The Wheel

The thing here is it doesn't feel like a show such as The Wheel needs a big five figure prize - the ending would work just as well with values at a tenth of what they were.

I agree with you there.

Quite watchable and some great celebs on there.

I would reduce the prize fund because it makes no material difference to how exciting the show is.

And probably also lose the secondary wheel of contestants because again it adds little. Just have one contestant take a run at the wheel.

And maybe speed things up a little bit so you get some more questions in.

The size of the jackpot is not proportional to ratings, you could offer a jackpot of £20m and it doesn't guarantee people will tune in to watch if if the rest of the offering is pants. The large range of shows in the 90s and 2000s where they wrapped other game show formats around the lottery draw itself sort of demonstrates this to an extent. A handful of them were successful and ran for a while (Dale Winton's In It To Win It was a good example of this, as it ran for years), while others were dire and crap for one reason or another and they were never seen again (Big Ticket for example, which was so unsuccessful that a) not enough people came forward if they won whatever the criteria was to get on the show, so the format had to be butchered, b) half the audience walked out during filming of said show, and c) it was a ratings disaster).

Anyway the main issue the BBC has with regards to prize money, which presumably comes out of the budget, is that its probably not seen as good and proper to give away very large amounts of cash, considering the source of that money. Its the sort of thing its very easy to get wrong and have daggers thrown at you, so a BBC show that gives away cash that would now be a BBC Studios Production you quite often end up with a format that's deliberately nobbled in some way to discourage if you like winning a decent amount of dosh. Weakest Link technically could give away £10k an episode but they never did, and the quick fire format of the show served to effectively cap the winnings - a decent team could rack up over £4k, and a crap team would do well to get a grand.

The indie productions seem to work differently, I can only presume its because they foot the winnings, and the BBC contributes towards the production cost? So if you're jammy enough to win £100k (as happened a few times on In It To Win It, which was made by 12 yards), presumably you're not going to have £100k of licence fee money thrown at Bob from Sandwich in Kent who happened to know something about the Khyber Pass.

Prior to the rule changes for ITV in the 1990s, the trend for gameshows was physical items in favour of cash, so you'd win things like a washing machine or a fridge freezer or a speedboat if you're on Bullseye or a holiday to somewhere - the value of the items were key and even then couldn't go over a certain amount. Yes you could win a few hundred pounds on the throw of a dart as it were, but it was more of an experience than anything else. These days you go on BGT to win it and change your life. You weren't going to do that on Sale of the Century or Wheel of Fortune.

There are shows like University Challenge or Only Connect where the top prize is a trophy so winning big money isn't always a factor for people to watch a show or to go on as contestants.

Those are long running institution shows (Only Connect is a more recent entry to that though, as the other obvious example would be Countdown). As they don't give away money as a prize or incentive, you tend to get attracted to those sort of shows because you're a smartarse (or at University, since the clue's in the name for UC) and you like being taxed mentally. If you win a trophy, happy days, if you don't, well well done to the Audiophile team.

OC is one of those shows you either like it or you don't, its a bit like Marmite.

Countdown as well. The Richard Whitely Memorial Trophy.

No, all the prize money comes from the fee the BBC pays to the company to make the show - whether it's made by an indie or BBC Studios, it's no different. An indie wouldn't foot the bill because they wouldn't make any money from making the show, that's the whole reason indies exist - to make money. The BBC wants a programme to be made where money is given away as part of the format and they pay a company in full to produce that for them.

There’s also insurance productions can buy that covers prize money on quiz’s shows for prize money over a certain point.

Indeed. The reason this wasn't the case is that the National Lottery is only permitted by law to operate games of chance, and so it can't be involved in anything that involves any kind of skill.

The only time the lottery provided the prizes for any game show was the aforementioned Big Ticket, which meant the contestants couldn't play the games themselves, other people had to do it on their behalf. That was a disastrous idea, as it meant you saw people winning thousands of pounds for doing absolutely nothing, which is very boring. So they never did that again.

Watched the second episode today and it seemed faster compared to the first episode. I wonder if the first episode really was the first episode recorded or a later show moved forward as they wanted a big win?

I've only seen the first episode - and I didn't understand the point of choosing to block out the celebrity you thought were least likely to know the answer the question. I believe the idea was that if you then landed on them you were out of the game. But that was decided by a random spin of the wheel, so why does it matter who you pick?

Did that end up happening at all and become clear in ep 2?