BBC Renews “Secret Fortune” for Third Series
BBC One’s popular lottery quiz show, Secret Fortune has been picked up for a third series. The Wild Rover-produced show, hosted by Nick Knowles, asks contestants to remove checks with various amounts of money on them by answering questions correctly. The more you answer correct, the higher the money stays, and by the end you could be leaving with £100,000. Secret Fortune has been picked up for twelve episodes this series. Previous series consisted of eight episodes. Secret Fortune was voted the second best new game show of 2011 by the readers of BuzzerBlog.
Executive producer Phil Morrow said, “When the BBC picked up Secret Fortune, we had never done a big primetime gameshow, so it was always going to be a gamble. To get to a third series indicates a huge show of faith in both the series and our production company.”
CBS piloted their own version of Secret Fortune with Donny Osmond earlier this year. What happened to it? There’s still a chance you could see it. Morrow told C21 Media, “CBS were very pleased with the pilot, now we’re waiting for them to find a slot in their schedule. The show has the potential to be an absolutely huge hit in America and I think other countries will start to realize its potential.”
Excited to see new episodes? I’m definitely looking forward to it.
Source : C21Media
CBS should cancel B&TB and have Secret Fortune in daytime if they cannot find a spot for it in primetime.
Great to hear that our version will be coming soon in the near future. Now if we can just get “The Talk” canceled and give “The Cube” another shot, CBS would have a dream lineup!!!!! WINNING ;)
Are you nuts? The Talk is staying on the air for the rest of our lives. It’s not gettin’ canned anytime soon. Sorry.
Unrelated, but it seems Ludia have released an official Press Your Luck app on Facebook.
Glad to hear that a UK game show may finally make it over to the USA! CBS get rid of the Young & Restless and put Secret Fortune in that time slot. Now if we can get a US version of Bank Job that would be awesome! Also, a longer 2nd season of Million Dollar Mind Game.
A second season for M$MG in Primetime! These promising game shows need Primetime exposure!
The US version of Secret Fortune would perform better as a half-hour show IMO. Any plans for a US versions of The Bank Job or The Exit List if CBS decides to replace Y&TR along with B&TB?
Nice to see Secret Fortune returning for a 3rd season in the UK. I’ll have to catch it on ITV’s website video player. :D
However, I’m not too positive about CBS picking it up over here, even for a short 6-episode season. Ever since June 2009 when Million Dollar Password ended, CBS has shown absolutely no interest in airing good primetime game shows. They like to air cheap offensive sitcoms and bloody murder-based crime dramas in their primetime slots, instead of game shows.
CBS passed on The Cube, and I’m positive they’ll pass on Secret Fortune as well. When it takes this long for a network to “…find a slot in their schedule.”, it means that they’re not serious about bringing the program into their primetime line-up. Now, if it was a show like Blue Bloods or CSI, they would do whatever they could to get it into primetime as quickly as possible. But a game show? Nope.
Agreed, with one caveat: while the offensive sitcoms are doing extremely well, the crime dramas are not. Both CSI spinoffs (and maybe even the original CSI) are likely to be cancelled this summer, and several other dramas are struggling for them. The gaps in the schedule might just emerge, especially if those dramas are expensive.
MDP was regularly winning its timeslot in total viewers before being cancelled for poor demo numbers. Half of the CBS lineup should be cancelled on those grounds, including shows far, far more expensive than any game show.
Not sure if everyone knows this, but the CSI franchise is basically CBS’ answer to Law & Order.
The original CSI made its debut in 2000. CSI: Miami started in 2002, and CSI: NY followed in 2004.
At its peak, the original CSI was averaging 26 million viewers for three full seasons. In this day and age, that’s unheard of, and far better than game shows would ever draw in prime time.
Now in year 12, and maybe with the move to Wednesday, CSI is at 12.8 million viewers, more than half of what it once was.
CSI: Miami numbers are about the same in its 10th season at 11.75 million viewers, and CSI: NY is at 10.73 million in season 8 (says so on Wikipedia, so take it for what it’s worth).
Cancelling CSI would be the single best thing that network has done in the entire past decade. Honestly, I see enough murders and sexual abuse cases on the evening news every day. I don’t want or need to watch any more of that nonsense.
Family-oriented game shows shouldn’t just be restricted to daytime hours. But clearly that’s what CBS has been doing for the past 3 years.
Hopefully you’re right David, and CSI will get the axe handed to them.
Dont bother with the PYL app (at least for now) as it eats your daily episodes, locks up, doesn’t accept your passes to avoid the whammy question, etc. Give them time to work out the bugs and maybe it’ll be good to go.
No surprises Secret Fortune is coming back. Although the second series was against The X Factor back in the late summer. It was possibly the only show not to lose viewers against it. Throughout the 8 weeks it didn’t dip below 3.6 million viewers.
The twelve week recommission is the first time a Lotto game show has been given a longer episode run for nearly five years. I suspect it will run over fifteen/sixteen weeks as the BBC summer schedule will be blocked with Euro 2012 soccer, the 2012 Olympics and Wimbledon.