Frank Skinner last night made his first television appearance since quitting the BBC and joining ITV in a multi-million pound deal. There was only one way to describe it: a shambles.

A year ago Skinner was one of the jewels in the BBC's crown. His late-night chat show was attracting 10m viewers and endless free publicity, particularly after a shambolic appearance by "It girl" Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.

Then money got in the way. Skinner's manager allegedly demanded £20m for a five-year deal, the BBC rejected this as "ridiculous" and Skinner signed to ITV for a seven-figure sum. His departure, shortly after Des Lynam's defection, was seen as another example of the BBC's inability to hold on to talent.

Last night was Skinner's first TV appearance since, a chance to remind us what a coup ITV had pulled off.

Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned was an attempt to recreate the crowd-pleasing formula that Skinner and David Baddiel had perfected in Fantasy Football League: two blokes on a sofa, shooting the breeze. The twist was that this time soccer would be out of bounds, and the audience would choose the subjects for discussion. This would be the chat show equivalent of a comedy improvisation night.

It should have worked: the duo tested the formula successfully on stage at last year's Edinburgh festival. Yet on TV they never got into their stride, with one limp anecdote and off-colour interruption following another, punctuated by self-conscious remarks like "I thought it would be funnier than this" and, contrary to all the promises, several references to football. For the first time, these two TV naturals seemed terrified by the cameras.

The audience seemed just as uninspired; the whole thing recalled An Audience With... , but without any of the stars, on or off stage.

The show would have been a total disaster if yesterday had not been Baddiel's birthday, which gave Skinner a chance to present him with a card inscribed "If you're reading this out on air, we must be getting desperate" (all too true).

The present, a gold-plated plaster cast supposedly of Robert DeNiro's genitals, let them fill a few minutes telling the story of how it had been obtained and commenting on the size of the scrotum. This may not have been rehearsed, but it was hardly the "high-risk, challenging, genre-creating television" that we'd been promised.