Slow news period

By | March 20, 2013

So here’s a something I’ve heard on the grapevine, the BBC are currently piloting a quiz where people answer general knowledge questions and then back how well they’ve done by taking money out of a cashpoint, but if they try and take out too much they get zero. From the sorts of things I’ve been hearing, prize money suggesting it’s being aimed at an afternoon slot.

So there we are.

22 thoughts on “Slow news period

  1. JamesW

    Colour of Money meets Epic Win meets Poker Face, the crossover literally some of us were waiting for.

    Reply
  2. JamesW

    Darn, tried an oh so amusing fake end tag joke (/insincere Dave), only for WordPress to eat it. Joke’s on me I guess.

    Reply
  3. Brig Bother Post author

    I’m also aware there’s an elimination aspect where lowest monied players get kicked off.

    Detaily-details may yet come later.

    Reply
  4. James

    *NEWS* Channel 4 Press site has 5 Minutes to a Fortune down as starting in April (TBC).

    TX: April

    In the studio stands an imposing 15 foot hourglass containing thousands of pounds. To keep the money in the hourglass, contestants must work as the perfect team to complete five challenges… in just five minutes. To take home the cash they’ll have to be quick thinking and have nerves of steel because if they run out of time the hourglass will turn and their money will start to drain away. Welcome to 5 Minutes to a Fortune, a new game show hosted by Davina McCall. The programme will challenge teams of two to work as the perfect partnership to take home a life-changing amount of money – £50,000. On Saturday nights, the show will double the potential winnings to a £100,000 as two celebrities pit themselves against the clock to raise funds for charity.

    It sounds like it might run Monday to Saturday. Or it might do what Million Pound Drop did and run Friday & Saturday.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Definitely weekdaily plus Saturday. In the 5pm slot if rumours are true, which will lead to the exciting and unlikely event of (probably) three really above average shows on at the same time on three different channels.

      Reply
    1. Daniel H

      Not sure what all those random numbers are there, sorry! Just copied the link across and it only hyperlinked the first bit – seems to work OK, though.

      Reply
  5. Andrew 'Kesh' Sullivan

    Seems like a rehash of Colour of Money to me, as a previous comment has said. As long as they don’t make the same mistakes CoM did, it’ll probably do well

    Reply
  6. Mart with a Y not an I

    In fact wasn’t there a quiz attached to The Colour Of Money, and the shouting at cashpoints was the end game for the winner of said quiz element?

    In which case – 12 Yard have to be behind this, because if not, then the BBC will be hearing from ITV Studios lawyers upon transmission…

    ..although if they send the copyright infringment letter addressed to BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane, London, W12 7RJ, then they may get away with it :o)

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      I’m not entirely convinced you could copyright taking money from cashpoints as a thing, but I’m sure the truth will out!

      Reply
      1. Paul B

        The Colour of Money never had a quiz element. Heard that several times and never sure where it came from. Anyway, this new cashpoint quiz is in-house BBC. And nothing at all to do with me, before anyone asks, although was a contestant in one very early office run-through ages ago (won comfortably, as I recall).

        Reply
        1. Alex

          I remember discussion on here in January 2009 that basically summed up as “Colour of Money would be better WITH a quiz beforehand like Miljoenjacht (note: I’m not even going to pretend that I know how to spell this, I can’t even PRONOUNCE it right)”.

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          1. Matt Clemson

            It might be overcomplicated, but I’m now imagining how The Color Of Money would do like this:

            Audience-sized contestant pool. Quiz takes place, audience answer multiple-choice questions in secret, player with the most correct answers fastest goes through to the main game.

            Now, it gets a bit Pointless. Each question is associated with one of the cashpoints, and the amount of money in the cashpoint is dependent on how many of the players in the first round got the question *wrong*, so the toughest question is worth the highest cash value.

            The player selects a cashpoint. If they got that question right in the qualification, they’re told so, and they get to play the gambling game on the cashpoint contents. If they got it wrong earlier, they’re given another go at the question with that wrong answer removed, and have another chance to win the machine; if they win the machine, they play; if they lose, it’s locked.

            Other things: Tempted to say the player should be told how many people guessed the answer they did on any given question to add in a bit more strategy. Alternatively, have that as a lifeline? Not sure what to do in terms of an actual *target*, I might prefer just ‘the player gets the money’, but that makes it a lengthy endgame which is just accumulating money with no jeopardy.

            It’s a bit huge and unwieldy, but I like the addition of a skill aspect to the iconic part of the game.

          2. Andrew 'Kesh' Sullivan

            To add jeopardy to the game, how about having the contestant rely on their memory when answering the questions in the main game? On each cashpoint’s screen would be the question with either 3 or 4 answers. The host will say whether the contestant was right or wrong in the qualifying game and leave it up to the player to try and remember which answer they picked if they were right, or, as you put, eliminate the wrong answer if they were wrong and let them have another go at it. Get the question correct and they earn an amount based on the number of wrong answers as you previously mentioned (Maybe have each machine worth £5,000 and each correct person in the audience knocks £5 off). Get it wrong and they earn a strike, 3 strikes and they’re out.

            To help, maybe have a variation of the helps used in the US version of 1 Vs 100. Ask the Audience lets the player pick an answer and see how many people went with that answer before locking in, Poll the Audience picks 2 audience members at random, each with a different answer and they state their case for why they think their answer is correct, and Trust the Audience locks the player in to the most-picked answer automatically.

            Feel free to expand on that if needs be

        2. Mart with a Y not an I

          Paul,
          I’ll tell you where the quiz element rumour in TCOM may have come from – same place where I got that idea from!
          Long before the Tarrant incarnation was commissioned, Broadcast magazine (back in the days when it was a proper trade magazine, rather than the comic it is today) ran a feature about it when it was slated for the 5pm weekday show along a picture taken on the set of the pilot – hosted by Mark Durden-Smith.

          In the glurb along side the photo was a quick summary of the format, which I’m sure said there is an elimation quiz, and then the cashpoint round for the winner.

          Where Broadcast got the idea from – who knows? Not the first time the mag has printed utter ballcocks.

          Reply
          1. Brig Bother Post author

            I’m aware that one of the things the show had that was dropped was an elimination format where everyone secretly chose (as I recall) one of seven cash amounts, with the person picking the highest unique amount go on to try and win it.

          2. Paul B

            Yeah, I vaguely remember that Broadcast article, and being annoyed about the quiz reference. I’ve probably still got it somewhere. Back in those days (before my spirit was crushed) I kept stuff from my shows as souvenirs. I think I’ve also got the pilot script, the long statistical analysis document I wrote and a mock up of a CoM fruit machine which never saw the light of day.

            For what it’s worth it was never slated for daytime either, that’s another thing I’ve heard a few times. We pitched it to Liam Keelan when he was running ITV Daytime on literally the day he left for the Beeb. He basically said “I like it, but I’m leaving ITV – you should pitch it to whoever replaces me.” And I believe he was the only daytime commissioner to see it, although we staged that many run-throughs I suppose I may have forgotten someone.

            The pilot with Mark Durden-Smith was definitely commissioned with a prime time slot in mind, in the knowledge that the host would most likely change for a series. Even Mark seemed aware of this – I remember we had a set of foam board cash machines we used for rehearsal runs. My colleague (and co-creator) Danny said to him at one point “You should autograph one of these, and when this show is the biggest show in the world we can put it on eBay and make a fortune.” He replied “Nah, you might as well wait and get whoever hosts the series to autograph it instead!”

            There *was* a little auction (highest unique bid, as you say Brig) at the beginning for much of the development process (including the pilot). It wasn’t so much a “round”, though, as a “Fastest Finger First” style qualifier. The idea was that if the first contestant missed their target the person with the next highest bid played next, while if the first contestant succeeded we started over with new contestants, so there was some strategy involved.

  7. David B

    Wow, that’s virtually identical to an idea I had ages and ages ago. I must dig out my ideas again because now that’s 2 or 3 that’ve been commissioned recently.

    Reply
  8. Setsunael

    Not-so-fun French news : Koh-Lanta (Survivor, solid hit for TF1 with 7-8 mill viewers average each year) new season was planned to start taping today … but taping has been cancelled after one of the contestants died of an heart attack on Day 1.

    “Funnier” news – Money Drop will have a primetime celebrity special soon with a nice twist on the rules as going all-in on a question automatically earn a guaranteed €5K for their supported charity. I like this.

    Reply

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