Short Change
television series
Short Change is a consumer affairs programme for children, broadcast on BBC One and later also the CBBC Channel. It is essentially a version of the prime-time show Watchdog except that it is aimed at children. The show was first aired on 20 February 1994. It had 13 series; the last episode was broadcast on 12 July 2005.
Transmission guide
Specials
Series 3 compilation: 5 January 1997
Fan Clubs Special: 9 November 1997
The Fat Nation Challenge: 18 editions from 9 September 2004 – 7 November 2004
PriceBusters Competition
On each programme, viewers were challenged to find the cheapest and most expensive prices for a given product throughout the country. Two winners each week (one finding each extreme price) would win a boom-box stereo. Bill Bennett won the competition two weeks running, by finding the most expensive prices for the given products, and including Tesco.com's grocery delivery charge of £5. This made the cost of a Müller Rice around £5.40, much more expensive than prices found by any other entrant. Following the two consecutive wins, the rules were changed to omit delivery charges from the total cost for a particular product.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Short Change” is television series. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Short, Change and television, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “television series” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7501740. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994, 2005, 1997 and 2004.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Short Change”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Short Change primary sources, Short Change archive and Short research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Short Change”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Short Change” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.