So! It’s Mediaguardian’s Edinburgh International TV Festival time, and on Thursday there was a panel discussion called “Who Wants to be a Quiz Show Millionaire?” chaired by Paul Sinha at his comedic best (“successful relaunch of 15-1“) and discussion how to make a successful quiz show with Channel 4’s Head of Entertainment Justin Gorman, Daytime BBC Commissioner Pam Cavanagh, Endemol Chief Creative Officer David Flynn, Victory TV Managing Director Victoria Ashbourne and Remedy Chief Creative Officer Tom Blakeson.
It’s an interesting 50 minutes or so, have a watch.
Enjoyed this. I have a suspicion that most of the Bar audience would agree on which one of the panelists (*) they would take out for a drink if they had to pick one, and it wasn’t the one that I presumed it would turn out to be. Hurrah!
(*) Sorry, Paul… but I reckon most members of the Bar have got the money if you’ve got the time…
From the department of Getting Stuck Inside On A Rainy Bank Holiday Monday, some Things We Learned:
* Golden Balls has difficult rules.
* The Million Pound Drop was piloted with pound coins on pieces of cardboard, with someone under the table pulling strings.
* Pointless was originally going to have a single host, explaining the questions and the right answers and joshing with the contestants. It could have been The Xander Monologue.
* BBC shows are “achievement”, ITV is “feelgood”, Channel 4 “has a twist”.
* “Playalong” has turned from answering questions on Mastermind to actually playing (or influencing) the game.
* Technology moves even faster than game show commissions; and appalong still has a ceiling at 15% of viewers.
* Final Chases can take half-an-hour to record, when someone offers a sort-of-right answer they have to stop right away and check it.
* Viewers will spot poor questions.
* Million Pound Drop once had a panic when one of their questions appeared to be wrong. Someone had gone onto That Other Wiki and changed it. “Naughty you,” said Davina on air.
* Verification is more expensive than good questions, and just as important.
* Yep, they were running out of open questions on Pointless after series 1.
* Fifteen-to-One (daytime) now has a story and a friendly host.
* Paul Sinha loves Bullseye and Big Break.
* Only Connect and Remote Control get mentioned in the same breath. Well, they were *hoping* to keep the new Connecting Spin Quiz round secret…..
Hope that’s helped you work out whether to watch the whole thing.
Some versions of Pointless still only have one host (the French one), and weren’t very successful. But then most versions aren’t very successful, in fairness.
Just looking through the schedules, I notice that there’s *Celebrity* Pressure Pad, starting 2:15 next Monday…
It seems that Win It Cook It has been moved to 1:40 from the same day, with Countdown and DOND reverting to their old slots.
Paolo Bonolis felt unwell and was taken to the hospital.
“remember that you must die”…here is Bonolis’ reaction!
http://www.huffingtonpost.it/2014/08/23/bonolis-ospedale-foto_n_5702428.html
Quiz/Game/Reality/Judge Rinder Ratings
Pointless (R) 3.01m (21.2%)
University Challenge 2.65m (11.2%)
Celebrity Big Brother 1.65m (6.7%)
Tipping Point 2.05% (16.9%)
Gift Wrapped 1.59m (11.2%)
Two Tribes 1.44m (8.1%)
Eggheads 1.21m (6.4%)
Judge Rinder 1.20m (11.4%)
Come Dine With Me (R) 1.04m (6.7%)
The Chase (R) 0.82m (7.7%)
Deal or No Deal 0.62m (5.3%)
Celebrity BBBOTS 0.61m (6.4%)
Countdown 0.56m (5.2%)
Win It, Cook It 0.43m (3.3%)
All including HD and +1 where appropriate
Thanks Paul. I suspect that Tipping Point number isn’t 2.05m, as that’d be quite high for 16.9% at that time of afternoon.
No, that’s right (at least presuming the numbers I’ve got are right). Bank Holiday ratings are always a bit funny.
Ah OK, I was about to say the share for Judge Rinder looks low for the figure, but I will bow to your professional judgement.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice on BBC One had 1.9m. That’s, what, two and a half times above the usual quizzes in that slot?
Very true. They should repeat it daily.
Thanks Paul.
That’s odd for CBB. Weird to see it drop to its lowest of the series!
I’ve been hearing that apparently teams from series 1 & 2 of Only Connect were allowed to reapply to series 10? Intriguing if true, I wonder if we’ll be seeing any familiar faces.
Yes, I think that’s true, if they were knocked out early on (first round?) then they can reapply.
I think anyone who wasn’t a finalist in those series can reapply – as either the same team or as an individual of a new team.