Well well done everyone, after a few dry episodes I think you’ve given us a lot to chew on this time round. As ever, I can’t verify any of it – the truth is known only to the writers and the people involved and I usually filter out stuff that feels a bit attention-seeky and false but you never know. Let’s see what you’ve given us:
Apparently Million Dollar Island isn’t doing that well in the Netherlands – it was losing to their version of Beat The Chasers and the reality show Farmer Wants A Wife – but it still is selling; Australia’s 7 Network just picked up the format….
I can verify this though – it’s not doing well, although Farmer Wants A Wife is one of those shows that’s massive in one particular territory and not really elsewhere. Still, at least they can reuse the armbands.
Channel 4 considered showing the bleeped edits of Taskmaster in one of their struggling daytime slots
Not the worst idea to be honest, although probably not when they’re in season.
BBC Three discussing yet another revival of Castaway 2000 / 2007, as though it’s the poorly rating show that just won’t flush.
Don’t really see the point of this if the BBC is meant to be doing Survivor, although thanks for reminding us of Castaway 2007 which I don’t remember at all, but did apparently have a contestant called Joe Chicken on it.
Kind of a game show. Dave are piloting a new show where comedians take control as managers of Football teams using Football Manger to simulate matches. They have challenges in between based around press conferences, motivational team talks etc. each week, one comedian is relegated until one remains.
Potentially, I love this idea – Fantasy Football Manager League – although I fear so much of it is going to be down to casting, it will need comics that properly get into it and take things a bit personally. Also the way it’s described it sounds like it might come across as both under- and over-formatted. Definitely something to look into, but I suspect less might be more. My gut right now is saying excellent Youtube series that doesn’t quite translate to television.
Britbox is getting that delightful game show we know and love… LETTERBOX
A special Eurovision-themed edition of Richard Osman’s House of Games Night will fill the gap between the FA Cup final and the Eurovision final on BBC One, with contestants Måns Zelmerlöw, Michael Ball, Cheryl Baker and Mel Giedroyc.
I don’t think this is true, but it’d make a great line-up. What would get played? Sing When You’re Winning obv. I’m sure there are other games that’d fit the theme.
Series 2 of Moneybags has a slight format change- contestants are no longer ruled out of play the next day(s) if they’ve made the final before, which now means one person could potentially win the million pound prize pot throughout the week
Yeah fair enough. Although it was quite nice that everyone was at least guaranteed a chance to get into the Final by Friday. I suppose it means it’s worthwhile everyone hanging around in the audience.
Fastest Finger First has already been filmed and edited, ready to air whenever now. Using the current Millionaire set but with 6 podiums stage left.
Big fan of The Rani getting another quiz gig, I’m still a bit perplexed as to how this is going to work from a broadcast point of view – are they all going out in a daytime block? Are they going out in the afternoon/evening that Millionaire is also going out? It makes sense for one to feed directly (or closely) into the other so you’ve got an easy narrative to follow but you do risk having Too Much Millionaire. I don’t know. I know Spain had a daily version of The Money Drop where the winners got to play for the big money in the evening, so there’s previous in the idea.
BBC are done with new quiz until mid 2023. They’re happy enough with all their current quizzes that there are not looking for new ones at all. C5 are looking for heritage quiz to bring in to compliment Eggheads. I’ve heard 15-1 is one about to go to pilot, but in a condensed form.
Well I wish my boss was happy with result expectations that low. I’m always wondering with these format pitching contests (that saw The Tournament and Bridge of Lies being made) how bad the other 30 shows must have been. A touch unfair on Bridge of Lies perhaps, especially as we’ve heard way worse about a similar pitching contest for Channel 4 that has apparently led to One Question With Claudia Winkleman, so that’s something to look forward to.
I have heard that Channel 5 are looking for similar quizzes to Eggheads as they’re very happy with how it’s done. Surely a condensed version of 15-1 is just… old-skool 15-1?
A pilot for a UK Jeopardy revival was filmed this month with Richard Madeley hosting.
ITV have another UK revival of Jeopardy (with Richard Madeley hosting) in the pipeline for lunchtimes when Loose Women is on hiatus.
Yeah I’ve been sitting on this for a little while and was caught off guard when I heard about it. So much of it feels like a hard sell – getting an hour’s format out of it, the sort of stakes you’re likely to be playing for at 12:30pm, whether there’s any real call for a middlebrow quiz at 12:30pm. Does Loose Women regularly go on hiatus these days? It strikes me that there are probably enough people in the rotation that they don’t really need to take a break. Madeley would probably be quite a good host, but could you take it seriously?
I’ve always said that I’d hope someone would try it just so it would crash and burn and everyone would stop banging on about it. If only there’s another channel looking for a heritage middlebrow quiz they could run for half an hour, possibly whilst another show is on hiatus, and could probably get away with lower stakes and expectations. I guess we will just never know.
Loose Women, I’m told, doesn’t break these days.
I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I think it was Wayne Garvie, when he was Head of Entertainment at the Beeb, who talked about how hard it was to get new quizzes off the ground, because they’d done a pitching round and got 100 pitches, and of those a grand total of three were considered to be suitable for further development, and of those two were discovered to have completely unfixable format flaws when they did a pilot.
If that House of Games thing is correct, I don’t know where that would go if the Cup Final went to extra time.
Jeopardy… that’s an hour long… on ITV lunchtime… hosted by Richard Madeley seems like a monkey’s paw situation. Not sure it would succeed either way but I certainly can’t see it succeeding in that format and situation. I’d just like an easy, legal way to watch US Jeopardy.
A half-hour 15-to-1 would be good – stretching it out to an hour didn’t work but it’s a pretty solid format for a rapid-fire quiz. If Channel 5 want a retro format, they could bring back their iconic C5 format 100. We also haven’t had a Blockbusters revival for a good 2 minutes… or if you wanted a slot where a Jeopardy reboot might actually succeed…
Actually, I wish they’d rerun the Comedy Central Blockbusters on Channel 5.
Alright, I have a lot to say on this
– MILLION DOLLAR ISLAND doesn’t take my fancy. Move along.
– TASKMASTER BLOOPER REEL could work in daytime but would do it a few months after the series has ended, not in the middle of one.
– CASTAWAY just won’t happen now the Survivor revival is 99% on. Sorry not sorry.
– COMEDIAN FOOTBALL MANAGER could be absolutely fantastic with the right contestants. Somehow I can see Ayoade completely bossing it. Edited well and done in a mickey-take style it could be good for TV.
– EUROVISION HOUSE OF GAMES might be good, might be awful, but if not now, when?
– MONEYBAGS giving an actual chance at £1,000,000? Preferred it how it was myself. Maybe a DOND-style format might work for it – stay on until you get to the final – but it’s midnight, I can’t be bothered to think through quiz formats.
– FASTEST FINGER FIRST’s big prize is a fast-track to the main game; I think the plan was to air it in primetime for six weeks before a series of normal Millionaire. I’d like to see how Anita Rani works as a primetime game show host. I think your suggestion is better though, however daily Millionaire traditionally doesn’t do very well (Italy, Argentina, Portugal) and Spain’s daily show aired at 8pm, which just wouldn’t work here.
– 15-TO-1 could be a hit with the right host and good publicity. Now WGS is sadly departed I don’t know who would work, as I doubt Toksvig would go to the depths of C5 and 2 vieweers if you’re lucky.
– JEOPARDY UK. Yeah, no.
My money would be on Dan Walker hosting 15-1 since he’s joined their channel.
Unless Jeremy Vine wants to do back-to-back
Here you go. Fantasy Football League with Matt Lucas and Ellis James – great choices, although whether they have chemistry together I don’t know.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/18406304/fantasy-football-league-return/
The BBC have revealed their schedule during Eurovision. No mention of any House of Games Night. They are currently filming the regular series right now. I don’t know how long it will take to film all the regular weeks, then I guess they will film the CofC Specials followed by Any HOGN episodes. House of Games usually tapes in chunks with a few weeks break in between. With editing and getting the episodes ready, I doubt that Eurovision week will happen but I hope to see all those guests on at some point.