Split Second coming to Buzzr 9/30.

[calliaume]

TV Guide began as Friday-to-Thursday (and switched to the familiar Saturday-to-Friday about 15 months later, then to Sunday-to-Saturday about 50 years later).

I might be slightly biased here, but Saturday-Friday is the norm for me when it comes to TV listings.

I totally get that.  I think New York magazine had a standard early in the week release (Monday on the newsstand and Monday/Tuesday in the mail, maybe?), thus the Wednesday-through-Tuesday listings.

New York didn't have TV listings until around 1979 or so, when its parent company acquired Cue magazine and merged the two.

[chrisholland03]

This past week on Buzzr we moved from bonus round #1 (Pick a number) to bonus round #2 (Pick 3 and win or risk-a-fur). 

Based on the 25 episodes with bonus #1 aired on Buzzr, they had 8 wins, with 3 won consecutively and 3 won on the first try.  My gut says that win rate is what prompted the change in play.

 

[PYLdude]

This past week on Buzzr we moved from bonus round #1 (Pick a number) to bonus round #2 (Pick 3 and win or risk-a-fur). 

I prefer to call bonus round 2 "Let's Make a Deal lite."

[WarioBarker]

This past week on Buzzr we moved from bonus round #1 (Pick a number) to bonus round #2 (Pick 3 and win or risk-a-fur).

Though it wasn't a smooth transition since they skipped two episodes - the last show with Endgame #1 (Harvey/Lorraine/Debbie) and the debut of Endgame #2 (Tricia/Barry/Rose).

Based on the 25 episodes with bonus #1 aired on Buzzr, they had 8 wins, with 3 won consecutively and 3 won on the first try.

Looking at the 19 episodes Buzzr skipped with Endgame #1 (the first 18 shows of the series and the aforementioned last use), the car was won a total of 14 times in 44 episodes (on shows 1, 4, 8, 15-16, 23, 27-28, 33, 37-39, 42, and 44), a bit under 33%.

My gut says that win rate is what prompted the change in play.

I don't disagree, but my own gut says the fact $1,000 cash was the consolation prize for not finding the CAR screen was a contributing factor.

[Adam Nedeff]

I don't disagree, but my own gut says the fact $1,000 cash was the consolation prize for not finding the CAR screen was a contributing factor.

There was nothing stopping them from changing it to $500.

[TLEberle]

I don't disagree, but my own gut says the fact $1,000 cash was the consolation prize for not finding the CAR screen was a contributing factor.

Really? Cash is the most predictable thing the show gives away. During the game they can safely budget $1,500 to give away (and every time a question is split three ways that's twenty or forty bucks the show can throw towards dinner at Tim Horton's.) The end game giving away $1,000 is preferable to giving away what I presume is a $15,000 car. Not all the time, my guess is that they planned on giving the grand prize away once a week, but that's what you get when the end game is a blind draw.

Given that Monty Hall was half-partner in a fantastically successful game show packager for the last three decades--and came off of a nice syndicated run of LMAD--they shouldn't need to worry about pinching pennies too hard because that's presumably why they moved to Canadia. There's no singleton prizes during the game, just straight money and most of that is taken care of with the product plugs coming back from break. Having a game that is won blindly 10% of the time instead of 20% would stand to mean they give away half as many cars unless carryover champions get to four and five days in their streaks, but the original Split Second didn't look at randomness as a bug but a feature--five time winners got to choose their prize after all.  Their biggest savings other than the reduced rate of cars flying out is that the first day doesn't award $1,000 and if a champion loses later on the bonus package disappears.

[Joe Mello]

The end game giving away $1,000 is preferable to giving away what I presume is a $15,000 car.

Using the aired episodes only, the weighted average MSRP is about $15,500.  If they were expecting the 20% win rate, the average per episode giveaway (assuming $1,500 for front game) would be about $5,400 The actual per episode total at a 32% win rate was around $7,140.

In other words, they were burning through at least 132% of their budget per episode, and that's not even taking into account that the cars were likely obtained at less than retail, so that $1,700+ difference makes an even bigger impact. I don't care if you're Bob Stewart, Monty Hall or Matthew Lesko, something would need to change.

[TLEberle]

In other words, they were burning through at least 132% of their budget per episode, and that's not even taking into account that the cars were likely obtained at less than retail, so that $1,700+ difference makes an even bigger impact. I don't care if you're Bob Stewart, Monty Hall or Matthew Lesko, something would need to change.

That's why you do runthroughs or hire someone to noodle out the likelihood of going over budget. (There's a reason that Greed's questions are best of four with some number of choices.)

Classic Concentration and Caesar's Challenge increased the value of the cars as the show went on. Dream House hid the grand prize behind a moon shot chance, but leavened it with the ability to tilt the odds with extra wins or correct answers. Hollywood Squares tweaked the value of the cars throughout the 80s run and in 2003 made it so that the car was awarded for the third bonus round victory, and Sale of the Century moved it to a fluke happenstance on the Winner's Bored to making it very unlikely in the Winner's Game era.

It would have been trivial to have the grand prize be a little less awesome of a car if they were giving away too many. I ran the percentages through Wolfram Alpha and it came back that there is a 32.7%67.3% chance of the show giving away a minimum of one car during a week of shows assuming that they have no turnover champions, which we know didn't happen. That means if they are budgeting for just a single car win per week it will not be long at all until they get hosed by the finger of fate.

[Joe Mello]

It would have been trivial to have the grand prize be a little less awesome of a car if they were giving away too many. I ran the percentages through Wolfram Alpha and it came back that there is a 32.7%67.3% chance of the show giving away a minimum of one car during a week of shows assuming that they have no turnover champions, which we know didn't happen.

I don't know what the tape schedule was--I'm assuming five per day, multiple days per week--so logistics may have prevented cheaper cars from arriving sooner, but the week of episodes Buzzr showed after Eric won his $20,000(!!) car by being a 5-time champ feature to a Grand Am, which NADA is saying has a lower base price (under USD10k) than the Fiero, 6000, or LeSabre models ($13k and up) they used previously.

[nowhammies10]

Addison Buick in downtown Toronto was about an hour drive to the old CHCH studios in Hamilton.  I don't think there'd have been any issue in getting a different car from the dealership.

[snowpeck]

FYI, even though Split Second is off the weekday lineup, it's still on Sundays with new-to-Buzzr episodes.