Television is a risky business. Hits are hard to come by and sustained success is rare. Then, when a show does succeed, there's an understandable reluctance to shut it down. So hats off to Spicks and Specks, which not only remained vibrant and successful for seven seasons but is bowing out before the applause turns tepid.

In May, host Adam Hills and team captains Myf Warhurst and Alan Brough announced they were leaving the music quiz show, which was still pulling more than 1 million viewers a week. Hills says the trio had for some time been pondering how long to keep the show going.

''We'd been having these conversations since the end of year three. At the end of every year, the three of us would sit down and generally it was, 'Yep, still feels pretty good, let's come back,''' he says. ''The last couple of years, probably with Alan and Myf more than me, there was a feeling that we might be stretching beyond our use-by date and in February we decided that it was time to move on.

''It's like a work of art: you don't keep painting. Another way of putting it is it's like painting a house - you know when you've finished.''