We had a fun e-mail from FOTB Gary Monaghan yesterday (titled BANZ-A.I. if you want to see where this is going) who is trying something out on Youtube (as it’s very hard to get this sort of thing commissioned on linear these days). To answer your future questions: “27”, and “I suspect it might end up being a lot of effort for not much reward but it might take off you never know.” He is intrigued by the feedback.

I scored one (I got the last one right) if you’re playing along at home.

Upcoming attractions: tomorrow there’s another Schlag den Star which we’ll be watching in the Discord, and we’ll have a Show Discussion post up for Romesh Ranganathan’s Parent’s Evening.

I don’t think I’ve seen any advertising for it outside of Stephen Mulhern’s Twitter. I’m slightly baffled by this new world of ITV advertising where they don’t seem to bother putting any effort into advertising the return of their popular shows (see also this year’s Big Brother). Last year it launched to a 2.5m overnight which was pretty incredible, can’t see it doing the same thing this time.

Two things caught my eye today.

• Broadcast reporting that ITV Studios is planning to shut down 12 Yard. Their shows over the last 20 years have varied from very bad to very good, but their penalty shoot-out style defined the genre in their early days. Feels like an end of an era. Presumably the two series of Popmaster TV that have been commissioned will be shuffled off to another ITVS studio.
• Mel Giedroyc is hosting a run of 25 episodes of Pictionary starting with a Christmas special, based on the current US show. Interesting TV Zone suggesting it’s a 30 minute proposition which means I’ve got no idea where they’re planning on putting it, you’d presume afternoons but you’d need another 30 minute show to pair it with and we’re not aware of anything in the pipeline (Jeopardy! should be a 30 minute show of course). Regular Saturday night slot? Anyway this will be somewhat of a homecoming for Giedroyc who hosted Draw it! on Channel 4 afternoons in 2014. Feels to me like an odd commission, doesn’t strike me as the sort of thing that will do great numbers live and especially on ITVX but you never know, it feels like the sort of thing people say they want but don’t actually watch.
• Bonus third thing! £20k Play is the awfully titled new show (seriously, it sounds like a lottery scratchcard) that starts on Channel 4.0, Channel 4’s Youtube channel tonight from 6pm. Groups of five friends judge each other with “brutal” questions to win up to £20,000 (so proper money) although there’s some sort of greed element at the end.

I’m a big fan of Youtube show VHS Revue and urge you all to have a look, it’s written and fronted by David M Green who long term readers might remember as the host of punching-well-above-its-weight local access comedy quiz 31 Questions over a decade ago, since then he’s done a lot of writing for proper TV shows with and for Shaun Micallef and the like and yet this might be his magnum opus – ostenably a show that looks at old adverts on old video tapes and comically analyses them, but there’s usually a bit of broadcasting industry context around the shows the adverts came from. Anyway he’s gone big into 90s Aussie gameshows here.

I know what you’re thinking “hey, I’m a big fan of Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Travis Kelce, and I’m a big fan of Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader/10 Year Old, is there any way I can watch Amazon Prime’s new series Are You Smarter Than A Celebrity in the UK?”

Well yes you can! It’s on UK Prime right now, three episodes now and one every Wednesday hereafter. The interesting question is will we be getting the entirety of Amazon’s new Wednesday ‘game show block’ going forward, including Wish List Games, Buy It Now and (probably the one of most interest to most of you) Pop Culture Jeopardy! going forward to which the answer is “I don’t know!” I wonder if Jeopardy! airing in the UK now might make the rights to that a bit more challenging here. We’ll find out in due course.

AYSTAC (so close to “haystack”) gives people the chance to win $100,000 – and an Amazon gift prize! – to people who can answer 11 questions in various school categories and at various grade levels. The main difference between this and the original is that whilst the original had a class of kids to help the contestants out, here we have five celebrities, with their own strengths and weaknesses, in the same role. Only a couple of changes to the traditional rules – one of the cheats has been replaced by the “pop quiz” – if the contestant isn’t sure of a question they can throw it out and have it replaced by a pop culture question which the entire class can help with. The other change being that if they go for the final 6th Grade question for the jackpot they’re allowed to get help from one of the celebs.

The money ladder isn’t very good, or at least isn’t very interesting. The first 10 questions go from $1,000 to $50,000 with a guarantee point at $15k after Q5, after that it goes $20k, $25k, $30k, $35k, $50k and then the final $100k, but really whilst you can bail at any time, realistically the final two jumps are the only places where it feels like there’s any real decision to be made. It means you’re pretty much guaranteed a 40-45 minute show with between 9 and 11 questions in it, but at no point does that really threaten to become exciting. Kelce is surprisingly OK at hosting, they keep the mistakes in where he makes a joke about it, he’s evidently not short of confidence and the first ep suggests he can think on his feet. Although probably should be told to keep his hands out of his pockets. Why Travis Kelce is asking a bunch of celebrities questions for 6-10 years olds is not adequately explained.

The first ep is basically a harmless way to pass 45 minutes, and that’s the problem really, unless Prime are splashing this all over the front page I can’t see people actively going out and searching for it – you’ve got to really want it. The only one I think has a chance will be Pop Culture Jeopardy purely out of inertia. Annoyingly Prime don’t really give figures out and I can’t see it troubling BARB so we’ll only be able to rely on hearsay (and if it gets recomissioned) to find out if it was worth doing or not.