Well done, last night’s The Million Pound Drop:
“In which of these places did the sun set first today: Rekjavijk, Dubai or Rome?”
If the contestant ever has to guess the setter’s intentions than the question is really poor, and on live primetime TV this is just incredibly embarrassing. There is nothing to suggest whether this meant local time of the places or from the point of the UK. As David B has pointed out, “today” is a dangerous word to use when your show is on towards midnight and a question spans many different timezones.
Those contestants would be right to feel a bit aggreved, I think.
Could they potentially sue or get another go on the MPD?
They would if it was down to me, but I imagine they won’t.
Although saying that:
“the1mpounddrop Be sure to continue watching the #millionpounddrop ALL week. You may recognise some of the faces on the show tomorrow night, any ideas who?”
I might recognise Davina.
It’ll probably be Rochelle from the Saturdays with celebrity boyfriend, Marvin from JLS.
Good job they have name badges, then.
The contestants will be given a second chance. Endemol realise they made a mistake (like all companies do) and have offered them the chance to take part again. Endemol apologises for what has happened.
I love you Joe, although I do fear you’re beginning to sound a bit like Gollum in Lord of the Rings.
That’s eminently sensible. Better to give them another go while the show’s on air than a tedious lawsuit in three weeks time. (If you’re Question Producer Joe McVey, I claim my five pounds.)
And thank god it’s not JLS on the show! Phew!!!
JLS are well wicked, though.
Actually, wait and see about the JLS rumour 😉
Ratings for yesterday: 2.3 million. Another series high and well ahead of Channel 4’s year to day average in that slot.
Can you tell the researchers to get people on the show other than those in the London area. There is a reason why there were nationwide auditions.
We’ve had some Manchester contestants…
Good. All three answers to the question can be correct: Dubai, if the question is “which of these places experienced sunset first on 27 October, as seen by an alien 23,000 miles due up”; Rome, if the question is “which of these places experienced sunset first today (at the time of asking, Dubai had clicked over to 28 October, and sunset “today” was still sixteen hours in the future, Rome hadn’t); and Reykjavik if the question is “which of these places experienced sunset first on 27 October, as measured by local time”.
According to Time and Date.com, sunset in Dubai was 17.42 local time (13.42 UTC, 14.42 UK), in Rome was 18.11 local (16.11 UTC, 17.11 UK), and in Reykjavik was 17.28 local (18.28 UTC, 19.28 UK).
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Three links. It’s a WordPress setting.
I apologise to everyone for the exceptionally boring nature of this comment.
Q: How is The Banker a bit like The Queen?
A: It sounds like Deal or No Deal having its official birthday a month later than its actual birthday, because of Halloween.
Pointless is currently doing a casting call for series 4.
I’m going to be really unpopular here, and say that I can’t see what all the fuss is about with The Million Pound Drop sunset question..
Allowing for a slight nerves of the contestant with the brain cycling in sensory overload more than usual with the studio lights, the audience, what rude things your mates are saying about you on Twitter and Ms McCall bawling into your earholes from a distance of 2.5 feet away – the question has very little room for mis-understanding.
In which of these places did the sun set first TODAY – I.e look at your watch, see what time it is right now, and then start to remember that page you never look at the back of your diary or that free Iphone App and try to remember that Dubai is three hours ahead of GMT and therefore it’s good folk head for the lightswitches first.
I doth fear some around here, are reading too much and shoveling on more mudfulls of ambigueity than there actually was.
Whilst I’m generally all for cleverly hidden questions, I would suggest that the fact a significant amount of people questioned it suggests something is amiss. You’re having to guess that the correct intention is “which of these is furthest East?” where my thinking would have been “which is furthest North?”, seeing as there would probably be less hours of sunlight in Iceland.
I expect that to be dodgy geographical reasoning, but the point still stands – there should be only one logical outcome.
In fairness, my first reading (watching the show at double speed at 7.20 on Thursday morning) was the alien-at-23,000-miles one, which seems to be the intention of the question-setter.
Brig’s right, there are fewer hours of sunlight in Iceland than Italy at this time of year, and only about four in midwinter, but Reykjavik is so far west that the sun never sets there before it does in Abu Dhabi. It does go down earlier than in Rome from mid-November to mid-January, a fact that a vicious quiz compiler would choose to use. Mr. B, Mr. L, other evil uberquizzers, yours for the taking.
Incidentally what would the answer be if local times were accounted for?
For today (assuming there wouldn’t be much difference)
Dubai 17.41
Rome 18.09
Reykjavik 17.24
Are they really getting another go. Can this be confirmed anywhere?
They were offered the chance…
Post on DS forum suggesting that it might in fact be… George and Larry Lamb.
Yep, confirmed on Twitter, playing for charity.
Which must be a bit of a smack in the face for everyone who has applied so far, but still.
Not only is it a bit of a random thing to do, but it’s not a good fit for the programme. There’s some enjoyable schadenfreude when stupid contestants lose their money down the hole. When it’s the Christmas presents of starving little kiddies, I’m not so sure it works…
I’d be surprised if there wasn’t more a) sitters, or b) some sort of consolation prize.
Hmm, having had a bit of time to think about it it’s quite possible there’s something in the official rules that contestants get saying “any questions mentioning a time such as “today”, “now” or similar relate to BST and should be treated as such, unless expressly stated otherwise”
Of course, it’s also quite possible there isn’t, but still.
But that’s still rubbish even if technically correct, because the viewers have no such information to go on.
Naturally
People need to chill out about the question. Okay it wasn’t the best question but other gameshows have had much worse before. Endemol can’t be 100% perfect all the time!
The viewers are loving the show. It’s getting very high ratings, beating ITV1 in the slot comfortably, and is cost-effective to make. It’s translated well in other markets like Germany and will be a big hit in the USA too. Mark my words.
The show has got nothing to worry about from ITV1. News at 10 where nobody watches, followed by old films and repeats. Sorry but that is a lame statement. If it was second behind BBC1 then well done them.
The last person who made a familar statement to “mark my words” saying how brilliant a show was, came from the co-creator from The Colour of Money. I wonder where that show is now?
I wouldn’t jump the gun with the US market. It’s not easy having a game breaking ground in primetime for the longterm. NBC’s DoND got bored quickly by the contestant lunatic contestants and 1 Vs 100 had an impossible format to win something, which is why they had to change it at the last minute. I will confess the show will do better in Germany than the US.
edit “constant lunatic contestants”.
There were 4 seasons of Deal or No Deal in primetime NBC as well as more seasons of the syndicated version and repeats on GSM. 4 seasons is very good by US standards and not to be sniffed at.
Million Pound Drop will be the next big gameshow in the US. There’s been massive interest in the show, with FOX having ordered a pilot which went well, and once all the formalities are sorted the Americans will embrace the show just like how they’ve embraced other Endemol productions like Deal or No Deal and Wipeout.
The great thing about The Million Pound Drop/The Money Drop is that there is that it is a simple gameshow with big stakes. It’s a show which appeals to mass audiences and even if FOX don’t pick it up there is interest from other broadcasters like NBC.
Joe I appreciate your not exactly going to talk down the show but it is worth pointing out that just because endemol name’s on the label doesn’t make it a guaranteed success
If you want a reference for that you’ll find a very large tower in argentina now that one version is cancelled and the US version didn’t make it off the ground
Its also worth mentioning that the US risk mentality is different to the UK – the audiences are very different – the UK doesn’t mind people losing big or winning big – US audiences want the latter only – DOND US routinely binned episodes where there was no good money left on the board.. Money drop US has apprantely already done re-filming as there were too much losing – switching to NBC won’t change that – lets face it the show gave away 75k last series which was 7.5% of the top prize. If the game ain’t dramatically changed then Money drop won’t make it through the season let alone a another commission
The show is already being reformatted for the US version. It’s not a carbon copy of the International format.
Noted above – Buzzerblog has heard that the format is reduced to 7 questions to improve the pace and reduce difficulty
If there are other changes than this then do inform us 🙂
Truly, it’s only Endemol that has the balls to put out hugely dodgy questions like that live on primetime TV in a big money quiz. Edgy!
To be fair, Millionaire had a sort of dodgy question once involving the smallest amount of hits it would take to win a set at tennis, although happily that time the contestant’s wrong answer agreed with the production team’s wrong answer, so they honoured the prize anyway.
And for the record, the contestants are mainly aged between 20-30 years old because it’s on Channel 4 and has to appeal to their core demographic.
If the show was on BBC1 or ITV1, then the contestants would’ve been from a wide age range. But by being on Channel 4, it was recommended that the majority of contestants should be aged between 18-34.