The Birthday Game

By | October 8, 2019

So here is a new thing, and by “new” I mean “there’s been six of them but I had no idea existed until they followed me on Twitter yesterday,” a podcast from Global Radio that exists only as a podcast called The Birthday Game with Richard Osman, and made by Remarkable Television (relevant links here, or you could just search for it in your podcast aggregator of choice).

In it, three guests try to guess the ages of celebs who have birthdays in the week of broadcast. Three points for dead on, one point for being a year out, winner wins a Colin the Caterpillar cake from M and S.

That’s it. It’s amiable enough, I’m 2.5 episodes in and it’s fine, enjoyment depends largely on the quality of guests they’ve got on – there’s plenty of time for small talk (indeed you should probably go into it with the mindset it’s some celebs having a chat and playing a game than the other way round). It’s a three-minute local radio feature turned into a 40 minute podcast, basically.

It’s hard enough to get people to watch light entertainment on TV these days, this is an intriguing content strategy from Endemol, in a medium you actively have to seek out. Not quite sure what it’s for (it’s not like any of the people involved need to have a podcast. Is it meant to be a loss leader? A loss leader for what exactly?) or what counts as success (@birthdaygamepod at time of writing has… 105 followers). In fact I can’t think of any quizzy or gameshowy podcasts that have properly broken out at all, off the top of my head.

7 thoughts on “The Birthday Game

  1. TeamXander

    ” It’s a three-minute local radio feature turned into a 40 minute podcast, basically.”

    From memory, that’s basically how it started – Osman challenged by a radio host, someone said “This would make a great podcsat”, the rest is history.

    Reply
  2. David B

    My only thought on this was I felt it was a bit limiting in a “Cor, remember Stu Francis?” kind of way. If it was more Timeline/Guess the Year, you’d have more material to go at. Though I suppose you could always evolve into that later, e.g. “Mars Bars were launched this week in history, but in which year?”

    Reply
  3. Brig Bother Post author

    A mildly interesting thing re: Global is that I listen to the Chris Moyles Podcast and can’t recall any cross-promo at all. Perhaps Heart Breakfast with Jamie Theakston has a podcast where it’s advertised every ten minutes, don’t know.

    Reply
      1. TVs Michael Harmstone

        The ads on the Moyles podcast are odd for me anyway – I always tend to get the same one over and over again. I’ve heard quite a few on the live show though.

        Reply
  4. CeleTheRef

    An Italian talk show recently decided to revive… Hollywood Squares, sort of.

    Reply

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