I know that the first episode was premiered on ITV on a Saturday evening, but wasn’t it just the launch episode with other airings on the main channel in the weekend morning pre 9:25 CITV/Scrambled slot?
The first half of the second series aired Saturday afternoons on ITV.
The notable thing with Thunderbirds was how heavily promoted it was, and as a CITV show rather than ITV. It was arguably more important for ITV to inform it's viewers they were commissioning high quality animated content than it was for viewers to watch it. I suspect resales more than merchandise opportunities were the driver.
It would be so interesting to see stats on how much original childrens content is commissioned nowadays on the commercial side at least.
Sounds plausible, I think Stripped game shows is fast becoming the norm. I'm guessing the celeb special will air at the weekend, then rest of the series Monday-Friday.
Yes, a 5 episode commission does suggest it’ll be stripped Monday to Friday as a £1m event. Could work quite well, ITV have done well with stripped gameshows lately and this is the sort of money ladder, rollover contestant show that it could work for.
With Millionaire also returning this Autumn I assume we won’t see Beat The Chasers back until 2021. Makes sense given that it could be a tricky one to make work with social distancing, it kind of needs the audience.
I guess the celebrity special might then follow at Christmas. Weird to not give that the £1m prize too though.
Wasn't it said (though not confirmed) another series of Beat the Chasers was in the can?
Good that the prize hasn't been downgraded - I honestly thought they'd drop from £250k to £100k. I don't think it particularly needs a £1m jackpot, and I suspect it would be incredibly difficult to win - I think only Mo Farah won the £250k on the original run - most bailed at £10k to £20k.
IIRC there used to be 7 games to get the £250k (?) so I wonder whether they'll add another game (and lives) or whether they'll just up the money for each game?
5 episodes definitely seems like it'll be stripped across the week which has definitely worked for ITV recently. I believe there's another series of Beat the Chasers in the bag which I guess we'll see later this year or early 2021 before they can film another show as that definitely needs an audience. I presume they'll ditch the audience for the Cube and just have the family in the studio which does seem like a shame with the considerably higher stakes. They're probably waiting to see when theatres can reopen before they can have an audience in the studio.
IIRC there used to be 7 games to get the £250k (?) so I wonder whether they'll add another game (and lives) or whether they'll just up the money for each game?
The answer lies in the ITV press release...
"Each pair will have nine lives to complete seven games, each worth an increasing amount of money, as they move closer to the huge jackpot."