How game shows manipulated our brains, and took over TV

The world of game shows, from Pointless to Tipping Point
The world of game shows, from Pointless to Tipping Point

Old game shows were special. They invented memes before the internet existed with what, in retrospect, we could call the playground meme. “Come on down”, “Give me a P please Bob”, “I’ve started so I’ll finish”. In the pre-social media era, most kids had heard those catchphrases before reaching secondary school – and not from watching the shows.

Now a whole new generation will have the chance to chat about Bully or flick their fingers in the 3-2-1 pattern, because shiny floor gameshows are back with a vengeance. There’s Gladiators, obviously. Stephen Fry is fronting the latest version of the US juggernaut Jeopardy (the quiz show Jeopardy aired for the first time on March 30, 1964). Freddie Flintoff will soon be darting about on the rebooted Bullseye on ITV. Holly Willoughby is the new host of the revamped You Bet!. Graham Norton is spinning the Wheel of Fortune and Stephen Mulhern has headed up Deal or No Deal since autumn 2023.

Not least because there are now channels devoted purely to game shows – and some free on-demand channels literally spooling through the back catalogue of old BBC and ITV gameshows – you could watch gameshows for 24 solid hours and still not manage to see half the shows available on that day’s Freeview. In terms of forthcoming shows, at the end of September over 23 different gameshows – ranging from Countdown to The Piano – were looking for new contestants. Everyone wants the next big thing – but they’re also rebooting all the old ideas.

“With Deal or No Deal, it hadn’t been on air for a while, and lots of young people have never seen it,” explains Tamara Gilder, joint MD of Deal or No Deal producer Remarkable Entertainment. “If it’s a good show, it’s a good show, especially when you’re making as many as you make. We’re updating it for the 21st century, so the banker is a very different concept. But developing new gameshows is hard – the game has to be fun to play and fun to watch. Getting both right is not straightforward, the old formats worked, why invent something slightly similar?”

“It’s also about derisking the show,” adds Ed Waller, Editorial Director at C21 Media. “Wheel of Fortune but for the 21st century has loads of track record and, importantly, lots of audience data. Great ideas with no proven track record are a very hard sell. If you own huge libraries it’s more efficient to sell IP that’s been developed than paying for new IP that needs development.”

Art Fleming, host of Jeopardy from when it first aired in 1964 until 1975 (and again from 1978 to 1979)
Art Fleming, host of Jeopardy from when it first aired in 1964 until 1975 (and again from 1978 to 1979) - NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images

Of course, these games are just the reboots. There are still new games coming to air. “The Traitors effect has ushered in a renaissance for gameshows across traditional TV and streamers,” explains Chris Curtis, editor-in-chief of Broadcast. “And the reason is simple – a good game show offers a dramatic story – whether that’s will they go for the million or will they stab the other players in the back. With the average top-end drama budget around £5-6 million per episode and the most expensive games shows under £1 million, they offer an awful lot of low-cost content.”

The costs are often lower thanks to an enormous wave of consolidation in the TV industry, with private equity funds and VCs bankrolling production companies to buy up smaller rivals – meaning just a handful of companies control most of the old and new game show formats. Sony Pictures Entertainment, for instance, owns Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and The Price is Right, which it licences around the world, while French giant Banijay owns Deal or No Deal, Pointless, House of Games, Hunted, The Wall and Total Wipeout which it usually produces through subsidiaries.

“These companies set up production hubs in a single country and fly in hosts and contestants to knock out a batch of shows,” explains Waller. “In the case of Total Wipeout, for instance, its set is in Argentina. They only have to build the set once which saves costs, plus they don’t licence the format to another company – they make it themselves, so they earn the licence fee and the production fee and keep all the upside.”

Curtis points out that daily gameshows hold a loyal audience – BBC2’s Monday night collection of quiz shows – Mastermind, Only Connect and University Challenge – have already been dubbed Quizzy Mondays on social media.

Jim Bowen, the long-time host of the ITV game show Bullseye
Jim Bowen, the long-time host of the ITV game show Bullseye - ITV Archive

This intense and in some cases bankable passion means that game shows and quiz shows are commissioned in huge quantities these days. Where 1980s shows like Bullseye were commissioned for 10 or 12 episodes per series, the BBC’s latest daytime show The Answer Run with Jason Manford – BBC1, 4.30pm, weekdays – was initially commissioned for 25 episodes. “Having your regular game show on at the regular time is comforting in an ever-changing world,” Curtis explains.

These huge bulk orders have created a backlog as UK broadcasters struggle with budget cuts and falling ad revenue. Producers talk of TV companies with seasons of game shows waiting in the cupboard. “The payment structure is such that they don’t have to pay the final amount until the show has been broadcast,” one irritated producer explains. “That can be financially problematic – there are small companies closing as a result – but it can also really damage your show. What if one of the answers to your quiz is Sean Combs, for instance? That effectively kills that episode. And with so many of these low-cost shows waiting to air, it’s clogging up the chances for something new.”

For streamers like Netflix and Amazon, relative newcomers to the game show world, the games have to be the kind of content that subscribers will pay for and, ideally, do have to have the binge factor. Hence, the Floor is Lava and Awake: The Million Dollar Game have elements you wouldn’t find on Channel 4 daytime. In the case of Awake, contestants compete in challenges designed to test both body and mind after they’ve been kept awake for 24 hours, for instance.

And it’s here that the South Koreans come in. Following the global success of Squid Game, and in the post-Traitors world, there’s a strong broadcaster demand for contestants stabbing each other in the back and eliminating rivals. Genius Game, inspired by the same Japanese manga that inspired Squid Game, is coming to ITV in November with David Tennant as host. To win, the 13 contestants play intellectual games whilst manipulating their opponents to win a cash prize.

Genius Game is coming to ITV in November with David Tennant as host
Genius Game is coming to ITV in November with David Tennant as host - Jack Barnes

“Now, you might say that sounds a lot like Weakest Link or The Apprentice,” one former game show producer says. “And that’s true, there’s only so many types of format out there. You can change the backdrop or the catchphrase, but game shows – or quiz shows – are as old as broadcasting and the creators know what works. It used to be the case that you could make a lot of money just coming up and selling paper formats, like I did, but that level of creativity isn’t necessary anymore.”

The website gameshowgurus.com narrows down game show formats into Quiz Shows (Fifteen to One, Mastermind), Gambling/Chance (You Bet!, Deal or No Deal), Physical Challenge (The Crystal Maze, Gladiators), Subjective Word Games (Countdown, Family Fortunes) and Risk/Reward (The Wall, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?).

“The point of these games, and the reason they’re successful, is that long before Big Brother they genuinely manipulated people’s psychology,” one clinical psychologist who works with game show companies explains. “You start with the fact that anyone who wants to be on TV is a narcissist of some kind. Then you have a format that messes with their normal behaviour. Who Wants to be a Millionaire, for instance, you have lots of contestants signing up thinking it will be fine if they just walk away £1,000 richer. The whole point of the game play is to throw that out and remove realistic expectations. You have to encourage people to want to win the million. And the viewers can see the struggle on their faces. That’s the entertainment. The tension and the jeopardy.”

Perhaps as a direct counter to that tension in the age of game show psychologists – Ted Rogers didn’t have a psych on Bullseye, that’s for certain – the hosts have become a little more… genuine? Interested in the contestants? Actual human beings? As Winona Ryder memorably said in the 1988 film Heathers: “If you were happy every day of your life you wouldn’t be a human being. You’d be a game-show host.”

And in the original Deal or No Deal, you had the feeling Noel Edmonds would have preferred to play without talking to the contestants at all. With Stephen Mulhern, Gilder says, he’s almost more interested in chatting to the contestants than the game. “He’s so invested in people’s stories, it’s like he’s not actually a game show host,” she gives a wry grin. “In the very first iteration of game shows, winning a fridge or a TV was a big deal. These days it’s less about the prizes and more about the game play and casting.” She pauses, grins again. “And it’s tricky to ensure, but the best possible cast are basically replicating a family Christmas. Just without the angry, drunken uncle.”