0/5

Nine to extend Hot Seat to one hour in 2017

Updated: Nine will meet Seven head-on in a 5pm game show battle.

Nine is set to extend Hot Seat to a one-hour format in 2017 after getting a thumping from The Chase in 2016.

Since The Chase debuted in September 2015, Hot Seat has lost share, while Seven News has snatched back the ratings crown from Nine News.

Earlier this year then-Programming and Production managing director Andrew Backwell predicted Hot Seat would be winning by mid year.

But it hasn’t come to pass, despite strategic moves including split-coding by Seven and Nine kicking off its show well before 5:30pm.

Seven’s bold move of a one hour game show has paid off, despite contestants being repeatedly defeated by its brainiac Chasers. By contrast Hot Seat had a $1,000,000 winner this year and Eddie McGuire has so far given away more than $38 million in prize-money.

But Seven takes the the view that their final Chaser game-play with Andrew O’Keefe is compelling enough, win or lose, at the crucial lead-in to the 6pm news.

TV Tonight understands Hot Seat plans for 2017 are being kept heavily under wraps.

Updated: Tim Cleary, Head of Programming & Production Nine Melbourne said in a statement:

Hot Seat will be bigger than ever in 2017. While we’ve refreshed the show, we haven’t strayed too far from its origins. There’ll be more questions, lifelines, a new level of strategy that will test the players and more ways to win money.”

42 Responses

  1. The only problem is that Hot Seat can’t even survive half an hour without stupid chit-chat with contestants. How can it make it to an hour? They should cut 9News Now by 15 minutes. Hot Seat can fit into that 15 minutes before the afternoon news.

  2. Channel Nine doesn’t have a good record when it comes to extending 30 minute quiz shows to an hour. In the early Noughties Nine had The Price Is Right with Larry Emdur. Popular, fast moving and getting to the main game (the showcase) as quickly as possible. Then some bright spark decided to extend it to an hour. A new wheel segment was introduced, it became overlong and tedious. Finally Nine axed it. Hopefully Nine will have more success with Hot Seat. The one upside is that Nine might finally have to stop running repeats of Hot Seat. Memories of 2013 when Nine ran an entire year of Hot Seat repeats (including during ratings periods) are still vivid.

  3. Maybe Nine should make an Australian version of “Pointless”. The British version is really addictive. And remember that’s how The Chase started , as a Aussie version of a hit British quiz show.

  4. Can’t see this ending well… Eddie is massively stretched work wise, so they increase the show length… How can he keep focus on so many things, can’t keep spinning plates forever. There’s even been some production slips, minor, but they get through, I fell off my chair when I saw my friend was on there one night, Eddie called him Brian (his name is Brad) yet they kept that little slip in.

    Can’t imagine the meeting they had “so, our show is slower, their show is faster, much faster…. I know, how about we extend the length of our show……” errr this needs so many wholesale changes to make it work in an hour format, they will add silly heart monitors and Blood Pressure gimmicks….. it will be gone by mid 2017.

  5. Going to fail big time they don’t speed it up a bit. So boring Eddie slow chatting the contestants to fill in time and sneakily helping some with answers and not others.

  6. As I’ve said before Hot Seat under its current format does not reward intelligence and good performances. As my wife is about to attend auditions for the show, we’ve been watching every night yet every night I see someone answer many questions yet the money at the end ends up going to someone that hasn’t answered a question all night or passed earlier either strategically or because they didn’t know an answer. As it is we fast forward through all the chat – my wife has even said “if I get on do I have to sit there talking about my life for 5 minutes? What am I going to say? Can I just ask Eddy to get on with the questions?!”

    Will need major changes to go over an hour… can’t be the same thing stretched out.

  7. Agree that the problem is with the boring chit-chat, which will only be exascerbated by going to an hour. I don’t like Eddie either but I could live with him if he’s not rabbiting on. Also I don’t see the problem with people not winning The Chase, I think that’s what makes it interesting.There’s more at stake. If they do win, it’s the excitement of a long buildup.

  8. I think it needs to go back to the original millionaire format and provide few more variations to fill the hour – and also think Eddie is quite polarising – still think there is a place for an intelligent quiz somewhere like sale of the century or jeporday

    1. You mean compere. But I agree that the UK version is good. I sometimes wonder what sort of selection process our contestants have to pass. Last week, a young lady got two questions correct in the money builder, then went out in straight sets. You could see the blank looks on her face at some of the questions, which by any standard, weren’t that hard. My wife says I’m too harsh, that she was too young to have known some of the answers. OK then, so why put yourself forward to go on a quiz show where a modicum of general knowledge is required?
      Incidentally, The Chase must be one of the cheapest programs to make. Often days and days go by without Channel 7 having to pay any prize money at all. At least “Hot Seat” gives away a guaranteed $1,000 a night.

  9. Always watched Hot Seat, but since The Chase hit the TV screens have not watched Hot Seat since as now it seems such a slow boring quiz game compared to The Chase, and with an hour long show next year will be even more so.

    1. same here, i started watching the English version first, now i watch both if possible. The best thing they could do for Hot Seat is get rid of the easy as Q’s at the start of it, seems like a complete waste of time really, just like the people telling their life stories.

  10. It already seems to start closer to 5:15 than 5:30 (according to the EPG) so will 4:45 be the new “5pm” start time – as a lead-in to the 5:58pm News?

    1. The problem is the inane “chat” that goes on. For heaven’s sake Eddie, we don’t want to know every contestant’s life story. I find myself yelling at the television screen “Get on with it!”

  11. The last show they tried to put against Hot Seat was a flop, so I assumed this one would be too. It will be starting at 4.30, or 4.25 more like, on the Gold Coast as Gold Coast news is on at 5.30.

    1. I honestly think the impact of Seven (re)launching their own GC news service, back in July is not to be discounted when looking at any gains The Chase has made this year.

      The real loser out of the “race” to claim 5-6pm by Nine and Seven, is Ten’s news department, whose sole bulletin daily between 5-6pm looks like it could be sent to extinction (with Win’s extensive news division likely to join it, once a reasonable amount of SC9 markets are airing local news), unless major investment, both financially, and in scheduling outside 5-6pm is made.

      1. Has it ever been scientifically proven that “lead-in” programs affect 6pm news ratings? Honestly, I switch over to my preferred news irrespective of what channel has been on since 5.30. I can’t believe there are dumb and dumber people out there who just don’t pick up the remote and make an informed decision. I would bet my house that winning the news ratings reflects the quality of the news, not a lightweight quiz lead-in. at least I would hope so.

          1. I think we all know that what the commercial TV networks do is for their own benefit, not the viewers. Can you imagine the ABC starting its 7pm news at 6,55pm to stop people switching over to Home And Away?

Leave a Reply