Saturday 5:15pm then weekdays 4:30pm,
Channel 4
And so prosaic quiz week on Bother’s Bar ends with the revival of the show die-hard quizzers love but which I always found a bit dull really – Fifteen to One.
And I think they’re in a tough spot. The reason the original was so beloved is that it was quite dry, question after question after question. This version is going to be less dry, but at an hour long it’s not going to be so quickfire – player chat is promised by Toksvig (everyone gets three goes to reach the Pointless Final, the grand prize is a legitimately large £40k which is easier to have a chat about than an old piece of pot). Diehards are going to rail against it because it feels like they’ve missed the point of the original (which everyone stopped watching), casuals are probably not going to switch over from shows that are already on that look like more fun (and Deal or No Deal feels like a very strange lead-in). Damned if they do and damned if they don’t really.
Still University Challenge managed a successful comeback under similar circumstances (albeit not as a programme double the length with added chat) so you never know. Quoting myself for the record though:
I predict 900k-1m for the first civvy episode and everyone will get excited and go “ooh it’s a hit!” and it’ll be below 700k by the end of week two. I don’t know how much it needs to be seen as a success, but it’s not like Come Dine On A Trip In A Bed is expensive to make.
We’ll see if I look like a genius or an idiot in a few weeks. At the time of writing that prediction we were expecting the first civvy episode to be on the Monday and not the Saturday after the Grand National (which we initially thought was going to be a celeb special), so I expect the first episode to be a bit more of an outlier.
I quite like the soviet-esque theme they’ve gone for in the background, there.
Some new 15-1 footage from The One Show: http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b03zcvjw/?t=33m37s
The set looks much better than on the press shots.
I know it’s slightly different, but it was in the post Grand National slot on Channel 4 last year that 5 Minutes for a Fortune was placed in…
..better luck with civvie 15-1 getting recommissioned…
In other news. I know we are going to get worn down by this dribble about who will replace Sir Brucie on Strictly (expecting almost daily ‘names plucked from the air’ front page shouting from the Daily Express) but surprised no-one has mentioned Sir Terry Wogan for co-host?
It would keep the ‘older male, Tess Daly’ presenting partnership going, and, amusingly, it still means Bruce could cover for Tel on the show the day after Children In Need!
I accidentally appear to have pressed the slow motion button on my television remote control…
That’s me on podium 8.
Bad luck for not winning, by the way, but well done for making the final on the first go.
Shorter Twitter: HOW DARE THEY CHANGE ANYTHING?
I’ll be watching it later as I’m out at the moment, but it struck me that might be, er, politically more acceptable if they added another round – from 6 to 3 say. If they give everyone their three lives back again that’d extend the show a bit in a meaningful way.
I think the Twiticasters are a bit too late, they obviously didn’t see the 2013 celeb special.
I can pinpoint a few improvements (studio, podium displays), but 15-to-1 still feels like a swish car with teething problems.
It was never the most exciting format, but stretching it out to an hour is really pushing it. It’s tedious. It would be fine if it was 30 minutes, basically… even 45 would probably be acceptable.
And they’re advertising the new series starting on Monday, in the middle of today’s episode! Brilliant.
I think the pacing needs to be compared with what’s on the market today, and when compared to the likes of Eggheads it’s not that bad.
The contestant chatter isn’t as drawn out as it could have been.
The set and presentation is faultless too in my opinion.
I prefer Sandi in role to Adam Hills as she’s both more authoritative, whilst remaining warm.
Eggheads is absolute crap though – when you make comparisons you make it with the best examples, not the worst. The Chase is probably the best example at the moment – the highest rated classic Q/A quiz show outside the Lottery shows and they must get through at least 100-120 questions an hour.
The difference is though the format of The Chase allows for banter and facts – on a show like 15 to 1 it just feels like exactly what it is – unnecessary padding.
Could not have put it better myself. I thought (incorrectly) they would have least put a bit more quiz into the extra 30 minutes 🙁
I guess I’m using Eggheads to compare because although you say it’s ‘absolute crap’, it is successful and I guess the real question for me is will it will be successful. The trouble is I think Channel 4 can’t do that well with daytime gameshows because ITV and the BBC are so strong at the moment. It’s not that Channel 4 aren’t making good shows they just don’t get a look in.
Well it’s cheap, it’s certainly no The Chase or Uni Challenge in terms of audience numbers or questions asked. It’s not even a Tipping Point.
I didn’t think this was completely awful but they’ve tried to cover so many bases and not really hit many of them. If it’s aimed at quizzers then the questions were too easy and there’s too much chat, if they’re aiming it at casuals then the game is frankly not that interesting (round two remains interminable for me, and now round one lasts twice as long).
Round three is the most interesting bit but I’ve fallen asleep before I’ve got that far.
I do agree with you Jon on that – since the axing of CITV and in particular CBBC C4 is just finding it tough to pull in an audience which was once quite willing to make their daily venture to C4 while BBC1 and ITV broke from the schedule for kids shows.
My only two flaws with the show:
1) I’ve heard harder questions asked on Tipping Point
2) The music whilst questions were being asked…
Otherwise, good revival.
It’s probably the easy ones that are sticking out. Most questions most people wouldn’t know.
I will be shocked if this is getting above 500,000 viewers by a week on Tuesday.
I’ve got a horrible feeling that even if it flops it’ll get another go for political reasons.
1.6m (10.6%)
15 minute breakdown: 1.74 / 1.54 / 1.69 / 1.55
So held up well after the Grand National.
This is so exciting I might have to represent the ratings in pictoral form when it starts proper on Monday.
I’ve just been reminded that 5 Minutes To A Fortune got 1.54m in the same slot last year.
According to the overnights, a direct comparison between 15-1 and the same slot last year gives this…
Saturday:
15-1 got 1.54m on Sat (excl +1 & HD)
5 Minutes to a Fortune got 1.57m (excl +1 & HD)
Monday:
15-1 0.57m (excl +1 & HD)
5 Minutes to a Fortune 0.72m (excl +1 & HD)
It looks like this is the slot they launched 5 Minutes to a Fortune last year.
Well, my mother and I quite enjoyed it. She thought it moved a a perfectly fine pace, as did I. Even at double the length of its original incarnation, it still gets through far more questions in the hour than many American game shows of the past decade.
If people had no memory or nostalgia for the old show, there almost certainly wouldn’t have been any complaints about the speed, I think.
The three main topics from microblogging were no surprise:
1) Cripes, that’s slow.
2) Wasn’t she one of the “Me”s on a couple of years back?
3) Random abuse against Sandi Toksvig for daring to host a show while female.
Once it got going, the show moved at a reasonable pace for daytime. Probably a bit quicker than , and I don’t think there was much complaint about pace there. The graphics are better, though the studio is still far too large. Some of the questions themselves drag on a bit (see also: ). If there must be banter, better about the question than about the contestants.
But round one is slow. Painfully slow.
The cunning strategist thinks, maybe this is deliberate. Maybe they’ve done it so that round two begins at 4.55, and catches people zapping around before The Chase. They’ll get a reasonably tactical and reasonably nuanced and reasonably accessible half-hour quiz, and there’s still time at the end to see Bradley and his mate take on the punters.
If any channel is capable of working the breaks like that, it’s Channel 4.
Oh, and can we have the “eliminated” and “welcome back” stings back? Ta.
I love 15-to-1, and I’m thrilled it’s back, but the uneven level of the questions was shocking.
“Doctor Watson is the companion to which fictional detective?”
and later
“The Louvre museum is building a new branch on the same island as the Guggenheim museum in which city?” (Abu Dhabi apparently)
It makes the whole game highly unfair. It becomes a game of luck – whether you get a question that EVERYBODY knows the answer to or one that virtually NOBODY would ever know the answer to.
Ruined the whole show for me. Very disappointed.
I can recall the first ever Breakaway episode, where an unlucky contestant was booted over not placing Tim Berners-Lee.
A fair criticism, though I think the approach of giving every player three shows goes some way towards ameliorating this. Is it canonical that some positions in the WGS era had two relatively simple questions in round one and other positions had two relatively difficult questions, in order to produce strictly between 3 and 15 players for the second round? If so, again, the “three attempts” motif works well.
I think the revival is decent; I like the direction and the set, though the lighting suffers when they don’t show an entire movement of the lights and return to the neutral position half-way. Sandi Toksvig is likeable as ever, though I’d like to see her be required to host the show in a modern-day Channel 4 45-minute slot and thus have to adopt at least an approximation of the customary 15-to-1 pace. She seems reliant on the external opinions of correctness or incorrectness for the contestants’ answers; WGS occasionally responded without waiting for the sound effect and then had to overrule a sound effect of which he did not approve, but this was definitely part of the charm of the show.
I was quite surprised – they haven’t completely ruined it! The pacing felt fine, really like the remix of the theme tune (it’s successfully earwormed me), and the chat didn’t bother me like I thought it would.
It’s just… too long. It never felt slow but it did feel like it went on for too long. That and a lack of an appreciable “hook” and I reckon it would well struggle ratings wise – although I reckon the final could well go up in viewing figures.
Having said that, it’s a perfectly decent reboot of a quiz that’s much better than some of their output *cough*facetheclock*cough*, so I hope it performs well for C4.
That’s my 2p worth.
Sorry to be predictable, but I’m afraid I did find it far too slow. The one thing that used to differentiate Fifteen to One from the other quizzes was that it was relentless, and surely now that’s an even bigger USP. So losing the pace, as far as I’m concerned, is a real killer.
Also, I’m happy with chat on a quiz when you get to know and like the contestants over the show, a la Pointless. But if all they’re doing it answering questions, I’m not bothered, and as it turned out two of the three in the final hadn’t been chatted to at all so we knew nothing about them.
As mentioned, the questions were terrinly uneven and even putting them in categories seemed just an extra way to pad it out, given the contestants had no choice and the categories were so broad it was pointless.
As for Toksvig, I would be very grateful if she would find another way to respond to a right answer than “absolutely correct”, which she must have said about a hundred times. Also, the facts after each question don’t seem worth it because it sounds like Sandi is just reading them out for the sake of it and doesn’t know or care what she’s saying. I know the whole point of the show is the accumulation of pointless trivia.
Too long, too slow, alas, and I don’t know what the USP is anymore.
In fairness, WGS would often open a question (esp. in round two) with the question category.
In other news, looks like the hot new Israeli format is “Boom!”- TF1 picked it up for France, and now Fox has picked it up in the US…
Here’s the first ep (which had record ratings apparently)- it’s not geoblocked, at least not in the US yet…
http://www.mako.co.il/mako-vod-keshet/boom-s1/VOD-95255a632881541006.htm?sCh=3d385dd2dd5d4110&pId=1825219677
(Probably a perfect Vernon Kay vehicle in my estimation…)
Endemol has pinpointed an Israeli prodco for cooperation, chances are Boom! might have a huge impact in Europe (sorry, lame pun).
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So that it doesn’t get lost amongst the 15 to 1 stuff, I’m going to start a new post featuring this in a little bit.
I for one am happy to have Fifteen to One or 15-to-1 as it used to be titled is back on the screens. It should never of left the channel 4 screen in the first place.
I don’t see why people are saying it’s painful slow.. It’s 15-to-1.. It’s meant to be a slow paced game show. It’s not like tipping point, the chase or in it to win it.. It’s meant to be a filling quiz allowing the time to be used for it’s time slot.
It’s a good return with an interesting update to the set, but i’d liked it if they had the celebrity set too with the hanging lights on the set that gave it a interesting feel but nonetheless it’s still the same 15-to-1 show.
It’s quite a interesting choice for Sandi Toksvig to host the show if you ask me but personally she does a fair good job on the hosting capabilities if you ask me.
A welcome return, hoping that it will stay on in time.
It’s meant to be slow? Look it up on Youtube.
0.6m on episode 2 – not great at all. C4 getting no luck in daytime at the moment, though most of the bad luck is of their own making.
I think it’s important to point out that even though the civvy show looks like a bomb, there’s no reason to believe the celeb shows won’t do decent business similar to Cats Does Countdown. At least the celebs will likely be reliably entertaining for an hour.
15-1 rated 4.5m yesterday (Tuesday).
I think you mean 0.45m.
Ooof. At this rate, Schlag den Brig will be overtaking it.
yes – sorry
This might be of interest.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2607251/The-BT-salesman-dreamed-TVs-toughest-quiz-sold-rights-just-200.html
Fifteen to One 1988 begins on Challenge at 9:30am on 16th June.
I don’t know, maybe I was expecting them to give it a better slot than that…
It’s at 0930 and 1000 each weekday (not sure about weekends) Looking forward to it!
…and also meant to say it is repeated at around 0200 the next morning but the repeats vary by time from night to night.