It’s simple maths, right? If a game show like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire pays out the maximum amount to a winner every week, the network running it would surely be bankrupt in a season – and it’s not like you can control the quizzing skills of the person in the hotseat.
If, like me, you’ve always wondered how game shows stay within a budget, Richard Osman ― author and former host of TV game shows like Pointless, devisor of 24 Hour Quiz, and executive producer of Deal Or No Deal ― has an answer.
Speaking on The Rest Is Entertainment podcast, he chatted with Marina Hyde about the topic.
“Are the questions on daytime quizzes weighted to ensure there isn’t a daily payout, or are the questions selected randomly?” a fan of the show asked.
Well, are they?
“The questions wouldn’t be weighted particularly in that way,” Richard answered.
“But lots of formats have ways of ensuring there isn’t a payout. So, you’ll do like a final round where you could win or you couldn’t win the jackpot,” he said, explaining that on Pointless, the jackpot only gets won every few days.
“You always have an algorithm,” he added. “Daytime budgets are very small, but in your budget will be a line item for prize money.
“So, when we used to make Deal or no Deal, for example ― and it’s a good example, because it’s all about money ― you’ve got that £250,000 box all the way down to the 1p box.”
He then revealed that on average, the show was meant to give out £16,500 a day ― which means that yes, one person might win the full jackpot one day, but “an awful lot of other people are going to have to win £2,000, is the truth.”
Richard shared that there’s an algorithm “you put together” to prevent loss ― and “for shows that give away a million, you can be insured as well, in case your algorithm breaks”
On Deal Or No Deal, he said, the budget was actually pretty big ― especially considering some people only walk away with a couple of thousand, or much less.
“Very, very few people ― four or five in our run of it ― go all the way and go for the £250,000,” he added. “The beauty of that format is you’re left with £250,000 and £15, and you’re gonna be offered £70,000. And very few people are turning that down,” the Thursday Murder Club author said.
He also pointed out that on the ITV reboot of Deal Or No Deal, the highest payout is £100,000, as he reckons their daily payout is “around £12,000.” And a bit of trivia for Deal Or No Deal fans ― the algorithm for that show is actually written by The Banker, who Richard describes as a “mathematical genius”.
Can it go wrong?
It can ― and has.
“We did a show called Million Pound Drop,” shared Richard. “So we were doing that show, and you’re given a million pounds, and you move it across various questions and across ten answers, you gamble some of it, and... if you get to the last question, you walk away with whatever money you’ve got left.”
The ideal average payout for that was £35,000-£40,000 an episode, Richard shared, partly because a “lot of people are leaving with nothing”.
But on their very first episode, a couple got all the way to question 10 with £500,000. “That’s a problem for us,” he pointed out. “We’re doing like 12 episodes ― so that’s all of our prize money gone in one.”
The couple ended up on a 50/50 question with half a million at stake, and had to risk it all. “They put it on the wrong trapdoor, and they lost all of it ― which, awful for them, but absolutely saved the show.”
On that show, he says there are “difficult junctures” where you’re “almost forced to split your money,” ― with those, it’s “very, very difficult to have a definitive right answer.”
What was that about not weighting the questions again?