24 Hour Quiz

Contents

Host

Shaun Williamson, Matt Brown (late night)

Broadcast

Endemol for ITV1/2, 16 February to 2 April 2004 (episodes on 35 days, 1 series)

Synopsis

24 facts about 24 Hour Quiz:

  1. It was hosted by Shaun Williamson, with Matt Brown taking late night shows.
  2. It aired on ITV for five weeks in spring 2004.
  3. Contestants lived in a small Quiz Pod around the clock.
  4. They faced questions from a disembodied voice for sixteen hours a day. These questions were not difficult.
  5. Money was paid for each correct answer, usually £1 per correct answer.
  6. If they wanted to sleep, or eat, or use the shower, that could cost them money.
  7. Some questions were for more than one quid.
  8. These were usually up when someone was eating or otherwise away from play.
  9. In spite of lasting all day, less than a quarter of the quizzing was shown live.
  10. Most of that was on digital sideline ITV2.
  11. Each day, someone could be removed from the pod.
  12. Hundreds of people queued at Endemol Towers each morning.
  13. Most of them never got past the front door, including everyone over 40.
  14. Fourteen made it onto ITV each lunchtime.
  15. They were whittled down to seven by a process we never understood.
  16. The seven became six based on quizzing and picking a team of three.
  17. The teams played off against the pod.
  18. Then each member of the winning team played off against each other.
  19. The winner played against the player from the pod who had performed least well in the two hours before transmission.
  20. There was something to do with Quiz Pod Passes that we never quite understood.
  21. The rules for this elimination and entry game changed almost every day.
  22. Amazingly, this didn't pull in the viewers.
  23. Originally scheduled for a seven week run, the show was pulled owing to poor viewing figures.
  24. The set looked great, though.

Trivia

Contestant Michael Parkinson (no relation to Michael Parkinson), a stripper, was accused of aggressive and threatening behaviour - not that surprising after Endemol supplied him with alcohol and shut him in a room smaller than a Big Brother cell. He was allowed to keep his £13,346 winnings and came back for the champions final. In 2008, he re-emerged as a contestant on Duel.

UTV viewers didn't take kindly to having this programme replace the daily lifestyle half-hour within UTV Live (which had been relegated to lunchtime, specifically for this show). Within several days, viewer protest had led to a scheduler's U-turn.

Web links

Off the Telly Review

Bother's Bar Review

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