they are.”

Ms Patton said a sticking point had previously been the inability of the ABC and the BBC agreeing on a deal that would have allowed the use the QI format, but negotiations would now be renewed.

She told me that the idea of engaging a different type of host for Q&A would also be revisited.

“We have previously auditioned several potential hosts including Tom Gleeson whom we thought might attract a whole new audience for Q&A especially as we planned to change its name to Hard Q&A as well as allow Tom to be his usual rude and acerbic self,” Ms Patton said. (below)

“We also auditioned NSW One Nation leader, former federal Labor Party leader Mark Latham, as Q&A host and even taped a couple of full non-broadcast hour-long episodes to test him out. (main picture)

“But without fail each taping turned into a free-for-all slanging match as Mark dismissed audience members and some panellists as ‘shit-spewing dickheads’ or ‘woke wankers’ or – in the case of some gay audience members – ‘fudge-packing fuckwits’.

“Then there was the incident in which Mark leapt from the host’s chair to physically attack an audience member who identified himself as a taxi driver and broke his arm.”

Ms Patton said despite the problems experienced so far in revamping Q&A the national broadcaster would continue to search for a new formula for the program and had “several other ideas in mind”.