Here’s where you/we can discuss this short run of The Million Pound Drop starting tonight at 8pm.
Don’t forget, you can still enter our competition! Lines close at 8pm this evening. Edit: Entries closed!
It is also The Apprentice interviews this evening at 9pm. Where is my glass ceiling? My field of ponies must have run off with it.
Also! Are you in the Manchester area at the end of January? There’s this show being filmed I’ve become obsessed over. Book plenty of leave, the dates shown are probably just to film one episode.
Fun Happy Hour fact: 41.2% of all the money has gone on there being zero duff questions.
Morning all
Just so you know 7th Guest has finally appeared on itunes.
It’s £1.79 and weighs in at a 650mb download.
I’m just getting it now.
Cheers
P
Yep, bought this morning – iPad version double the price. The computer animations are a bit too fast at the moment unfortunately.
In other news, it sounds like Sophie Ellis Bextor is a contestant on The Drop this evening…
And it said a famous mother and daughter would be playing – so I guess we’ll also be seeing one of the most controversial Blue Peter hosts…
@ that link.
I wonder if that’s being recorded purely for us slagging off the million pound drop?
There will be NO duff questions on MPD this series. Last series, there was only 1 “duff” question but everyone seems to make out that all of MPD’s questions are bad, when it’s far from that. All gameshows make mistakes from time to time, even the best – for e.g. Who Wants to Be A Millionaire has made 3 high profile errors IIRC.
Who Wants to Be A Millionaire has made 3 high profile errors IIRC.
Over 10 years
The drop has not even been on one yet has made two in fact
No, MPD has made just 1 error. What’s the 2nd one you’re thinking of?
Also I can assure you that there will be no mistakes like the Doctor Who one in the future.
I can’t believe you haven’t entered yet Joe 🙁
The other question is the sunset one, which you yourself said was a mistake and that the couple in question were offered another go and declined.
At least two, and those were just the appallingly bad ones that no-one here believes Endemol let slip through whatever passes for a question verification process you guys have.
Deal or No Deal contestant applications now open, by the way.
Pick me! Pick me!
That’s my entire application, there.
How could they refuse having an internationally famous celebrity who has no desire for an appearance fee?
Worldwide singing sensation Sophie Ellis Bextor will be taking on the Million Pound Drop with her mother for charity.
Yes i know, comment two.
I have a question for Endemol Joe or indeed anyone who can answer
On the million pound drop set when Davina walks up the stairs at the start of the show – a glass case rises up which before the show surrounds the desk and moves up so obviously the contestants can reach it
Is there a reason why it exists or is it purely for aesthetic purposes only
Its Coming
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2010/dec/15/bbc1-dont-scare-the-hare
Is there a place to stream the show?
Fun fact! 41% of all the money placed in the Happy Hour compo went on there being 0 duff questions. That means 59% think otherwise.
ACTUAL GRAPHS will come at the weekend.
They’re getting on at a reasonable pace this evening.
Makes the show so much better!
Janet and Sophie haven’t given Davina a chance to get her coin out yet though! 🙁
…
…
…That was a reasonable pace by this show’s standards?
(The first episode I’ve actually watched. Less dull than I was anticipating, Davina just as competent and professional as I expect from her (Which, no, isn’t a closet insult, she is a very good live presenter), but… Probably the least exciting big money gameshows I’ve seen for some time, and certainly less exciting viewing than even the least exciting episode of Only Connect, with far less shout-ability.
This space question is a nice and sneaky one.
27,000 people playing at 8:40, according to bloke on Twitter. That’s a bit down on normal, yet there’s not much else on. Will be intrigued by the overnights.
They had some technical difficulties with their play along site according to their Facebook page – plenty of people might have done what I did and tried to play along, then given up when it didn’t work?
Mmm, strangely unexciting, but no outright duff questions thus far as far as I can tell.
As I’m fact-checking elsewhere tonight, why not some for Millyon Ponud Dorp. URLs aren’t included, as I don’t want to hit Brig’s spam filter again.
Best-dressed woman of the decade, see Daily Telegraph 17 NOV 2010.
Commercially-sponsored military awards, see television listings.
Most popular song at funerals, according to a survey released in April 2009. An earlier survey in 2005 had put “Angels” on top; one in 2006 put James Blunt at number one.
Calories: they *had* to cite a source. FSA says 7000 (according to its own website), a press release from a diet company last year suggested 6000.
Midweek charts: see Radio 1’s website.
First animal in orbit: see “Sputnik”, Encyclopaedia Britannica.
“Which of these 2010 events lasted the longest?”: Yog was in chokey for 28 days. World Cup was 30 days and a few hours, it’s just that England’s matches felt a lot longer. Eyjafjallajokull closed UK air traffic from 15-20 April, on 4 and 5 May, and 16-17 May. That’s a week’s worth of closures, but spread over 32 days and a few hours. I dispute their answer.
IMDB says Frasier ran for 11 years, Friends for 10.
Santa city? We have a Times Atlas of the World. It’s accurate. Santa Victoria’s in Chile, the others appear to be inventions.
Right, I’m off to watch Science on Telly on BBC4.
Yeah, I just checked wikipedia on Laika, since the one thing I wasn’t sure of with that question was how long she survived vs how long the orbital period of Sputnik 2 was.
She got round at least 2.73 times, maybe as much as 3.82.
Good catch on the longest question – Since it was ‘lasted longest’ rather than ‘longest period’
What was the exact wording of the Sit-com question, incidentally?
(And I’m going to pay some respects for Laika by listening to Jonathan Coulton’s Space Doggity)
Sitcom one was most seasons.
I’m going to re-check the wording on the UK question before coming to a decision, thanks Iain.
Frasier had more episodes than Friends too so no chance of ambiguity. C4 have repeated Friends so much, it’s not a surprise that they went for that (it was my initial instinct too)
Mine was Frasier – I just wanted the exact wording before I double checked the episode count. I presume both had a series a year for their entire run?
(Though, if it was seasons/series then, however often their seasons were is irrelevent… Though possibly a linguistic ambiguity due to there only being one series of both because they’re American shows, and while BRitish shows have multiple series, American shows have one series divided into multiple seasons. But that’d be picking nits even for us.)
Just over 2m for MPD last night, decent ratingfor the show actually, albeit fourth place of the big four in the slot.
Exceptional. Our most popular launch to a series yet 😀
*rolls eyes*
I wonder what’d happen if it actually beat something. He might have exploded.
It beat Channel five and lots of other channels!
Anyway, I like it when Joe posts, even if it is a triumph of enthusiasm over facts.
Right, I’m off playing poker this evening but the show is being taped so I can watch a triple-bill on Sunday (this is the peril of being in the show’s target demographic, being out all the time). I’m not bothered about spoilers – I probably wouldn’t be watching it if I wasn’t doing a daft competition and I was a bit bored last night – so feel free to fire at will with your opinions.
2m is OK but there wasn’t much competition last night. It wasn’t a Champions League night. Tonight will be the toughest test against Royal Variety and ITV’s soaps.
In iDevice news, QuizQuizQuiz is apparently free for a limited time. I thought the app was pretty good and is a bit of a barg at that price.
Remember, even if you don’t have an iPod, if you have iTunes you can still download it so if you do eventually get one you can use it.
Ooh, consolation prizes. They’ve been raiding Family Fortunes’ prize cupboard!
I’d bet the other prize would’ve been a murder mystery weekend at the hotel Agatha Christie disappeared.
A lot of question 8’s have been tough ones on MPD. Tonight’s was one of the easiest ones they’ve had.
I agree with this, and I think it addresses one of the holes in the format: the final question shouldn’t be Heads or Tails redux, there should be some skill involved.
Badly-worded question o’the night was the one asking which breed has the most owners. It cited the Kennel Club, and their figures are compiled for registrations of pedigree dogs. The question seemed to me to be asking after humans.
Again, I am not Brig, my word counts for naff all. And, for the record, I have no stake in the contest our beloved bar owner is holding.
It was certainly easy to work out, but yes without knowing the exact facts unlike the previous questions, tonight’s 50/50 was the easiest so far.
Simply there are more railway tracks than motorways in Wales, Scotland, Devon, Cornwall and the Cotswolds.
Very good rating yesterday for MPD, outperforming last week’s slot average by 20%. 🙂
Sorry Joe, that was caught in the spam trap. As were your other more amusing comments, which I will let go.
Actually hang on, barely over a million according to what I’ve just read. Phenomenon indeed!
After Wednesday’s ratings they might as well call it “The Million Viewer Drop”.
http://instantrimshot.com/classic/?sound=rimshot
Sorry, I had to.
Two drums and a cymbal fall off a cliff.
Tom Scott films it.
MPD was always going to drop off eventually; great concept + reasonable show = high initial ratings + moderate ratings later on.
I reckon Duel had the better implementation of the mechanic of spreading your stuff across multiple options however you like, though.
The only reason the ratings were down yesterday was because it was up against the country’s most popular non-entertainment show (Corrie) and the annual Royal Variety Performance. We knew the ratings would be down.
But to suggest the ratings are down due to the concept of the show is incorrect. Our launch on Wednesday was the most popular ever. We have had good audience feedback, online participation remains strong, and bigger star name guests are being booked onto the show to win money for charity.
As I said a few days ago (and you may have missed it), Channel 4 has committed to the show until at least 2012.
So what you’re saying is… any time MPD faces any sort of competition, it’s ratings will take a nosedive?
Anyway, you said yourself you weren’t scared of Corrie as it appeals to a different audience.
…Since when have people watched soap for a reason other than being entertained? Drama (including soap) is a form of entertainment, afterall.
Now, if for some reason you’re referring to Light Entertainment with the significantly broader brush Entertainment…
…Then I point out that this year EastEnders got
15.6m on overnight on the 19/02 compared to Corrie’s overnight peak of 14.0m on the 09/12, which as of 10/12 represented both show’s highest overnights, so that position as ‘most popular’ is contested.
…I do hope you weren’t planning on asking “What is the most popular non-entertainment show” and expecting Corrie to be the correct answer completely uncontested on here tommorrow >:)
The problem I got is the Christmas specials have been tarnished with Channel 4’s scheduling. They should’ve gave them the 9pm slot for the first three shows and have Saturday at 10pm as originally planned (scratch that, it was meant to be 9.45pm but common sense kicked in to avoid the SCD result) or have the old 10pm for all four shows. Even ITV is giving Millionaire Live the 9pm slot next Thursday. If the show was airing at 9pm this week the show would’ve had a good chance of hitting nearly 3 million on Thursday and Friday. Wednesday would’ve been tough due to The Apprentice.
We know the show will be airing until the end of 2012 but it doesn’t mean Channel 4 will mess around with the scheduling. I would like to see one series being aired at 9pm next year to see it how it fares.
I don’t mind having celebrites on the show but I will give the show credit for having those who are related since Millionaire in recent years have had celebrity pairs who are just friends. Also having them playing after a regular game is a good idea. However, the show will need to be careful, if you go over the top with celebrity pairs it will ruin the shows credibility. I still think Endemol/Channel 4 should consider producing a special celebrity run in March for Comic Relief.
What makes it more interesting that Million Pound Drop is now the third Channel 4 game show to be extended until the end of 2012. Countdown and Deal or No Deal being the other two.
Just saw last night’s – Is it relevent to the contest that they didn’t clarify if they were talking about New York City or New York State in the gay destination question?
The question said “which city”. So I don’t think it would count.
Fair enough, missed that.
Puzzle Fans amongst you might be interested in the following I’ve stumbled across.
http://www.nestorgames.com/docs/16s/16s.html
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/596415/proof-that-no-16-clue-sudoku-exists for the BoardGameGeek thread started by the author of that document.
And puzzle fans may also enjoy croco-puzzle, with all manner of logic puzzles to try and a really engaging meta-game in which you build up points by solving puzzles as quickly as possible over the weeks, months and years. Yes, it’s all in German, but I wrote a walkthrough the other month, and it’s nearly still correct. The good Mr. Weaver and I play regularly, as does the good Mr. Oenomel who sometimes pops in here. (Maybe? I think?) I wouldn’t necessarily start today as today’s puzzles are pretty tricky but if the walkthrough makes it sound like the sort of thing that you might like then it’s really good in real life as well.
Is Davina trying to drop in the fact Emma Bunton is on the show tomorrow a million times?
Who? 😉
I smell constant plugging to lure viewers from BBC One to Channel 4 at 10:05pm tomorrow night.
Last night
The Million Pound Drop Live: 1.05m (4.1%)
The same people watching it Thursday night were watching it last night. It should do better tonight with the snow etc…
I do not doubt it is up on the timeslot.
What I am having trouble comprehending is that I’m constantly being told this is this year’s hottest new format, yet in primetime it’s barely breaking a 4% audience share.
Does anyone have any hard statistics about how well the show has performed overseas? I’m well aware the German version got off to a very good start but haven’t heard anything since.
In fact, here’s a thing, MPD finished last in the timeslot amongst the terrestrial channels.
So is C4 basically foolish to try any primetime gameshows on a weekend? I can’t think of much they’ve put on at 9/10 on a Saturday that has rated well, which is not to say they’ve been bad shows, just not the right thing for the slot.
Yeah, I’m even referring to Boys & Girls, although I did used to drink more back then which made it more fun.
The scheduling killed this series – it was obviously shoehorned into the schedule in awful slots at the last minute. Would have been better saving it till after Christmas and perhaps running it alongside Famous and Fearless for the first week of January.
Message to Joe and the Endemol folk. Please get pairs of celebrities who are as good as Larry and George Lamb who can actually play the format properly and think about the easy questions.
Most of the 3 alternative questions tonight seemed to have one obvious wrong answer. It’s a shame one of them was picked as the correct answer when it clearly wasn’t.
Celebs with brains – that’s a very limited gene pool!
I don’t mind the odd celeb pair being sneaked into the show and prefer them shoehorned in this way rather than endless “celeb specials” Millionaire style. However next time around just have one pair at the end of the series – we only got I think 3 real pairs this time, though it didn’t help they were all quite good and made it too the latter stages.
Also ditch the consolation prize nonsense! It wasn’t one couple winning £50/75k in the first series that got people hooked – it was one couple losing £525k!
…which is something you will probably never see again!
Right, competition to be judged sometime over the next week – I will try to do it on/by Monday, but regrettably that means having to find the time to watch several episodes of it which I’m a bit short of at the moment. Tomorrow is basically full of great telly!
Last night
The Million Pound Drop Live: 1.76m (9.1%)
Sightly better but Channel 4 will need to rethink if they are going to do the same next Christmas. I know next weeks schedule is full with specials (8 Out of 10 Cats, CDWM, Moyles) but would it benefit by having the live shows in that week from Monday to Thursday but airing them at 9pm or 10pm?
Don’t forget, Christmas DoND starts tomorrow.
That was me with the last comment.
Ha, ha, watching MPD episode three, it’s almost like they’ve taken note of criticism on the timezone question, with it adapting LIVE.