Are quiz shows the weakest link?

By EWAN McDONALD

The guy from the Shell servo in Rockie, central Queensland, is trying to decide if his mate from the footy club will know whether it's Karl Lagerfeld or John Galliano who wears trademark sunglasses, a ponytail and carries a fan.

The answer is worth A$32,000 ($37,000) - and the chance of winning a million Aussie dollars.

Does he ring and ask his mate, or take a punt? He rings, but his mate has no idea. He takes a punt, gets it wrong and goes home with just a grand towards his new Holden.

Cheesy, old-fashioned (despite the computer-screen voting) but somehow absorbing, it's the Australian edition of the international quiz show format Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Watching it, there's a timeline back almost 50 years to Kiwi families sitting around the La Gloria stereogram, listening to Selwyn Toogood pumping the questions and "a carton of the sponsor's fine products" on It's In The Bag.

Probably many of the same people are helping Prime TV's fortunes in this country. Two Fridays ago, the local offshoot of our transtasman cousins' Nine Network claimed a ratings coup over TV3 and TV4, thanks to Millionaire and its cheery host, Eddie McGuire.

In that primetime slot (7.30pm-8.30pm), an average 131,500 New Zealanders were watching fast-talking Eddie, compared with 99,750 on TV3 (The Amazing Race reality show) and just 20,400 on TV4 (Chart pop show).

The big-bucks-or-nothing show is the biggest hit on Prime's Australian-oriented schedule. Surprisingly, though, it comes as networks around the world seem to be shying away from once-popular quiz shows.

There's a feeling that many of the new formats are too nasty, too dull or too easy.

Australian viewers have ditched three in a year: Greed, victim of an over-complicated format and an unfortunate name; Shafted, a knife-in-the-back quiz show which replaced the kinder, gentler Sale Of The Century; and Dog Eat Dog, an eviction format hosted by Simone Kessell, lasted only two episodes.

The Weakest Link has been "rested" rather than squaring off against the blockbuster Big Brother in Australia, while the American version has been dropped.

Some critics suggest there are just too many show formats. Those of a more sociological bent perceive that post-September 11 audiences have tired of "nasty" game shows.

Tony Barber, veteran host of Australia's long-running Sale Of The Century, told the Sydney Morning Herald that the crisis in quiz shows was part of a greater crisis in free-to-air television.

"In countries like ours, leisure time is extremely broken up," he said. "Once upon a time, free-to-air television was it. It wasn't a question of whether you were going to watch television, it was what were you going to watch."

With computers and Sky, DVDs and a lively theatre, cinema and cafe scene, people are watching less free-to-air television.

Barber also blamed dumbing down, with general-knowledge questions being rewritten. "Who was the first man to climb Mt Everest?" has become, "The first man to climb Mt Everest was a New Zealander called Edmund H ... ?"

He also theorised that "the biggest problem with the general-knowledge quiz is that the market that free-to-air wants - the 0-to-39s - were not brought up in an educational culture of general knowledge."

Jonathon Glazier, editor of BBC light entertainment and international formats, agrees. "There probably have been too many stab-in-the-back, voting-off shows," he says - but the good ones should survive.

The Weakest Link is a daytime show in Britain with occasional evening specials. "You can't go for overkill," Glazier says.

The rule of a successful quiz show, according to Glazier, is to keep it simple. He predicts popular shows will demand more storytelling elements.

Such as The Weakest Link's comments from contestants before, during and after taping. "It's almost like a soap opera in a quiz show, and I think that theme will come through a lot more."

Even the most popular formats run out of steam. And there's been none steamier than the third British series of Big Brother, the voyeur's delight with games simulating sex positions; a contestant telling of a threesome; another admitting to being a shoplifter, failed topless model and apparent purveyor of oral sex to a housemate; and, perhaps, the first Big Brother couple to have had intercourse on television.

Even former fans have become fierce opponents. David Wood, deputy editor of the industry magazine Broadcast, thought Big Brother was looking a bit tired. "Some TV ideas have a finite lifespan. Maybe Big Brother has seen its healthiest days."

* Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Prime 7.30pm