• C4 afternoon quiz Benchmark with Paddy McGuinness films on weekdays up in Salford for the next fortnight, details SRO Audiences.
• A pilot for a show called The Money Box with John Thomson films in Salford on 1st May. The blurb makes it sound a little bit like Bother’s Bar favourite 19 Keys, although I’m sure it’s very different. Details SRO.
• Name That Tune is filming again on Thursday 30th April in London. Details Applause Store.

Buzzerblog has the skinny on this Summer’s BIG NEW WORLDWIDE QUIZ SENSATION.

We’ll go into more detail when we’ve got time, but right now it sounds eerily like Big Money Quizzlestick.

I just think it’s got Big Hyped Flop written all over it. I’m not quite sure it has mass market appeal, and I’m struggling to see how they’re going to keep a fast pace given a ten-second limit per (apparently tough) question and modern production choices. Are they aiming to fire off 500 questions over the course of the nine nights or what?

If you have to get 50 questions right to win anything is it going to feel like a lot of effort for not much reward, not only as a player but as a viewer? This can be mitigated if the game is fun but the jury’s out on that right now.

Well five minutes after the last post, do you remember the Richard Osman classic gameshow curated BBC archive thing mentioned a few weeks ago?

Well it’s live now. It’s an eclectic mix featuring Friends Like These (2000), Ask the Family (1982), Weakest Link (2009), Big Break (2001), Bob’s Full House (1987), What’s My Line? (1974), Call My Bluff (1999), Quiz Ball (1966) and Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? (1954).

But alas no First Letter First.

Edit: Explanatory blog.

We don’t like to go three days without a post but there’s not much gossip about so instead what I’ve done is gone through my Youtube recommended list and posted the first related thing it came up with, notwithstanding full episodes of Jeux Sans Frontieres with disgraced commentator Stuart Hall commentaries (these remain interesting historically and are easily found by searching for them) and it came up with Viking, which was a sort of unsuccessful longboat-themed obstacle course in the Sasuke mould, and with occasional mental agility elements. In fact Eurosport used to show it with English commentary back in the mists of time.

If you missed this over the weekend, it looks like there’s another pilot of Name That Tune happening soon and teams of three are being asked for.

We went and saw the Bill Bailey pilot last year and thought that although it felt like a lengthy recording it should edit quite well. I don’t know if Bill Bailey is still associated with it.

Meanwhile it looks like Noel Edmonds, or his publicist, is now on Twitter Noel fans. It’s something I had been asking the cosmos for for a long time.