In other news…

By | September 16, 2013

A post for stuff not related to all the main events over the last few days.

Thanks to the uploader for putting up the premiere if new Aussie daily quiz and Millionaire Hot Seat spoiler Million Dollar Minute, I won’t get to watch it until this evening but why not knock yourselves out?


Also Amazing Greys which films its pilot on Thursday (the format where young people take on the elderly in a bid to win £100,000) is going to be hosted by Paddy McGuinness. Might be there for it, might not, we’ll see.

20 thoughts on “In other news…

  1. Chris M. Dickson

    OK, this is a thinly-disguised $ale of the Century revival, though with cash instead of prizes, which is fractionally less fun. For instance, the first Instant Bargain was “A$2,000 cash guaranteed for giving up your lead and dropping to the second place player’s score”, and the counterpart of the “Who Am I?” choose-a-square game offered a choice of points or a guaranteed A$1,500 cash. Australia is a rich, rich country. The hosting is cheerful and competent.

    To win the million, contestants have to win the game and the 5-three-answer-multiple-choice-questions endgame eight times in a row, choosing between taking the jackpot or returning for the next game after each time. The endgame reveal is pretty slow in contrast to the rest of the show being quick. At risk of spoiling the episode, it is unclear how winning the main game but not winning the endgame is handled, whether it’s game over with just the guaranteed cash awarded or whether you get to come back for another try at the maingame-endgame pair to climb the money tree.

    The money tree is $20k – $50k – $75k – $100k – $200k – $300k – $500k – $1M. The concept of “playing the Million Dollar Minute for $20,000” is a shade oversold by the title, but it works in context, and it’s not as if other million dollar prize shows haven’t used similar things in the past (e.g. you had to win three in a row to win Million Dollar All Clued Up).

    Not the most original show in the world, but not unwelcome at all. I’d be inclined to say that it has chances around the world, but Australia has much more of a $ale heritage than most countries and $ale revivals (e.g. Cheggers on Challenge half a generation ago, which I thought was actually a really solid show, and in the US much more recently under the name Temptation) have failed to pull up roots. It might be time for it to come around again for another go in Europe.

    Reply
  2. Brig Bother Post author

    Mmm, I can see what they’re aiming for.

    I thought the buy outs seemed too high to begin with then the last one much too low. Five grand guaranteed for what amounts to half a question in the final speed round? Yes please! I accept the decisions might be more interesting if someone dominates a bit more.

    And crikey, the final set of reveals was really very tedious. Have they not seen Break the Safe?

    Reply
  3. Brig Bother Post author

    This premiered to good numbers, 811k which was about 150k more than Hot Seat and about 60% up on what Deal was getting in the slot last week.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Down to just over 600k for night two, which is quite a drop. Still just edging out Hot Seat in the major markets and 7 News is still just beating 9 News (a reversal of previous form), so I guess after two nights its doing its job.

      Reply
        1. David

          They need someone to go on a big run quick (like $100K plus) to get people interested in this- otherwise it’ll be like the last time they tried Wheel of Fortune down there (it only ran 5 weeks).

          Reply
  4. David (AU)

    I doubt they’ve seen Break the Safe – the only British game shows shown on Aussie TV in recent years are Eggheads, The Chase, and The Cube, although old episodes of The Weakest Link occasionally wind up on cable.

    Reply
    1. Brig Bother Post author

      Ha ha, I fear you’ve fallen for some deliberate UK audience rhetoric there, not that you’d necessarily have known better.

      Reply
    2. Travis P

      I knew Eggheads is airing on a subscriptions channel with The Cube airing on Nine over your summer months. Never knew The Chase aired over there though.

      Million Dollar Minute is basically $ale of the Century/Temptation. Right down to Temptations’s escalating prize tree. I seem to recall for someone to win seven shows in a row on Temptation would win them everything they’d won plus a gold bar worth $500,000. I can see Seven are trying to win back their viewership as $ale/Temptation was a cult hit in the day. Worth nothing $ale/Temptation was always a primetime 7pm show and not a 5.30pm daytime show.

      Reply
      1. David (AU)

        Eggheads is on the ABC, which is a state-funded free-to-air broadcaster similar to the BBC. The Cube does indeed run over summer (though has switched from Nine to one of its digital channels, and seems to be obsessed with repeating the first two seasons whenever it appears), and The Chase has literally only just started – on Seven, coincidentally enough – a few weeks ago, as filler after their new afternoon show completely tanked in the ratings because they stupidly targeted it towards mothers while putting it on at the time mothers are busy picking kids up from school.

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      2. Brekkie

        Many apologies to our Australian friends for inflicting Eggheads on you. Why is it crap shows like that and In it to Win It have outlived so many better shows at the BBC?

        Anyone know how The Chase is doing for Seven at 3pm – as I’m sure a local version at 5pm could be the solution to their problems.

        Reply
        1. David (AU)

          Sadly no. For some reason the ratings company only makes daytime ratings available to the TV networks themselves. The only way we’d find out is if they use the figures in press releases.

          I don’t mind Eggheads *too* much, although I agree it’s not a spectacularly good show. I do wish we’d get more British game show formats, even if they’re local adaptations. Australia seems to have this weird thing where we can adapt quiz and reality show formats from other countries well (Millionaire, Sale of the Century, Big Brother, the earlier seasons of The Mole, et cetera), but when we try to create our own formats they’re always derivative tripe.

          Reply
  5. David

    Someone at Rockstar North must have been a fan- one of the missions in the just-released Grand Theft Auto V is named “Crystal Maze”….

    Reply
  6. Daniel Peake

    Speaking of ratings – I’ve been thinking and I reckon we need to come up with a new metric.

    Here’s what I suggest. The important metrics are SHARE and ABSOLUTE SIZE. So, multiply the percentage share by number of millions of viewers.

    Something like the X factor, 9 million, 40% share, 9×40 = 360. Pointless, 3m and 20%, 3×20 = 60.

    It also means that something with 2 million viewers and 30% share is just as good as 4m and 15% share.

    I call this the Peake Rating System. You’re welcome.

    Reply
        1. Brig Bother Post author

          4m and 3% share would suggest a TV viewing audience of approximately 130m, and I can still make pots of money.

          Share is for losers. GET OVER IT.

          See also: TV infatuation with social media, the red button of the 2000s.

          Reply
          1. Chris

            True but a low share means you could make a bigger pot of money advertising somewhere else (this ofc works on the basis that 3% was not the highest share in the country – perhaps a share ranking being taken into account?)

          2. Brig Bother Post author

            That’s true, but there are only so many spots so I could get in a bit cheaper. I want eyeballs not percentages of eyeballs.

            When was the last time you heard anybody go on about Only Connect’s share? You certainly will have heard that it got over a million on BBC4, though.

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