It’s slow other than Red or Black?, so here’s a heartwarming story nicked from GSNN – do you remember the non-hit John Barrowman shouty quiz The Kids Are All Right? Well it has sold to Vietnam.
Most exciting comment of the story:
The show has much popularity in countries like Poland, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Egypt, Mexico, Holland, Norway, South Africa, the US and Portugal.
Hmm.
Oh here’s fun, according to The Guardian, two people have been removed from future Red or Black? live shows after failing background checks and will not be replaced. That means that potentially it could go from 7 to 3 to 1 couldn’t it? Do they have a contingency? How are they going to explain it?
Told you this background stuff would bite Simon in the bum. Not so easy this game show lark, is it Mr Cowell?
I’m surprised that they didn’t think of having a reserve on standby. If it were me, I’d have got the ‘rejected’ final 8 to pick a number from 1 to 8, and that’s their seeding order in case of a situation like this.
You invite numbers 1 and 2 to the studio on the day, in case a player has to pull out (or you pull someone out). You could even have the numbers of 3 to 8 on the phone if necessary – it’s not like you actually have to be in the studio particularly!
BTW, I am still *amazed* that someone with a non-spent criminal record was allowed to even get into the final 16, never mind win the thing.
Interestingly a Guardian poll was 68-32 last I checked as to whether Nathan should keep the money. (I voted no, but with no lack of equivocation about it. I’m deeply uneasy that he had the chance to win, but the mistake was that he did get that chance – he did nothing wrong in the show itself.)
I would not be surprised at all if this leads to a long-term decline in big-money luck-based shows generally – the very fact that the first person to win £1m on a pure luck game show was someone as evidently objectionable as Nathan has got to make viewers unhappy, surely?
Which says something about the intelligence of Guardian readers, really.
They have some, unlike those people who the front pages the likes of The Sun are aimed at.
Indeed, I’ve still no idea why someone who was once convicted of something shouldn’t be able to enter a game show.
Something like Big Brother I get as you don’t want someone with a history of assault in there but a studio based quiz I don’t know what the problem is
And for what it’s worth, the probability of a 7 -> 3 -> 1 live show is 25%, and with two shows that could go that way, it’s not far off 50-50 that at least one 7 -> 3 -> 1 will pop up.
If it does go 7 > 3 > 1 then it makes the drawing for the three player stage crucial. Surely the correct strategy at that point is for player two to go the opposite of player one? Player three HAS to pick one or the other and so is guaranteed to have to endure a second round if he is right, but one of the others has a bye to the final.
It’d seem a bit weird. But if they have a repecharge and the that person goes on to win, wouldn’t that draw ire as well?
On another note, Italian viewers will see The Cube tonight. Looking at the TV listings, their special one-off show will run for 155 mins. Seriously, over 2 & 1/2 hours (with adverts).
Who’s to say it will go 7>3>1 on Red Or Black? Couldn’t it just as easily go 7>4>2>1?
Yes it might, provided the four people who pick the right colour are correct. But there’s a 50% chance they’ll be wrong.
50% it goes 7-4-2-1. 25% it goes 7-3-2-1. 25% it goes 7-3-1.
Ah, they’re doing it by random picking of boxes to match the colour chosen.
The online game however hasn’t been changed so its a free win here 🙂
That’s a pretty good way of making that work, actually. It ensures it goes the distance.
I just had a strong feeling that it wouldn’t go 7-3-1, I thought that there would be some way that 4 people would be in the next round. All that speculation for nothing, eh? 😀
It was good thinking actually, although it makes it not a fifty fifty decision, obviously.
You can treat it as though the yanked-out contestant picked first and had the wrong colour, then the other seven carried on.
Ant & Dec had their chance but didn’t tell any of the losing contestants that they were blackballed.
I see they’ve done a few cosmetic changes tonight after their day off.
– They’ve ditch the constant moody/dark music for the upbeat theme.
– You can see more of the audience. The first three nights had them in total darkness. There are also more panning shots of the looneys.
– After what I said about Il Divo, the JLS pick was better as it was incorporated in the music act.
-The video wall actually mentions the colour once picked.
I read somewhere Simon Cowell will be holding a press conference tomorrow regarding the show.
Watching Italian Cube. For those who want to know the money tree/ladder.
€100,000
€50,000
€20,000
€10,000
€5,000
€2,000
€1,000
Also what is interesting that when a contestant lifts the tumbler of balls in multisphere, he does something that doesn’t release all the balls onto the floor, about 1 or 2 are sitting on the flat bit of the tumbler podium. He was instructed to roll the ball onto the floor.
Ant said “220,000 people are playing Red or Black online” tonight. That can’t be right, surely?! On Saturday they had only about 40,000, so I can’t believe 5 times more are playing tonight.
It must be a cumulative figure from the 4 nights so far, they’re spinning the figures to make it sound bigger than it actually is. Frustrating.
Online game says 57,000 – Must of been a mistake
51,707 to be exact 🙂
Red or Black people are liars. That’s not even half what MPD gets. Yet on screen, they pretend Red or Black was getting over 200,000 visitors on the game tonight. Lies. Pffttttt
Hope I’m forgiven for ignorance of the Uk legal system, and for looking at this from an American perspective.
I do have some questions. . .
When was this man convicted?
How long ago did his term in prison end?
Was he on any form of parole or probation?
Has he been accused of anything criminal in the period between his release from prison and the present date?
If he has kept to the strait-and-narrow since his release, then I see no reason why he should not be allowed to keep the money he won on “Red or Black”.
With a million quid, he might not feel that he needs to break into other folks’ houses, nor assault them with criminal intent.
Great idea, maybe we should give all convicted criminals a stack of money, might stop them re-offending?
No, they’d have to earn it honestly!
I suspect that if you could look back three hundred years, you’d find that Catnach would pay some fellow about to dance on air at Tyburn for the use of his name on one of those broadsides that purported to offer the felon’s “Last Dying Speech”. At least that money would go to a wife or mum–we’d hope!
pictures from Italian The Cube premiere
11.21% share for the first episode. not good, not bad.
http://www.tvblog.it/galleria/the-cube-la-sfida-prima-puntata-del-07-settembre-2011/1
How did Minute to Win It do earlier in the week?
I watched some of Italian Cube last night while switching between that and Red or Black. I felt the format was harder for them based on the games played. Usually here we have a simple first game like Time Freeze or Stop Zone to ease them in, but the Italians had Vault (originally used for £10K here, where you roll a ball down a track, which slops up and have to land into a box) as the first game.
1st episode of Minute To Win won the timeslot by a mile with 2,672,000 viewers for a 19.44% share
Italia1 has a smaller budget than Canale5 or RAI1 so their prizes are usually smaller, or harder to win.
Talking about Canale5 and RAI1, their 7PM shows L’Eredità and Avanti Un Altro are almost tied for viewers. I’ll post something about Avanti Un Altro when I finally get to watch a full episode 🙁
Q: How do you know when a show is underperforming?
A: As I’ve said in the past, it’s when TV people suggest that Red or Black’s share has stayed level so actually it’s a massive success actually.
“How are they going to explain it?” asked Brig. Seeing as how I was taking pictures from last night’s episode for the Week’s review (18 September), I can answer.
“One contestant is unable to join us through unforeseen circumstances.”
That’ll be ITV-speak for “The show’s owner doesn’t want negative publicity from giving money to people with criminal records, so he’s changed the rules halfway through the run. And he’s responsible for the complete works of Robson and Jerome!”
There COULD have been an instance when 3 were right on tonight’s RoB, but it didn’t happen. The game had Andrew Flintoff and Michael Vaughan throwing balls at a wall of targets, 10 red and 10 black. If hit hard enough, the target changes colour, and whoever has most in 90 seconds wins. The first 4 went for red and so the other 3 had to go black. Andrew (playing red) won the game.
And can’t see how the Diversity performance afterwards could have been tweaked really unless I suppose they put three boxes numbered 1-3 in the Cube and people chose them, with the two that are the same colour going through (so choose 3 as 1/2 are bound to be different!)
And we have our third millionaire!!!