Why no quizzes on RTE?

darkdubh

I'm wondering why RTE hasen't done a proper general knowledge quizz since Gaybo hosted Who Wants To Be A Millionare all of fourteen years ago?I don't count that one that Ann Doyle did during the summer with questions a five year old could answer.BBC always has a flagship quizz show such as Eggheads,it reflects very poorly on us that the national broadcaster seems to have given up on GA quizzes.They seem more preoccupied with cookery programmes,reality shows about fat people losing weight and talent contests.

squonk

Happy memories of Where In The World with Theresa Lowe!

darkdubh

darkdubh wrote: »

I'm wondering why RTE hasen't done a proper general knowledge quizz since Gaybo hosted Who Wants To Be A Millionare all of fourteen years ago?I don't count that one that Ann Doyle did during the summer with questions a five year old could answer.BBC always has a flagship quizz show such as Eggheads,it reflects very poorly on us that the national broadcaster seems to have given up on GA quizzes.They seem more preoccupied with cookery programmes,reality shows about fat people losing weight and talent contests.

god that was awful!! more like horse betting as you could get to the final without answering one question. Plus I'm convinced they were actors trying to be purposefully annoying!!
yes I agree, eggheads is great to watch on BBC, then you have the chase on ITV and million pound drop on Channel 4 etc, ad nauseam!

I love quiz shows.
I remember a 100 pound question by gaybo on who ants to be a millionaire was as follows!!

The word archipelago relates to a group of which?

Architects
Arch bishops
Islands
I forget the last one though it was plausible!!


For 100 quid!!!!! you'd swear it was coming out of his own wages!!!

Jellybaby1

Do you mean the question was too difficult?

Jellybaby1

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Do you mean the question was too difficult?

for 100 euro yes!! in general no, but come on warm the brain up a bit.
what's the 50 grand one gonna be like then!!!

at the time people wrote in about it.
it was a hard first question I've no shame in saying, for 100 quid!!

bleedin gaybo, he'd lick emself to death so he would!!

Jellybaby1

Better bring back Quicksilver then! I had to set the questions for a local quiz many years ago. I felt I had kept it relatively simple and threw in some difficult questions here and there. A woman came up to me later and told me all the question were far too hard. You can't please everyone I suppose.

colinod0806

rusty cole wrote: »

for 100 euro yes!! in general no, but come on warm the brain up a bit.
what's the 50 grand one gonna be like then!!!

at the time people wrote in about it.
it was a hard first question I've no shame in saying, for 100 quid!!

bleedin gaybo, he'd lick emself to death so he would!!

Do you think the host of a quiz show writes the questions?

Lovely Bloke

Blackboard Jungle! I was on it, school captain and all.

Challenging Times, the University Challenge rip off was also decent.

darkdubh

So is it a policy of RTE dumbing down?Surely the demand is there for a quality general knowledge quizz show so why don't they deliver?

Thoie

Because they'd have to pay prize money.

There are a few of the daytime British quizzes that are not really about money, but if you're going with a flagship quiz show, you'd want to have decent prizes. A top prize of "your bus fare home" doesn't really cut it.

I'd have to think about it some more, but I really think the top prize would have to be a minimum of €5k. It would be up against the national lottery scratchcard shows, which while obviously not quizzes, have access to much larger prize funds.

colinod0806

colinod0806 wrote: »

Do you think the host of a quiz show writes the questions?

eh no!! the gaybo remark was based on his smugness at the time.
He had said he was finished with TV after the late late then jumped all over the millionaire show!! hungry fecker!!

the actual questions are written by elves who deliver them thrice monthly under the cover of darkness!! obviously!

squonk

Murphy's Micro Quiz'm used to give away a car. Usually a Ford Escort or Orion. Not many people won the car every season but it made for good viewing. I think Where In The World gave away holidays but my attention span on that show never quite extended to the actual quiz. I'm sure a lot of companies would still put up prizes for exposure. Heck, even winning aniPad or something would be decent enough with a Mastermind type round system were the winner picked up €50,000 for instance. I'm sure they'd easily make the cost up in advertising along the way.

efb

They cost too much to make

mikom

Anne doyle/sheds.

squonk

squonk wrote: »

Murphy's Micro Quiz'm used to give away a car. Usually a Ford Escort or Orion. Not many people won the car every season but it made for good viewing. I think Where In The World gave away holidays but my attention span on that show never quite extended to the actual quiz. I'm sure a lot of companies would still put up prizes for exposure. Heck, even winning aniPad or something would be decent enough with a Mastermind type round system were the winner picked up €50,000 for instance. I'm sure they'd easily make the cost up in advertising along the way.

ah the video game round on that show!! memories! ha ha ha, yeah they often gave away opel corsas etc.

mikom

rusty cole wrote: »

ah the video game round on that show!! memories! ha ha ha, yeah they often gave away opel corsas etc.

Ford Orion was usually the main prize.
Rarely won though.

flazio

TV3 try and fail to get the quizzes going, The Weakest Link, Mastermind (which I thought was quite good) and those two new ones The Lie and Crossfire, just aren't bringing in the ratings.

Stevecw

Know Your Sport with George & Jimmy was a great show. Remember as a kid watching that and wanting to be on it when I was older. Now I am a lot older, it's not on anymore! It had some good prizes too from what I remember.

keith16

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Blackboard Jungle! I was on it, school captain and all.

Challenging Times, the University Challenge rip off was also decent.

Good man, I was a "sub". :rolleyes:

Guy that took the last spot on the team got two sport questions wrong that I knew :mad:

Challenging times was good. It really wouldn't kill RTE to air something like that.

But instead, it's the likes of Winning God Damn Streak that is on our screens ad nauseum. :mad:

Skerries

keith16 wrote: »

Good man, I was a "sub". :rolleyes:

Guy that took the last spot on the team got two sport questions wrong that I knew :mad:

and you're still not bitter about it

Money is probably the main thing. Production costs are the same as elsewhere but they won't get the advertising revenue ITV would.

At the same time a full filming schedule for a couple of quizzes could work out cheap enough. As long as the questions aren't at the level of the last few TV3 efforts.

keith16

Skerries wrote: »

and you're still not bitter about it

Ha! Just as I hit "submit reply" I thought, that sounds really bitter.....

BUT I AM BITTER DAMN IT, THE GUY ROBBED MY ONE CHANCE AND THEN BALLSED IT UP.

Like France robbing Irelands place at the 2010 World Cup and also making a balls of it.

So yes, I am bitter AND I DON'T CARE WHO KNOWS IT :pac:

Sorry for shouting.

EDIT: Are you talking about Winning Streak? Either way, I am bitter about that too.

Harry Angstrom

I'd settle for a remake Rapid Roulette at this stage

I can't really understand why RTE don't have a weekly quiz show. They're relatively cheap to make. Challenging Times was good, apart from Kevin Myers. I got the feeling that RTE were obliged to have Myers as question master because of the Irish Times tie-in. Nora Owen was woeful as presenter of Mastermind on TV3, as was Eamon Dunphy on their version of The Weakest Link.

Challenging Times and Mastermind would be cheap as chips to make, if only they could find half-decent presenters for them.

flazio

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

Challenging Times and Mastermind would be cheap as chips to make, if only they could find half-decent presenters for them.

I think that's the crux of the problem, there isn't anybody on RTÉ, TV3 or TG4's books that would make a decent game show host.

Harry Angstrom

flazio wrote: »

I think that's the crux of the problem, there isn't anybody on RTÉ, TV3 or TG4's books that would make a decent game show host.

I don't know about that. I reckon somebody like Bryan Dobson or Mary Wilson would make a good fist of something like Mastermind or Challenging Times.

Thoie

I'd make a great quiz host, but I've a face best suited to radio.

I've got a school marmish way about me, and I wouldn't be having with any of that crap chit chat "Now Mary, you have a funny story about the time you ran over a dog with a tractor - tell us more about that? And who did you bring with you tonight, are all those hairy yokels in row 3 related to you? Do they want to wave at the camera? Why? It looks like the whole fecking village is here, who's left at home to wave to? Oh, you left your eldest chained up in the basement with the telly on for company - that's lovely."

keith16

They should do something like Numberwang.

Actually, now that I think of it, this is remarkably similar to Winning Streak:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjOZtWZ56lc

darkdubh

keith16 wrote: »

Good man, I was a "sub". :rolleyes:

Guy that took the last spot on the team got two sport questions wrong that I knew :mad:

Challenging times was good. It really wouldn't kill RTE to air something like that.

But instead, it's the likes of Winning God Damn Streak that is on our screens ad nauseum. :mad:

I just don't get why that show is so popular.Its all chance theres no skill involved,I find it very boring to watch the tv equivilant of bingo.I'd only tune in if there was someone I knew on it.

Harry Angstrom

darkdubh wrote: »

I just don't get why that show is so popular.Its all chance theres no skill involved,I find it very boring to watch the tv equivilant of bingo.I'd only tune in if there was someone I knew on it.

It's not a quiz show. I'm not sure why it's even mentioned on this thread. The contestants might as well be flipping coins to see how much money they'll win. There's no test of skill whatsoever.

FloatingVoter

The lottery raffle shows are like the Rose of Tralee. They're left on in the background in pubs and hotels nationwide. Nobody is watching but the TV is on. Maybe the voting for the rose and the spin the wheel bit on the gameshow.
As for a proper quiz. Well get a chair, a table and a man / woman / talking dog to ask questions on say a specialist subject then some general questions. Call it SuperMind and give the winner €5000 and a shiny hat. It would be in profit from day one.

darkdubh

darkdubh wrote: »

the tv equivilant of bingo.

That's Telly Bingo you're thinking of.

efb

All National Lottery games have to be games of chance by law

brian_t

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Blackboard Jungle! I was on it, school captain and all.

Challenging Times, the University Challenge rip off was also decent.

Dodge the Question with Jonathan Philbin Bowman was also one that I enjoyed.

I'm not sure that there is a market for such quizzes on Irish television regardless of who presents.

AnonoBoy

TV3 show a lot of them don't they?

brian_t

AnonoBoy wrote: »

TV3 show a lot of them don't they?

Are they not mostly Game Shows.

AnonoBoy

brian_t wrote: »

Are they not mostly Game Shows.

Tipping Point and The Chaser are both quizzes - I think they're on TV3.

Go Harvey Go

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Tipping Point and The Chaser are both quizzes - I think they're on TV3.

They're not Irish quizzes, though.

I'm surprised that not more people remember It's Not The Answer - it ran for four series in the early 2000s, was dubbed "TV's Toughest Game Show" (and justifiably so, in fact), and even found its way to Britain:

http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/It%27s_Not_the_Answer

Harry Angstrom

Go Harvey Go wrote: »

They're not Irish quizzes, though.

I'm surprised that not more people remember It's Not The Answer - it ran for four series in the early 2000s, was dubbed "TV's Toughest Game Show" (and justifiably so, in fact), and even found its way to Britain:

http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/It%27s_Not_the_Answer

I was trying to remember the name of that one! As far as I can remember it was shown on weeknights at 6.30 when the RTE news is cut back to half an hour (cos we all know that news doesn't happen during the summer )

Go Harvey Go

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

I was trying to remember the name of that one! As far as I can remember it was shown on weeknights at 6.30 when the RTE news is cut back to half an hour (cos we all know that news doesn't happen during the summer )

Indeed - a slot that these days is more or less permanently occupied by repeats of Reeling In The Years.

And whatever became of its host, Bryan Smyth? Well, here's his LinkedIn profile:

http://ie.linkedin.com/in/bryansmyth

brian_t

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Tipping Point and The Chaser are both quizzes - I think they're on TV3.

I think Tipping Point is generally referred to as a Game Show.

In my opinion 30 minutes is about the right length for a quiz.

When they are stretched out to an hour long then I would consider them a Game show.

AnonoBoy

brian_t wrote: »

I think Tipping Point is generally referred to as a Game Show.

In my opinion 30 minutes is about the right length for a quiz.

When they are stretched out to an hour long then I would consider them a Game show.

I don't really make the distinction. When there's questions being asked - it's a quiz in my mind!

Go Harvey Go

brian_t wrote: »

I think Tipping Point is generally referred to as a Game Show.

In my opinion 30 minutes is about the right length for a quiz.

When they are stretched out to an hour long then I would consider them a Game show.

I myself consider Tipping Point a game show - but not because it's 60 minutes long rather than 30.

No, I consider TP a game show because, at the end of the day, it's really a game of chance.

There are plenty of questions in it, of course - but there's no controlling the counters won for answering these questions correctly. They could fall into the machine quickly or slowly, they could land flat or ride on other counters, and a whole load of them could go over the tipping point at once or they could hang there.

Sure enough, there have been contestants who have got about fifteen questions right but have had little or no luck with their counters - and there have been contestants who have won the £10k jackpot having only got about eight questions right...

30 minutes is the right length of time for many quizzes - most notably Mastermind, University Challenge, Only Connect and the original Fifteen to One - but that really doesn't mean that every quiz has to be 30 minutes long. Nor does it mean that anything longer than 30 minutes has to be considered a game show instead.

The Chase certainly works well at 60 minutes long, as does Pointless at 45 (and before that the Weakest Link). Many early episodes of WWTBAM were 30 minutes long, but it probably worked better at 60.

And Countdown may not be quite as good at 45 minutes long as it was as 30, but it's certainly not a disaster either. It helps that the extra 15 minutes are filled with more letters and numbers games, rather than meaningless chat.

(Yes, there are no questions on Countdown, and there never have been any - but Richard Whiteley often said it was a quiz, and that's fine with me.)

Go Harvey Go

Anyway, back on topic.

Not one but two quizzes found their way onto RTE1's Sunday evening schedules in the mid-2000s - Delegation and Last One Standing.

Delegation, made by Adare Productions and hosted by Tom Ó Brannagáin, featured three teams, each consisting of a captain and four of his/her friends, workmates or family members. And when a team was asked a question, the captain had to "delegate" the answering of that question to one of his/her team-mates.

The best-scoring team went through to the end game, in which the roles were basically reversed as the captain had to do the answering in order to win prizes for his/her team-mates and for himself/herself. Naturally, there was an all-or-nothing gamble at the end.

Tom was a capable host, even if his catchphrase "Delegate well" was destined to be remembered by just about no-one, and even if he raised his voice quite a lot: "At the end of that round, you have scored... TWO POINTS!"

At least two series were made, and it did well enough to warrant a celeb episode (inevitably featuring a team of Fair City stars and a team of GAA legends). After it ended, Tom resorted to being the "evil" judge on almost all of TG4's talent shows.

Last One Standing, meanwhile, was made by Mind The Gap Films and hosted by Jon Slattery - who always looked like he'd had a pint or two before recording.

In it, four contestants answered multiple-choice questions in rounds of 100 seconds. When a contestant was being asked a question, they were deemed to be in control - which they kept if they got the question right, or passed over to the next contestant if they got it wrong.

Points were given for right answers, but the aim wasn't to obtain the highest score - it was to be in control when the 100 seconds expired. If you were, you were "still standing" and hence through to the next stage of the contest. Thus, it was possible to obtain a huge score and still lose, simply because you weren't in control when the time was up...

The last two contestants went through to an end game that was played in much the same way as before, except that there were 200 seconds on the clock. And the contestants sat on some sort of turntable, for whatever reason. Anyway, whoever was in control when the time expired was the "Last One Standing", and won a holiday - determined by combining their score with that of their defeated opponent. Again, it was possible for that opponent to have the higher score...

With all due respect to Jon, it's probably fair to say that he wasn't quite as capable a game show host as Tom was - even if he didn't look like he had a few jars on board. That said, I still consider it a shame that Last One Standing lasted just one series.

Ralf and Florian

AnonoBoy wrote: »

I don't really make the distinction. When there's questions being asked - it's a quiz in my mind!

If the questions are general knowledge.If the questions are along the lines of "whats your partners favourite 80s lovesong?" then its a gameshow.