Game on. It’s Eddie v Andrew
Eddie McGuire will go head to head with Andrew O'Keefe in a game show battle that is reminiscent of old fashioned snake oil salesmen.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Programming
Let the games begin.
The 5:30pm timeslot has hotted up with confirmation that Nine will pit Millionaire Hot Seat against Seven’s Deal or No Deal.
The match begins from Monday April 20th, the second day back in the ratings race.
Nine promises a “$20 Million dollar month, a totally new game sees 6 contestants going head to head in a mighty battle to win the cash.”
This means the show is not yet committing to anything beyond four weeks of episodes. If it doesn’t work at least it’s a way out. If it does, could they produce more? Probably.
Pitting the two men in a head to head battle will be like watching the best salesmen from each network in an old fashioned snake oil demonstration. Both are supreme at spin.
Deal or No Deal is the stayer, having defeated every show Nine has put against it. Millionaire Hot Seat is the new kid on the block. An audience favourite that promises new bells and whistles. It isn’t the first time the show has been stripped as a 30 minute version, but never at such breakneck speed.
The trick will now be to see whether Seven can up the stakes with two cases of $200,000.
But what happens when the month is over? Back to Antiques Roadshow? Hardly an ideal solution. We’ll have to wait and see if the network’s other rumoured projects, including Let’s Make a Deal and that magazine show that just won’t die eventuate.
Meanwhile Brisbane viewers can see Eddie at 5pm with Extra remaining locked into 5:30pm. That’s the magazine show that’s been running for 17 years of course…
26 Responses
I really don’t know who is more annoying!!!!
Yes – I too think the show will do better at 7pm where, for most of us, the options are very poor. 7pm should be a game show / Aussie produced show time – not endless repeats of 2.5 Men now usually coming 4th in ratings. At least I can watch Sports Tonight on ONE at 7.
At 7, I’ll watch. At 5.30, I’m still on 10 news. As it is, I switch over to 7 some time during sports to see the end of Deal as its really only the last 10 minutes that matter.
Silly move.
Maybe try at7pm with decent realistic promotion and sorry Ducko even in Melbourne Eddie has his “use by date” – no longer the star, just overpaid and underworked
I think I will stick with Ten news between 5 and 6 thanks.
Eddie and Andrew can have the ego spotlight to themselves and their adoring fans.
Put Seinfeld at 5, that will beat MASH.
The two most annoying men on television. It’s a bit like Godzilla vs King Kong.. who cares?
I think this will be a case of deja vu…how many times to 9 need to flog things till they realise it’s dead. Just look at how Ramsay rated last night. Fail.
i can hear the scooners being downed by Andrew now, hes got to be worried about eddie. Get your cameras ready, Andrew will be out on the street again!
@ jimbo “millionaire is proven”
yer, a proven failure against deal.
but i shouldn’t complain. i’ve been saying for months that antiques needs to go and replaced with anything. so here it is.
have they started advertising this? there isn’t much time. is a week and a half enough?
if only they had it ready a few weeks ago. 7 news has been rapidly increasing it’s lead lately, the 500k gaps are becoming more frequent.
@ jimbo, “millionaire is proven. it will s*** on Deal”
last time millionaire was put against deal it lasted 2 1/2 weeks. it ratings got so bad they couldn’t even play out the initial episode order. it fasttracked deal’s cilmb in the ratings and it hasn’t looked back since. (yes, it increased deal’s audience)
how you see that as “proven” sucess is beyond me.
i should say that i am a millionaire fan and would like to see it do well which is why the 5:30 decision is annoying me.
yes!!!!!!
finally a program that will pip Deal or No Deal. Who Wants to be a Millionaire is a much better game show than Deal. This aint just another failure from nine, millionaire is proven. it will s*** on Deal,.
the other thing about millionaire is that some of the contestants already have money (smart people usually do) so if they go home with something piddly like $1000 you are not going to get the emotion and purpose that you usually get on the average game of deal.
millionaire needs to hand out big bux to work.
@Jerome
The only safe level they told us at the audition was $1000, so the contestant answering question 15 must go for broke, because the only other choice is taking the thousand so they may as well take a stab at the final question if they do not know it. They’ll at least walk away with $1000, but you are darn right it is a far cry from the money being won on Deal. If I were the Millionaire producers I’d be changing that safe level quick smart. No one’s going to want to watch a show where only 1K is won most nights.
Hopefully Deal will up the ante during the 4/6 weeks of Millionaire to make it the choice show to watch! How cool would a 500K or 1MillionK briefcase be, like when the show first started?
Andrew FTW!
whaaaaat, i don’t believe this. first of all most of the fans won’t be home yet.
secondly what makes them think they can topple DOND in 20 days it’s been going for years.
and thirdly 2.5men is coming 4th in its timeslot very frequently now, and temptation was competitive all the way until the end why can’t millionaire?
waste of time, it will be the same spectacular flop that it was all those years ago and what WoF was last year.
haha, well there goes those chances of millionaire being a success.
i am surprised by this. wasn’t the reason that they canceled plans for the magazine show because they couldn’t afford it. surely millionaire costs about the same.
@mary, is that true, most contestants only get $1000, that is piddly. the average winnings on deal is $20k+. if you won $1000 on deal it would be considered a disaster of a deal.
Why don’t they just save their money and sack Eddie? He is poison everywhere other than perhaps Melbourne.
It will need more than 4 weeks to succeed, like others have said. Really don’t like the format though, and thought a faster, classic format would have worked better, especially off the back of Slumdog Millionaire.
these shows take time to work. especially if you are going to take down a giant with it. after 4 weeks what will 9 be able to say that their $20mil has acomplished?
missed opportunity here. could have picked up on some BL viewers at 7:00. or had a primetime show that had a chance. i for one will never watch anything with eddie in it.
That’s strange, because at the auditions they confirmed that 30 episodes were being made, not 20. Confirmed again by saying 180 contestants were needed (ie 30 eps x 6 contestants per ep).
Mikey, the 20M reference is 20 episodes x $1M potentially to go off in each episode. It’s not going to cost them 20M. Most contestants will be very fortunate to walk away with 50K given the new format. My prediction is $1000 will be going off most nights, which is really quite piddly, and where the show will fail in comparison to the big bucks offered on Deal. The problem is, for the winner to walk away with anything more than $1000, they must answer correctly the 15th question.
well i guess 7 can relax then.
what were they thinking here? they have tried it before and it failed spectacularly. and if it does work. speding 20mil on a quick fix gamble. while other shows, personalities and jobs are axed because of cost-cutting?
Silly move, this show would have done well against Home and Away and Masterchef…and now they’re throwing it where no one will watch it. This, and the new Weakest Link-style additions make it seem destined to fail. And I was actually thinking this would be a hit at first. Guess we’ll see
I wonder if it will survive a full month
Haven’t they already run Millionaire vs Deal before – last year?
Good on Nine for some *something/anything* with this timeslot – but for 4 weeks? And it’s costing $20M?! Seriously, with the tight assed shows they’ve been producing like WipeOut/Hole/Worlds Funniest – surely they could spend that money buying, oh I dunno, much better value for money?
With the money Eddie costs them, he should be hosting every news/weather/sport update every day until he expires…
Frankly I don’t mind either way – but I will be following on this blog.
Here we go again, round and round. If wheel of fortune didn’t work, what makes them think this will? Maybe if they actually fixed their news and had some consistancy they’d do better.