Quizmania (Australia)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Quizmania | |
|---|---|
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| Genre | Live phone-in game show |
| Creator(s) | Chuck Thomas Debbie King Simone Thorogood |
| Starring | Hosts Nikki Osborne Amy Parks Brodie Young Katrina Conder Suze Raymond Two hosts per episode Mondays - Wednesdays. Three hosts per episode on Fridays and Saturdays |
| Country of origin |  Australia |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | 152 (as of March 17, 2007) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | FremantleMedia Australia |
| Running time | 180 minutes Mondays - Wednesdays 240 minutes Fridays and Saturdays (including commercials) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Channel Nine |
| Picture format | 576i (16:9 SDTV) |
| Original run | July 25, 2006 – |
| Links | |
| Official website | |
Quizmania is an Australian phone-in quiz show, based on the British program of the same name, and broadcast on the Nine Network in the late night time slot (post-midnight). The show is produced from Nine's Richmond studios in Melbourne.
Quizmania debuted on GTV-9, TCN-9, QTQ-9, NTD-8, NBN and WIN Television on 25 July 2006. The show is unique in that it is broadcast live to Adelaide on NWS-9 with the presenters welcoming Adelaide to the show half an hour after it has begun, due to South Australia being thirty minutes behind the Australian east coast. Similarly during daylight saving months, Queensland viewers are welcomed an hour later when the broadcast begins in that state. The show is not shown live in the Northern Territory, thus people from this juristiction are unable to participate
Contestants must be aged 18 or over.
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[edit] Programme history
When it first aired on Tuesday July 25 2006, Quizmania was to soon run in direct competition with the established The Up-Late Game Show on Network Ten, returning a week later on Monday 31 July, after the 2006 Big Brother Australia series had ended with its UpLate late-night show finished. A few days after, Seven Network introduced a similar phone-in quiz show, Midnight Zoo. Both competing programmes have since ceased from broadcasting – Midnight Zoo only lasting three months – and only Quizmania remains today.
[edit] Hosts
The show's hosts are Nikki Osborne, Amy Parks, Brodie Young, Katrina Conder and Suze Raymond. Despite there being five hosts, only two appear on any given night, except for Fridays and Saturdays where three hosts will appear due to the four hour running time.
[edit] Games
Some of the games played on Quizmania include:
[edit] Tower game
This game was created by Quizmania in Britain. It consists of seven blank spaces increasing in value, ranging from anywhere up to $500. At the top of the tower, will either be a phrase with a missing word or a topic to guess. For example, one game could be HOT _____, viewers could call in and guess hot weather, hot water, hot pants, etc. Alternatively, the game could be "Boys Names Beginning With T" and viewers could call and guess Trevor, Timothy, Thierry, etc.
Games of this type have come under particular criticism because they appear specifically designed so as not to have any solid 'right or wrong' type answers[citation needed]. For example, the viewers might simply be asked to "name a rock band", while a graphic will appear on screen with 10 spaces to represent the 10 bands that need to be named. The problem with this is that there is no way to verify in advance what bands were actually on the list - essentially, it is down to the discretion of the Quizmania team to declare which bands are and are not on the list.
[edit] Photos of the tower game
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[edit] Word Search game
Viewers are to find a certain type of word in a grid. Words can be written horizontally, vertically or diagonally. They can also be written back-to-front.
Words found in the grid normally win the player $50.
[edit] Beat the Break
Before January 2007, a game took place during the ad-breaks, where they gave the viewers a a muptiple choice question with 2 silly answers and the correct answer . Viewers then had to call in during the ad-breaks and, if they gave the correct answer, won $50.
[edit] The Quizmania Gold Mine
This game was first introduced on April 4, 2007 and has two parts to it. The first part is where a viewer calls up and correctly answers a "dingbat", a graphic on the screen which features a picture of two different objects. (For example, a car and a set of keys). The viewer has to say the correct answer (Car Keys) to receive $50. Then the viewer gets to pick from a wall of 15 gold cards pinned to it numbered from 1 - 15. Some have no prizes behind them, others have phone cards or minor cash prizes but only one has the "Gold Mine" which jackpots after each unsuccessful caller until someone picks the numbered card with the "Gold Mine" on it.
[edit] Incentives
Periodically, an incentive to call in will be displayed on the screen. One or more incentives may be offered at any one time. These include:
- A bonus offer, when the next caller or callers will be offered a certain amount of extra cash if they say a correct answer.
- A speed round, where many calls are taken with reduced banter.
- Caller countdown clocks, where a countdown timer is placed on the screen and the host mentioning that a call will be taken anytime from now until the clock hits zero (The length of the countdown clock can vary from three minutes to fifteen seconds).
- Double, Triple or Quadruple the normal amount of money on offer.
- A second guess, where if the first answer mentioned by a caller is wrong, they get to say another answer (this offer is very rare).
- A caller or callers will receive $50 just for getting through to the studio even if they get the answer wrong (this offer is very rare).
- The possibility of receiving a pre-paid mobile phone card with $20 credit at random (usually given away if the producers like the answer given but is not an answer in the current game).
[edit] Notable Dates
- October 9, 2006 – the Monday night episodes were moved to Thursdays after the end of the football season. The show now screens Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
- October 19, 2006 – 50th episode.
- December 23, 2006 – special Christmas-themed episode.
- December 31, 2006 – special New Year's Eve episode, broadcast a few minutes early and counting-down to New Year's Day at midnight (Australian Eastern Daylight Time in New South Wales and Victoria^ ; South Australia and Queensland joined the show in progress due to timezone and the daylight savings differences, and welcomed to the show and new year with the midnight commencement in both states).
- January 4, 2007 – 100th episode.
- January 6, 2007 – Katrina Conder's first show as host.
- January 7, 2007 – Suze Raymond's first show as host.
- March 3, 2007 - special Clean Up Australia Day-themed episode.
- March 14, 2007 – 150th episode.
- March 15, 2007 – Thursday night episodes moved to Mondays due to the start of the 2007 AFL and NRL seasons. The show now screens Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights.
- March 17, 2007 - special "World's Greatest Shave 2007" episode, to highlight the Leukaemia Foundation's annual fundraiser.
- March 23, 2007 - The Friday night show is now not seen by Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth or Hobart due to the NRL.
[edit] Criticism
The Nine Network was criticised for replacing The Late Show with David Letterman with Quizmania,[1] with petitions being launched pleading for the return to the network's previous late night line-up.[2] Network Ten now hold the rights to Letterman in 2007, and airs it opposite Quizmania. However, Letterman's fate in that timeslot is uncertain when Big Brother UpLate returns during the year.
On August 11 2006, satirical comedy series The Chaser's War on Everything featured a segment on the influx of late night phone-in quiz shows. The segment mocked the standard of all three late-night quiz programmes on air at the time, their questions, and their money-making tactics by "hardly ever letting callers through", therefore limiting the chances for people to win prizes. The segment showed taped footage of a Quizmania two-minute bonus round, where host Amy Parks stalled for the first 30 seconds of the round and no calls were taken, despite the claim of taking "as many calls as possible".[3] Similar complaints have been voiced by Australian entertainment critics.
Other criticisms include the use of sound effects throughout the show,[4] and complaints from viewers advising Nikki Osborne should wear more appropriate clothing[citation needed], after her appearance on the 13 January 2007 episode wearing a tight revealing red bustier and low cut jeans, in which she had to regularly "pull up" during the program.
[edit] Technical problems
On August 3 2006, the show experienced severe technical problems resulting in the current quiz being postponed several times, and both Nikki Osborne and Amy Parks did their best to get viewers to stay tuned.[5][6] The show was delayed and alternative programming, two episodes of The Drew Carey Show, was shown instead.
On January 11 2007, the show experienced severe technical problems again, resulting in the quiz being postponed several times and Nikki Osborne again doing her best, with the help of the crew, to get viewers to stay tuned, telling viewers to not call until the problem was fixed. At one stage when the problem appeared to have been fixed and the competition resumed, one woman who called through and gave a correct answer was disconnected before she could give her details to producers. This required Osborne to tell her, on the air, to ring the Quizmania office at Channel Nine the next day to receive her $500 winnings. The show was suspended again, and alternative programming was eventually shown at approximately 1.30am with Eve and The Avengers.
[edit] References
- ^ David Dale. "The ratings race: Week 30", The Sydney Morning Herald, 2006-07-31. Retrieved on February 10, 2007.
- ^ Get Rid of Quizmania. Retrieved on February 10, 2007.
- ^ The Chaser Takes on Late Night Quiz Shows. Nikki Osborne (Fanclub site). Retrieved on February 10, 2007.
- ^ Dominic Knight. "Quizmania: Hotdogs never looked so good", The Sydney Morning Herald, 2006-07-27. Retrieved on February 10, 2007.
- ^ Cropley, Brett. Quizmania 'Technical Difficulties'. Boxcutters. Retrieved on February 10, 2007.
- ^ Phones Down – Extended. Nikki Osborne (Fanclub). Retrieved on February 10, 2007.
