bye-bye Glitterball

My understanding is that last night was the last Glitterball under the ITV Play umbrella and that ITV Play will now be ‘Make Your Play’ only, which I think is rather sad as if I had to choose between the two I’d opt for Glitterball.

Last night I briefly watched Quiz Call which airs on C5, it looked (on first viewing) as a somewhat inferior product with a single host and answers being revealed by removing a sticky overlay (rather than any fancy electronics) the presenter though seemed characteristically upbeat and the game did feature some good ‘extras’ such as a period where callers could offer two answers for the price of one. On a non-scientific feel it looked like more callers and winners. The game I saw being played was for viewers to name children’s TV programmes.

Views on Participation TV? Either complete the survey or send an e-mail to ITVPlaysurvey@btopenworld.com

I’m putting together a list of characteristics/traits I’ve noted of the format which I’ll add during the week for comments and additions by you…

Another Boys' night on 'Make your Play'

So looking at the ‘Make Your Play’ show of Tuesday 18th September, another of those ‘boys’ nights’ featuring Ben Baldwin and Russ Spencer (he of recent UK Eurovision group Scooch).

What I’ve noticed on this one is that there are far more mentions (particularly from Russ) of ITV, mainly allied to the ITV.com website but unusually mentions of things like Coronation Street and other ITV programming.
The opening ‘Stack’ which lasted two and a half hours was PUBLIC and toilet and convenience were both popular answers. I’m not sure if the fact that the school holidays are now over but there seem to be less callers who are under 18.

Oh yes and that Blue Peter cat and the worry that meant it was not going to be called Cookie, have a look at what the Guardian says but it seems Socks too has more than one meaning too…

Dont forget -Survey - great prizes if you can spare 5 minutes or so and you've views on participation TV give it a go (you could be a prize winner).

Another 'Make your Play' dissected

Today I’ve gone through the Make your Play of 24th July, fairly standard show with just over 200 calls taken to air, 3 games (mainly word stack of Black) and prize money of £2,750 (4 male and 2 female winners).
Hosts were Ben Baldwin and Zo Christien.
Call rates varied from a peak of around 1,600 down to just over 100 per minute.
There was caller from Spain and a rare example of swearing (by a winner), I also note how rarely callers were able to moan about difficulties getting through. I have one more Make your Play to analyse (it'll be for tomorrow’s Tuesday 18th September ) and then I’ll start some more detailed work on the effect on the ITV brand – don’t forget to fill in the survey (HERE) if you haven’t yet .

A Girly Glitterball

Having watched the boys night of ITV’s Make your Play, analysis of the girls night Glitterball was something I was not immediately drawn to but in the event of it I found it far more enjoyable than anticipated. Again Glitterball seems far closer (to me) to main stream entertainment than Make your play and it appears (again to me) that this is not jus a function of the amusing Craig Stevens.
The Girls night Glitterball I viewed was for the night of Tuesday 7th August going into the early hours of Wednesday 8th, the hosts were Alex Kramer and Yolly Kopel.
Yolly and Alex an be seen here in one of the amusing parts of the show of 7th/8th August here.

It was the first time I’d seen Yolly and like the other presenters she was very accomplished and able to think on her feet, like Craig and Alex she was also capable of being very amusing. The show featured a single game (a stack) where the word to be added to was Full ____ . the number of contestants calls that went to air was an unspectacular (but fairly average) 134 in the four programme, the money prizes awarded were low by Glitterball standards (£3,500) with 4 of the five winners being female.

One caller to air again appeared to be underage (she rang off after giving a less than thoroughly convincing date of birth). There was much interplay between the two girls and an element of hilarity when the cricketing term ‘Full Toss’ was offered as a possible answer.

I’m also now noting the time in the show where ITV2 viewers stop seeing the show and another difference from make your play in that presenters invite interplay with viewers on other topics than the games by asking for e-mails and then using some of these to help pad out the programme.

If you have a view on this type of programme drop a line to ITVPlaysurvey@btopenworld.com

ITV'S Glitterball versus their Make Your Play

ITV has 2 participation programmes each of which runs for 3 days of the week for a duration of (usually) around 4 hours per night/early morning. Sunday night is a night off for the participants- presumably for their good behaviour.
Having spent some time analysing ITV’s Make your Play I’ve now moved on to Glitterball which does pretty much the same job as 'Play' on the remaining nights of the week; ostensibly it’s much the same mix of word quizzes and puzzles but to me so far I’ve enjoyed watching it far more than Make your Play I put this down to a mixture of factors, the principal ones being the programme seems to be more about enjoyment rather than just a 'for money' quiz, the show has more interplay with the participants and amongst the hosts, with more 'two handed' action.
I would also judge Craig Stevens as an amusing guy, who is a self deprecating performer and can bounce off his co-hosts well, in this case the former Eternal singer Kelly Bryan (who seems to have a variable spelling of her first name).
On the show of the 26th July 83 calls went through to the studio and £10,000 was awarded (6 winners) in prizes (far more than I’ve seen on Make your Play) call volumes dropped to as few as an average of 50 per minute which still make the odds of getting through pretty slim but a little less than astronomical.
Interesting point on the show in question was that an underage caller was turned away (I wonder if there are a similar proportion amongst the callers who do not get through), another all girl winners night too

Ben's solo effort

Reviewing the ITV Make your Play of Monday 30th July it was notable for a few things one being that it was a solo effort by Ben Baldwin as the show’s host and at around 3 hours and twenty minutes that’s no mean achievement, having said that I think it would have been better with two presenters. There was also a rather long break in the proceedings where I imagine Ben went to pay a call of nature.

Another point is that around £850 was awarded in prizes; it seems a pitifully small amount, I felt that I should have got this for watching it! (Winners were split equally across the sexes on 30th July).
“Crazy Nige” got through twice (and won once), I can’t help thinking he must have quite a phone bill, also interestingly someone confessed to have been trying all night to get through saying he must have spent a £1,000 (he then gave an answer which had already been discounted) Ben was obviously put out by this callers behaviour as they had ignored his oft repeated warnings.
The reason that I might seem a touch harsh on Ben is that I watched some Glitterball and that was more enjoyable and not because the prizes were more generous – more on that tomorrow.

Another potential advantage

So the analysis continues and I’ve looked in some detail at the ‘Make your Play’ of the 25th July which was hosted (unusually) by two male presenters, they being Ben Baldwin and Russ Spencer.
Now the show that they characterised as a ‘boys show’ was dominated by the ladies with all four of the winners being female and the women callers outnumber the men by over two to one, I’m not sure if this was unusual but I’ll be looking at more transmissions to determine this
The show had considerably less ‘on air’ contestants than the previous nights one (I made it 149 for the show that aired 25th July as opposed to over 200 on the 24th July). I also reckon they gave away only £2,000 and that was all in the first hour and a quarter.
So the next important advantage for taking part in ITV Play to consider, is perhaps the advantage of being a woman.

Watching Glitterball and Make Your Play

I’ve been reviewing the participation strand which will form part of my research and one of the most surprising part of the shows has been seeing (particularly on ‘make your play’) how few winners there are.

I’ve also noted how many entrants go with answers that have already been rejected.
Having said that I do in fact find prolonged exposure quite hard work, most TV programmes of this form are generally less than 15 minutes before they’re interrupted by either commercials or at least a change of pace these shows are about 4 hours long with generally only a couple of on air presenters.
It will be interesting to see if in time the presenters move into (or return to) mainstream TV.

The challenge to keep the pace going is also evident and addressed somewhat by the going to bonus levels or taking more callers for a while (known on make your play as 'going turbo').

As a result of the preliminary viewing I’m setting some measurable events within the shows, like winners or warnings.

If you want to be part of the research do let me know at
ITVPlaysurvey@btopenworld.com