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TEN to pilot Sale of the Century?

TEN studios in Sydney look set to pilot of a new version of Sale of the Century.

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Rumours have been swirling for some time that TEN is set to pilot a new version of Sale of the Century.

TV Tonight understands TEN has been readying to provide studio space at Pyrmont for FremantleMedia to pilot the game show, which ran on Nine from 1980 to 2001 with hosts Tony Barber, Glenn Ridge and various co-hosts Victoria Nicholls, Delvene Delaney, Alyce Platt, Jo Bailey, Nicky Buckley.

It ran previously as Temptation / Great Temptation on Seven with Barber and Barbie Rogers, revived on Nine with Ed Phillips and Livinia Nixon from 2005 – 2009.

In the Pyrmont studio that is more recently home to Hughesy We Have a Problem, Show Me the Movie and Family Feud, space will not allow for the physical showcase of cars and dining suites, nor the Sale “shop” which tempted champions with prizes. These are expected to be replaced with video walls displaying the prizes on offer.

But as Seven’s stripped-back revival of The Price is Right with Larry Emdur in 2012 discovered, the audience sometimes has expectations about nostalgic TV titles. Fingers crossed producers will avoid that pitfall. Sale ran for so long because it was a tight format that even survived the loss of its personable host.

TEN did not respond to enquiries last week.

36 Responses

  1. Before we all go knocking it, Sale itself was a reboot of the original Temptation, which was before my time. It never hurts to open these up to new audiences and contestants and rejig the format.

    Grant Denyer as host as long as he does the Tony Barber run in.

  2. I don’t know where TEN has room to fit another weeknight game show. It’s not really the kind of game show for a 6pm slot and “Pointless” hasn’t even started yet. Unless it would be on ELEVEN. I don’t think The Project would be going anywhere.

    Sale of the Century is not the right show for Grant Denyer. He needs a show that can display his humour more. He didn’t last long on Million Dollar Minute, as it was too much for him. I think it had a part in making him not well. He needs an output to display his energy. It was too serious for him.

  3. Wouldnt Channel 9 still hold the rights to Sale? Hopefully they get Tony to host again would be nice but if not i’d settle for a second round of Glenn Ridge hosting 🙂

  4. I would love to see this back .i use to love this show only problem i see is finding the most energetic live wire host like that use to host the original series .someone like Greg Evans he made the show would be hard to find today .

  5. It could work and as far as prizes go it’s actually likely a good time as there is a lot of brand competition going on right now. Especially on the lower end of the spectrum in the so-called must haves, like the iPhone X and Galaxy S9 Plus at between $1,500 and $1,800, then there’s the IPad, MS Surface and Galaxy Tab S Pro’s. You have a tussle for consumers between the Google Home, Amazon Echo and Apple HomePod, OLED TV’s, Home Theatre Systems. There are other things as well like soundbars, having your home wired for sound and lots of other services that people want these days

    Not so sure the Famous Faces would be a bust in that as well, when you have a battle on between Netflix, Stan and Amazon Prime. That would be Prime real estate for one year subscriptions to those services, even throw in the same for Foxtel with free installation and Fetch TV (mighty and subscription). So…

  6. I would like to see it back. I think TEN is on the right track here. I remember all the negativity when they announced Family Feud was coming back. It had a good 4 year run.

  7. I wouldn’t be hard to come up with a fast paced quiz show without having to revamp one from the past. If they do Sale, I just hope it is not overloaded with sponsorship and unnecessary chat to the contestants. As many have said the fear here is that the prizes won’t be what they used to be – alot of prizes on Sale were almost boutique or luxury items of decent value. Temptation similar. My wife won a Versace watch valued at over $3,000 on Temptation in 2005.

  8. Beverley McGarvie needs to be replaced, Ten haven’t had an original or good idea in years. It is well known and recognised that Ten produce content for the plebs but for Ten to be profitable and thrive CBS need to rein in McGarvie and her team of so called programmers to ensure this sort of regurgitated rubbish is killed off. Without any major sport or marquee brands they continue to drift. The Americans must be scratching their heads and wondering what kind of basket case they actually bought. Seven and Nine are flooging them every night in shares and streams. People are over the same old same old like Masterchef, Crapchelor, Im a Nobody etc etc. If CBS dont get some new people and ideas, without advertisers and audience their investment wont be worth much in 2 years.

  9. The idea of TEN commissioning Pointless beggars belief. The viewers won’t have a clue what is going on, how the show is won …..and the current ” here’s how it works” promos are not helping at all.
    Pointless is aimed at a more – and I hate to say this – a more refined BBC / ABC audience… it is not TEN at 6 PM . I reckon it will sink within weeks because of this fatal flaw. If the audience has to struggle to work out how the damn game operates, they simply won’t bother.

    1. ‘and the current ” here’s how it works” promos are not helping at all.’ <says who? when i first saw it on abc i knew nothing of the show & it took a lil while to work it out, no im not stupid lol, but i did tune in the middle of an episode. If someone had of told me the point was to get the least obvious answer, it would've been clear from the start, which is what the promos are doing.

  10. Also, just a further thought but the cash jackpot might wanna start quite high, given what median house prices were and what they are now you’d want that at $1 million just to start, because $50k ain’t what it used to be 30 years ago

  11. I’ve been wanting Sale to be revived for ages so hopefully this ends up working. I love quiz shows that are about quick-fire trivia questions and Sale is a great example.

  12. At first, I thought, “Oh no, not another redo”, but then I watched a Sept 1997 ep of Sale on YouTube. I reckon Sale could work now, but it would need quite a bit of updating to make it appealing to a 21st century audience (and by that I don’t mean making it gimmicky). For example, the Famous Faces segment looks a bit lame now.

    Some of the big-ticket prizes back in the 20th century might not be so attractive now because so many consumer goods and international travel are so much less expensive now when compared to average income as was the case 20 to 40 years ago. But a BMW or Merc as the ultimate prize would still work exceptionally well.

    BTW, the Sept 97 ep had 42 questions.

    Sale is different to Hot Seat and The Chase because Sale has a carry-over champion whereas the other two don’t, so there is often a reason to come back to see how far the champ can go.

  14. Whilst I rather liked this show, including the Temptation revamp, I think the prize concept itself is outdated which would lead to a lacklustre interest in the format. Gone are the days of being wowed by new gadgets and status symbols as prizes, money is the only thing that impresses or motivates now.

  15. Sale and The Chase both work for the same reason – the focus is on the trivia questions, and they get through a lot of them in the limited time available. The Chase gets through roughly 100 questions per 40 minute episode, and Sale is only marginally slower.

    Millionaire fails because it’s so slow – only 10-15 questions per episode. It’s mostly filler, and people just don’t get excited by filler.

    I hope the pilot goes well. I can’t see Pointless working on Ch10 (it’s better suited to an ABC audience). I can see Sale working well on 10.

        1. You’re entitled to disagree but I would suggest a wider view before determining what’s a failure. Fatigue and local factors differ significantly from what makes a global hit. For that matter Hot Seat generally still holds up on east coast but Perth is ever loyal to ever 7.

      2. Maybe failure wasn’t the right word. Mastermind was a product of a very different television era, and I couldn’t see a reboot of that format working in this day and age. Millionaire is smashed on a daily basis by The Chase, and for good reason – it’s more drama than quizzing. Sale hits a much better balance of quizzing and time filling.

  16. I loved Temptation on 9. I hope it’s similar I’m vein to that. I do think TEN should try rotating game shows at 6pm 3-4 shows a year a build towards a finale week perhaps.

    1. This is a common response to any revival regardless of network. But TEN already has productions on the go which I have filed. TV is a broad canvas and is cyclical, whether in the US or here revivals are part of the mix. At this stage it’s only a Pilot. I would encourage you to comment on shows you do enjoy from time to time.

      1. trouble is shows i like end up getting canned cause reality tv seems to be more popular and easier to make they dont have to think of anything

  19. Can’t do this on. the cheap, very silly to even try. The appeal of the original sale was the prizes were extravagant and jaw dropping, can you imagine if they tried to do this on the cheap… would sink like a stone. If anything the original Sale was about as ‘event tv’ as it got back in the day.

    Love the Bob Shanks reference from the earlier poster, if they roll out Family Double Dare in prime time I legit can see Grant Denyer being amazing as host

    In all seriousness though, if they want to be serious – bring back Idol, use Hey Hey as a stop gap for the horrendous Saturday shares until they can get AFL back in.

  20. I can’t keep track – between Pointless, Game of Games, and Sale of the Century, and Dancing With The Stars, sounds like Ten will be wall to wall gameshows.

    Sounds familiar to the Bob Shanks era. I heard they have revived Double Dare in the US. Let’s pass on Family Double Dare this time!

    1. Apart from pointless, the other game shows aren’t likely to be year round, so it could still just be 3 shows sharing the same timeslot.

  21. Like ‘Price is Right’ this is another show they can’t bring back in a cut down cheapened format. Ten should be looking at a larger studio for this reboot if it goes ahead. Seven’s price was terrible in so many way, from ten tiny studio/set, minimal audience, most prizes being a currently stocked Big W item, and lower prize pool value.

    1. Wasn’t it awful. I remember watching one episode where the contestant was playing the ‘hole in one’ game to win 50 DVD’s from Big W and remembering the same game often had a car as the prize on the channel nine version.

  23. Sale of the Century was a great show and format and it would be nice to see a revival. There was a lot of trivia that could be learned by watching Sale of the Century and the cost of prizes and money that could be won was quite high at the time of the previous productions. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? had a higher prize pool after Sale of the Century. I wonder if a higher prize pool would be considered for a new Sale of the Century production.

  25. As a “quiz show” enthusiast, I’d like to see the half-hour 7 pm timeslot (after Think Tank on the ABC).

    These type of challenging shows should compliment each other, and not compete for ratings “against” each other.

    “Sale of the century” is the kind of show that Free-to-air TV deserves, not more Gogglebox.

    I’d like to think they would use Grant Denyer as the host. He deserves the gig.

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