Sarah Beeny of Property Ladder fame Channel 4

WHEN the boom was at its peak our appetite for property shows was insatiable.

TV cranked out endless variations on the theme and we lapped up tips on how to turn our pile of bricks into a pile of cash. Then the bubble burst – but property programmes haven’t quite disappeared from the schedules.

Take Sarah Beeny’s Property Ladder, recently relaunched as Property Snakes and Ladders. Although essentially sticking to the same format, today it’s anchored in the context of the credit crunch, following the fortunes of those buy-to-let investors who bought pre-slump.

But has the crash sated our appetite for TV property shows? Location, Location, Location has taken a hit. In the summer of 2007, when the market was at its peak, it averaged 3.7m viewers but a year later that fell to 2.5m.

Beeny is faring little better. Channel 4 says 2m viewers tuned into the opening episode of Property Snakes and Ladders, compared to an average of 2.8m for Property Ladder two years ago.

According to Stuart McGurk, thelondonpaper’s TV critic, property programmes have turned from aspirational telly into an ­altogether different beast.

“Property Snakes and Ladders has become a very odd thing: watching people lose money where previously they just gained. Not so much property porn, as property ­masochism,” he says.

Beeny says: “We always film over two years, and this time it coincided with the crash. Back then, people could turn their living room into a bowling alley and still make a profit. Not any more. It’s still possible to make money today if you make the right decisions. But the stakes are higher and some of the people we’ve featured failed because they simply paid too much for their properties.”

Between last autumn and the new year, when the crunch spiralled into a crisis, property shows on Channel 4 dried up quick. It’s rumoured C4 delayed a series of Property Ladder, keen not to crow about a buy-to-let market that was virtually non-existent.

In the wake of the downturn, TV speculators were criticised for puffing the property market and making it all look so easy. But Beeny, who wisely scaled back work at her property development ­company long before the crash, dismisses such claims.

“This crash has been global,” she says. “I’m quite flattered to think little old me could have caused it. In reality, it’s ludicrous. TV ­follows the market. It doesn’t lead it.”

No surprise, then, that Channel 4 has been tinkering with its portfolio of property shows. Walter Iuzzolino, deputy head of features at C4, says: “We’ve still got the traditional documentary shows like Grand Designs ­and Location, Location, Location. We’ve also got new shows, like The Home Show and ­Kirstie’s Homemade Home, which reflect the fact that people are staying put more, enjoying what they have and making the most of it.”

The Home Show, in which properties are lovingly given a structural makeover by the affable George Clark, has garnered good reviews. Kirstie’s Homemade Home, on the other hand, took a critical mauling.

All’s not lost for the show’s ­Kirstie Allsop though. She’s filming the new series of ­Location, Location, Location with Phil Spencer – whose own home-finding business went bust in February.

Other property pundits are simply diversifying. Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan, former stars of BBC Two’s ­Million Pound Property Experiment, high-tailed it to Canadian TV, but are rumoured to be ­returning to UK screens on ITV’s 60-Minute Makeover.

Only time will tell if the viewers stick around, but Beeny seems sure they will: “Show me a person who doesn’t care about how much their home is worth.”