Buried past the halfway point in this story is news that will have hit the already beleaguered books business hard. Richard and Judy, darlings of the books world, are going off air in July, six months earlier than planned after dire ratings hit their chat show in its new digital home. This means the future of their book club, which has helped to sell more than 30m books since its launch in 2004, also looks pretty shaky, although production company Cactus TV says it's in "discussions with media partners" over continuing the strand.

Bookshops, and publishers, will be hoping they find a way to do it. The statistics for the show are astonishing – over £158m worth of books sold, eight millionaire authors created, and a consistently interesting selection of books, which ranged from the obviously commercial (Kate Mosse's Labyrinth) to the more challenging (Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell). The "Richard and Judy effect" has created bestsellers out of a host of previously unknown authors.

Publishers are speculating about whether, if the book club doesn't continue, another broadcaster might step into the breach; The One Show has been mentioned, along with This Morning. "For it to work, you need it on terrestrial television, with great viewing figures and a loyalty among viewers that they have a belief in what the presenters are telling them," HarperCollins's Wayne Brookes told the Bookseller.

Alan Titchmarsh is currently hosting a competition to find "the people's author", so perhaps his show might be another possibility. I'm certainly crossing my fingers that the end of Richard and Judy doesn't mean the end of the televised book club in the UK.