If you’ve been following, it sounds like X Factor act Rhythmix are going to change their name to avoid confusion with a children’s charity of the same name.
Fantasy X Factor managers will not need to do anything, I’ll adapt the team sheets automatically this weekend.
In other news, the ever reliable @tvscoops has suggested ITV have picked up The Exit List for seven episodes next year, and it’s being described as Raiders-Of-The-Lost-Ark-esque. I hope they’ve made it a bit more interesting than other descriptions of it have made it sound. Matt Allwright (off of Rogue Traders) set to host.
http://www.televisual.com/news-detail/ITV-commissions-The-Exit-List_nid-874.html
Here’s a picture from the pilot. It’s set up and described identically to how it was in the pitch film I saw. I just don’t expect much from this. It doesn’t seem that hard and don’t seem that interesting or exciting. Hopefully I’m wrong.
Oh man, when they said “pyramid” I assumed in a 3D sense 🙁
Sorry, probably should have said something about that when I reviewed the pilot a bit ago. No, it’s just a flat grid of squares, which is infinitely more boring and not nearly as cool looking. Frankly the floor of High Stakes looked cooler. There’s only so many ways you can light metal over the past decade or so before it’s become bland.
I think the logo that had been going around for it also suggested a certain 3D-ness. Pity.
Format Idea:
——> Champ
Champ is a new peak time game show format which is for the whole family to watch.
–> Round 1: there are 5 contestants. One at a time, the contestants are asked questions and this happens for 5 minutes. Get a question right, win a point. Get a question wrong, you win no points. At the end of round 1, the person with the least number of points is eliminated.
–> Round 2: 4 contestants remain. A physical round: the contestants all stand on a start line. A question is read out. If they know the answer, they have to get from one end of the studio to the other, through some obstacles. The first person to the other end of the studio answers the question. Get it right, they are through to round 3. Get it wrong and the next person who reached the finish line gets to answer the question and if they’re right, they get to round 3. This round is done a further 2 times with different obstacles so that 3 contestants remain by the end of the round.
–> Round 3: the 3 contestants enter the “Dungeon”. In this challenge, the three contestants are all in a room which is the “Dungeon”. There is 1 key hidden in the dungeon, it could be anywhere such as right at the bottom of a box which contains maggots, or locked in a safe which has a code which must be obtained by looking at clues. The person who wins the key is through to the round 4. The remaining two contestants must then battle it out in a head to head battle which requires them to eat disgusting insects in the quickest time possible. The winner of this progresses to round 4.
—> Round 4: 2 contestants in this round. At the start of this round, each person is given £50,000. The host asks the first question and there are 4 options as potential answers, the players must write their answers on a card and bet an amount on how certain they are on getting the correct answer. If the answer is correct, they win the amount they bet. So if they bet £30k on a question which they got correct, they would win £30k on top of the £50k they have. Bet incorrectly, and they lose that cash. This is done over 3 questions and the person at the end of the round with the most cash progresses through to the final round!!!
—> Final Round: the person stands to win the cash they have accumulated in round 4. What happens is there are 10 questions asked. They must answer as many as correctly as possible in 1 minute. For every correct answer, they win 10% of the total prize. If they get a wrong answer, they lose 10% of the money they’ve accumulated so far. They’re allowed to say “pass” once in the round when they don’t know the answer and they won’t lose any money but not win any either. At the end of the minute, they win the amount of cash accumulated.
This is a massive show with top quality hosts. Please can Brig Bother tweet it to Paul Brassey the head of BBC Light Entertainment so he is aware of this wonderful idea. Thanks.
Paul Brassey’s the head of BBC Light Entertainment now? I thought he’d go far.
Sorry, I meant Paul Brassey and the BBC Head of Light Entertainment if you have their Twitter account too. Paul is high up at BBC Light Entertainment, he has a lot of influence.
To submit to the BBC, you have to submit your ideas to a certain email address found on their website, I think. The BBC can’t consider details emailed or tweeted using private correspondence. Well, this is what Paul Brassey told me a few months back.
Also, as the format is now in the public domain – this makes things tricky for the BBC. People claiming “oh I had this idea” etc etc.
Uh-oh… that’s got me thinking of that song again…
“Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal,
Seeing everything, the time is going
Ticking on and on, everybody’s rushing,
Gotta get down to the bus stop…”
🙄 🙄 😈 😈
When competing in Pitch Star we had to pitch in only 200 words. Then 2 minutes of speech in the second round – and it was plenty.
We also got the very sage advice that; if we couldn’t sum up the format in one sentence – we had no chance. I would say you have four or five different formats there which is going to make it awful to pitch.
Also I can’t stress enough about format names – some formats get a pilot on the name alone. Champ is a dish of of mashed potato and cabbage so a game by that name is going to struggle. I’ll have a closer look tonight when I’m fed and watered.
Who were the judges?
Peter and Elaine, I suspect.
As noted before Peter Fincham our Director of Television, Kevin Lygo who’s MD of ITV Studios, one of our entertainment commissioners (this years theme was Saturday Night Entertainment) and a fourth judge who I honestly can’t remember – they were standing in last minute for the MD of ITV Studios: France.
Ah Lygo. The man with a slight resemblance to Horatio Caine.
Thanks Qusion for sharing your pitch, which is pretty good. May I ask are you on Twitter?
As promised, and note that I haven’t had anything commissioned, just wont a contest about pitching.
Examination Room
Examination Room is a new prime time game show which takes ordinary members of the public and tests them in ways they couldn’t possibly imagine.
Five contestants start the process and in each exam, one contestant is eliminated while the others progress.
The examination rooms vary each week and might involve answering questions while under pressure, terrifying tests of nerve or physical games and stunts.
The last remaining candidate then faces the Final Exam – a test of general knowledge where up to a hundred-thousand pounds can be won, or lost.
Viewers will come back week on week to see what challenges the candidates will face, and naturally, will love the shout out loud nature of some of the games.
Examination Room would be supported with a full second screen interactive element along with a PRS quiz and online video content.
Examination Room marks a departure from traditional prime time quizzes, mixing action and quiz elements in a way that the mass market will understand and engage with.
That’s 170 words; the Pitch Star contests makes you very good and being concise. I’ve changed the name but messed around with the format only marginally. The last two paragraphs are necessary as you need to explain why the format will be successful – interactivity and engagement are the biggest requirements for prime time these days.
I also ignored the individual rules of each game – my mentor for Pitch Star made it very clear that the rules of the game shouldn’t be mentioned in a pitch – in a post pitch Q&A maybe, but not in the main body. Game Show fans love getting involved in the details of rules – commissioners don’t care.
Hope that’s helpful Joe, and interesting everyone else.
Wow, thanks for your help Qusion 🙂 ! This is very helpful and insightful. I actually think this will help me a lot in the future with narrowing down the pitches to make them more concise. Thanks a lot
This is so pathetic I almost want to shed tears for you. Stop spamming this board, find a new hobby and go away, permanently.
Joe, is the gameshow mash up format popular in TV nowadays because honestly there doesn’t seem to be a element of flow in it
Maybe I’m missing something?
Very much so. Have you seen Pointless, which is basically Family Fortunes in reverse. And The Chase, which is a spin on the Eggheads format. These two shows are popular. Popular shows are nearly always mash ups of old formats but with a slight different. Originality in television is overated. Originality often results in failure.
Yes but this is a same problem as ultimate champion
Its 5 shows shoved into one
We have:
Round 1: Every generic quizzer in existance
Round 2: The whole 19 yards
Round 3: Fear Factor/The door hybrid
Round 4: End Game from perfect strangers
Round 5: End game from a sudoku gameshow I can’t remember
Yes, every idea has been used before – thats not the issue – its the fact that there seems to little connecting it all – It feels like 5 gameshows were picked at random from Uk Gameshows with ideas taken and thrown together
If there was more of a link it may stand a chance but atm I don’t honestly think a commissioner would take an interest
DISCLAIMER: I don’t work in TV – this is my opinion as a gameshow fan – nowt else
Your better off thinking of a main idea and then working around that
e.g Pointless – family fortunes in reverse
Cube – simple games under pressure
They ain’t orginal but its something interesting and theres a theme around the show
Exactly Chris. I don’t see why they shouldn’t bring back some form of ‘variety’ show along the lines of Saturday Night Takeaway.
When I was reading Round 4, it was screaming ‘Jepardy’ to me. That show has a bet away your money won mechanic.
Look, I applaud Joe for throwing his concepts for formats on an internet fourm, but right now, your ideas are just that – thrown around.
There’s nothing wrong with taking bits of other current and life expired game and quiz shows and using them in new ideas, but it’s the bolts that you attach those parts on which are key.
Enough gleaming new bolts and the casual viewer won’t notice that it is using the 3rd round from that show that was presented by that bloke with the big glasses and silly ties off Radio Two around 1989.
Joe, Champ has no new bolts yet. It’s stuck together with words and hope. Think of a couple of new rounds (or existing rounds with new hooks or twists to them) to replace some of the obvious ‘that round was from…’ in your show and you may just have a pitchable format.
A game show should be like a story: it has a beginning, a middle, an end. I think the best game shows have a hero in the narrow Classical definition, someone who is changed by their experience on the programme over and above the prize.
With regards to Joe’s , I see a beginning, I see a middle, I don’t see an end so much as a fizzling out. I don’t see a narrative reason for throwing together four quizzes and some mild torture. Why is this player the champion? What have they done to earn (potentially) £400,000?
Three obvious problems: why would anyone sit through five l-o-n-g minutes of quizzing just watching the points rack up? Round 3 would have to be yuk factor on ITV, yukkier on Channel 5, a psychological challenge on Channel 4, and I don’t think the BBC would dare do it justice in a family slot. And in the finale, what’s to stop a contestant getting a question they don’t know and just shutting up until the minute’s up?
I’m all in favour of game shows testing orthogonal skills, so long as they do it for a logical reason. Think about how awarded its points, think about how categorised its games. And think about why succeeded when didn’t.
Edit: I’ve deleted the comment this was referring to, I think someone is causing trouble. Don’t worry, normal service will resume soon! Brig
Whoa, hold on there that never happened. I was working on a concept involving a bank vault that was themed nearly identically (mine went a bit more intensive with the theming, though, so far as having stuff like no audience and a very closed-in vault feel), but the show was never the same. I don’t post formats publicly. But thanks for reading my Twitter.
for the first time, well, ever, i’m starting to feel slightly sorry for ex-endemol joe, all these format ideas smack of desperation, clearly something is up.
Off that subject, Qusion, did you use to be on the GladiatorZone forums (or still on there, its me thats stopped visiting the site)?
I did indeed, I used to do the Gladiator Riddles. The Facebook group seems to be the place to be now although I do miss the zone and the endless arguments as to whether Jet or Lightning was better.
The bar has gone a bit mad all of a sudden, methinks!