The Big Idea
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The Big Idea is a television show developed in the UK by Grand Central, and produced by Ricochet for Vodafone, broadcast on Sky One from October 2006.
The Big Idea gives budding entrepreneurs the chance to show off their inventions to the nation. From the weird, to the wacky, to the wonderful, The Big Idea sees hopeful contestants wheel out their inventions in front of a panel of business experts who give them a grilling on the idea, it's business potential and it's pitfalls.
The Big Idea viewers and studio audience eventually decide which idea and entrepreneur gets £100,000 in investment to turn their dream into a business reality.
Ruth Badger (from The Apprentice) has been signed to the show by Sky and Vodafone.
The Big Idea is a major part of the Sky Autumn lineup, with the first three episodes shown on Sunday at 9:00PM and the later 4 episodes shown at 9:00PM on Saturday.
Some inventions that appeared on the show included a 4x4 razor (previously rejected on BBC's Dragons Den), a plug removal system and a vending machine comb hair straightener.
WINNER Julian Peck with the Cyclaire
The programme ratings were poor, very poor. Sky even moved the show from Sky One (their flagship channel) to Sky Three (a lesser channel) as it was haemorrhaging viewers. In fact, the show recorded no ratings (according to BARB) for some of their target demographic audiences. One imagines Vodafone, who paid for the programme, were quite rightly disappointed by the reception. One would expect they did not receive the payback on their substantial investement. It remains to be seen if other advertisers in the UK will now want to actively engage in discussions centering around ad-funded programmes. This will surely have sent shudders through marketing directors who have already commited themselves to new projects.
