Prime Time Big Money Game Shows

[TheInquisitiveOne]

Good day everyone!

Nighttime game shows have become a semi-regular staple of television in the last 9 years. Perhaps the biggest allure in this genre is the cash prize. Since "Millionaire," top prizes in the 6- and 7-digit prize range have become regular fare...however, has the $1,000,000 cash prize lost its luster?

From what I have been hearing and seeing, shows are being put on the air and boast that contestants can be millionaires (or half-millionaires) on the show, without even the slightest hint of how the gameplay works. It looks like the shows rely on he false correlation of big money bringing big ratings. As a result, we have shows that desperately try to give away the big prize by stacking the odds in the contestant's favor (i.e. Deal or No Deal); shows that drastically change the original format so as to try to make the million winnable (i.e. The Price is Right), or shows that boast eleventy billion dollars (credit to Chris Lemon) in cash, though there's no way the contestant would be foolish enough to play for it (i.e. Power of 10).

What do you think? Does the prospect of winning $1,000,000 keep you tuning in? Is enough enough? Do you think primetime game shows can thrive without top prizes in the six- to seven-digit range? I like to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading!

The Inquisitive One

[parliboy]

Saying someone might win a huge prize doesn't do anything for me anymore.  We're past the era of event television.  So saying I should watch the show because someone might win a lot of money doesn't do anything more for me than saying that I should watch the lotto draw because someone might win a lot of money.

We're ten years past Millionaire.  A large top prize is not new.  It does get me to overlook flaws that would otherwise cause me to tune out.  Early Deal or No Deal comes to mind as a good example of this.  Power of Ten was a great example of this.  The many FOX shows, all of which use the money tree system, are NOT examples of this.

It helps, of course, if I know the money will be given away.  I was able to tolerate the snail's pace of Duel precisely because of this: At the end of a pretty novel concept for a quiz, someone was going to win a crapload of money, guaranteed.  Personally, I think this system is best: the major prize given as a capstone after a series of episodes.

Meanwhile, the number of swerves done on NBC and FOX promos cause me to disbelieve anything said on air about what they give away.  And one day, these guys will learn a lesson some people in pro wrestling still need to learn: don't work the people who are paying your bills.  Really, all it's done is teach me to never tune in and to watch it after the fact if something important happens.  You want me watching more than one out of every 10 or 20 shows.

To answer your other major question, primetime game shows with limited budgets can absolutely thrive if the show is compelling enough.  People say that American audiences are too different.  But given the number of shows we've imported and exported, I don't believe that.

[Jeremy Nelson]

For me, it's this simple: If the gameplay sucks, I don't care if they're giving away a trillion dollars. If the gameplay is good, but the top prize is only $10,000, I'll still watch.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'parliboy\' post=\'183616\' date=\'Apr 9 2008, 11:21 AM\']
To answer your other major question, primetime game shows with limited budgets can absolutely thrive if the show is compelling enough.  People say that American audiences are too different.  But given the number of shows we've imported and exported, I don't believe that.
[/quote]

I would want to agree with you, but the fact that three NBC shows with modest payouts (one of which was a complete throwback in structure and feeling) have all bombed out in the ratings while those three Fox money-tree-and-swerve-tease shows continue to thrive is not a good sign.  Even if "Celeb Feud" clicks, they'll say that it's just like "TPIR"--it's the familiarity, not that people want good lower stakes shows and not bad high stakes shows.

All it needs is one show to change the trend, but I don't know when that one show will come for now.

[parliboy]

Amnesia was not necessarily a good show.  Not at that pace, anyway.  The game should have been played in half the time.  I watched once, said, "a whole hour for this?" and moved on.  I suspect I'm not alone.

[MSTieScott]

[quote name=\'uncamark\' post=\'183618\' date=\'Apr 9 2008, 11:45 AM\']I would want to agree with you, but the fact that three NBC shows with modest payouts (one of which was a complete throwback in structure and feeling) have all bombed out in the ratings while those three Fox money-tree-and-swerve-tease shows continue to thrive is not a good sign.[/quote]
I'm trying desperately to somehow justify that that's the wrong conclusion, because coming to that conclusion is very disheartening.

All I can offer is the argument that "Identity" also did poorly enough to get cancelled, even though it was a half-million-dollar game. All of NBC's non-"Deal or No Deal" game shows in recent years have quickly gotten the axe, so I'm wondering if the trend can be traced to poor promotion or network impatience. "My Dad" wasn't a very compelling show, so that didn't have much of a chance. "Amne$ia" was stuck on Friday night (and in my opinion, wasn't strong enough to focus on just one contestant for an entire hour). And "The Singing Bee"... well, I don't know what that one can be attributed to.

"American Gladiators" had a $100,000 grand prize, and it's coming back for a second season. So maybe there's some glimmer of hope that the prize isn't everything?

--
Scott Robinson

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'MSTieScott\' post=\'183628\' date=\'Apr 9 2008, 10:21 AM\']
"American Gladiators" had a $100,000 grand prize, and it's coming back for a second season. So maybe there's some glimmer of hope that the prize isn't everything?
[/quote]
Has nothing to do with that. Comparing AG to these other more "traditional" shows is apples and oranges. They weren't even close to shooting for the same market.

[Neumms]

[quote name=\'MSTieScott\' post=\'183628\' date=\'Apr 9 2008, 12:21 PM\']
And "The Singing Bee"... well, I don't know what that one can be attributed to.
[/quote]

I'm not sure either, but could it be that everything about it was annoying, and that the show just like it on Fox was slightly less so?

WWTBAM worked because it's multiple choice so any dummy can play along, yet came off as a reasonably fair test of knowledge. It set up reasonable rules with fair risk and reward. "Are You Smarter Than" basically swiped those rules and does have legit questions. And even when DOND stacks the board, we can plainly see what the odds are. These games have a basic structure within which unexpected things can happen.

[tvmitch]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'183631\' date=\'Apr 9 2008, 01:38 PM\']
[quote name=\'MSTieScott\' post=\'183628\' date=\'Apr 9 2008, 10:21 AM\']
"American Gladiators" had a $100,000 grand prize, and it's coming back for a second season. So maybe there's some glimmer of hope that the prize isn't everything?
[/quote]
Has nothing to do with that. Comparing AG to these other more "traditional" shows is apples and oranges. They weren't even close to shooting for the same market.
[/quote]
QFT. I'd wager a fair sum that 95% of the people who watched AG couldn't tell you all three elements of the grand prize. Not the same argument at all.

Heck, AG could have scrapped the $100K prize and the show would have been just as compelling.

/that last sentence contains too much truth to handle...same reason why daily DoND could give a top prize of $250K per show and would still be as compelling as pick-a-box can get

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'mitchgroff\' post=\'183635\' date=\'Apr 9 2008, 02:03 PM\']
Heck, AG could have scrapped the $100K prize and the show would have been just as compelling.[/quote]
That sums up what my answer to this Big Question would be.  If somebody wants to offer an enormous prize to entice people to start watching the show, fine, I got no problem with that.  After that, though, the show has to be compelling.  And a compelling show is nearly always compelling even without a ginormous grand prize. (Millionaire, in this case, perhaps being the rare exception.)

The two things that would seem to kill any compulsion on the part of viewers to watch would be a slow pace and monotony.  Yet those are precisely the two things that most of the ladder-based big-money shows not only provide but seem to strive for.  And who on earth thought that we coupld possibly be entertained by watching an unknown, civilian contestant answering a series of questions about his own life?

Deal or No Deal continues to come up with new wacky gimmicks, and while purists here can bemoan that all you want, it's awfully hard to argue with the show's sustained success. And they've never even given away their top prize.  

As with any genre, you can't just simplistically say that every show that does this will work, and every show that does that will fail.  There are always going to be oddities that defy even the most obvious logic.  Personally, I thought the goofy, simple The Singing Bee had a much better shot of surviving than the derivaive, ladder-based Don't Forget the Lyrics. Simple fact is nobody has the magic formula.  Right now, the ones buying the shows recognize one kind of big-money prime time show, and most anything they buy is going to look like that.

[tvrandywest]

It's a subject we speak of often while working on a program I herald with the line, "The biggest money game show on Earth." With something over a billion dollars given away in the past 20 years on the California lottery's "Big Spin" weekly half-hour, because of the legally required nature of the games and the inability to screen contestants in advance of their appearances, this and other lottery shows prove that it's NOT the prize that makes for the most compelling viewing.

Randy
tvrandywest.com

[DjohnsonCB]

This all happened once before.  The first era of big money shows resulted in bigger and bigger jackpots, but the public eventually tired of them...and of course, the advent of rigging didn't help matters much in the end.

Concentration and the G-T panel shows were different; they could be entertaining and challenging to folks at home without resorting to super-high stakes.  And they survived the scandals.  When the next wave of games hit in the 1960s--mostly in daytime--they de-emphasized prizes and made the game itself the lure, and in many cases, it worked.

If we're eventually headed for another purging of prime-time games, what can they do to get back in favor?  Naturally, no one's going to rig them unless they want to get into big trouble with the higher-ups.  Maybe they need to go back and look at games that failed once and try to alter them to make them work today--it worked for Second Chance when it became Press Your Luck.  For the life of me, I just cannot understand why so many people here were so down on Spin-Off.  So the bonus round had a flaw in it--that can be fixed.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'tvrandywest\' post=\'183643\' date=\'Apr 9 2008, 11:53 AM\']
It's a subject we speak of often while working on a program I herald with the line, "The biggest money game show on Earth." With something over a billion dollars given away in the past 20 years on the California lottery's "Big Spin" weekly half-hour,[/quote]
What's the biggest winnable prize on Big Spin these days? I haven't seen one since I moved (which would have been well before you took over the announcing duties on the show...it might have been Hardaway then), but I'm wondering how that claim is made when there are grand prizes of ten million on shows like Power Of 10.

[Jeremy Nelson]

[quote name=\'mitchgroff\' post=\'183635\' date=\'Apr 9 2008, 01:03 PM\']DoND could give a top prize of $250K per show and would still be as compelling as pick-a-box can get
[/quote]
I dunno. You look at the Aussie and UK versions, and they are both very different, but both compelling and enjoyable nontheless. Our version is just annoying.

[tvrandywest]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'183665\' date=\'Apr 9 2008, 01:23 PM\']
[quote name=\'tvrandywest\' post=\'183643\' date=\'Apr 9 2008, 11:53 AM\']
It's a subject we speak of often while working on a program I herald with the line, "The biggest money game show on Earth." With something over a billion dollars given away in the past 20 years on the California lottery's "Big Spin" weekly half-hour,[/quote]
What's the biggest winnable prize on Big Spin these days? I haven't seen one since I moved (which would have been well before you took over the announcing duties on the show...it might have been Hardaway then), but I'm wondering how that claim is made when there are grand prizes of ten million on shows like Power Of 10.
[/quote]
The biggest single prize is $3 million. In a typical weekly show we offer over $6 million. "Power of 10" would have to be on the air until another Bush sits in the White House (hopefully never) to actually give away over a billion, as Big Spin has.

Randy
tvrandywest.com