Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Interesting News: ITV's "Ejector Seat" Bribes Audience To Watch Taping

In the world of game shows, it’s not unusual for shows to give away door prizes and small gifts to select members of their studio audience. However, it is unusual to use those same gifts to literally bribe your audience to stop them from walking out of a game show taping. This was an unfortunate case the producers had run into while filming an episode of the new ITV game show, Ejector Seat. The program, hosted by Andi Peters, has its contestants sit in "ejector seats” and attempt to avoid being sprung out of the chairs by answering questions correctly. The last contestant sitting will have a chance to play the final round for up to £10,000. During the taping, the specially-rigged seats frequently malfunctioned, which caused several delays to occur and the crew members running back and forth on the set to fix them. 

Because of the lengthened recording time attributed to technical difficulties, many members of the 200-person audience became frustrated and began to leave. Thinking quickly to avoid complete disaster, the producers decided to give away complimentary Curly Wurlys, chocolate bars made by Cadbury UK, to keep them in their seats and interested in the show. According to a show source, “filming over-ran massively and the audience got jittery as they just wanted to go home. But once the free chocolates came out, they stayed”. 

Due to the fact that Ejector Seat will premiere on ITV later this month, it should not have a huge impact on how well the show could fare on the network, albeit it’s still not a good sign the show is running into this many technical issues this early in its first series. My only concern with this is that contestants could get injured from the malfunctioning seats if the problem continues. I have to hand it to the crew staff and producers for thinking on their feet to preserve their audience for the taping and saving the show in the process. At any rate, U.K. viewers: stay tuned for the premiere of Ejector Seat Monday, April 28 at 4:00pm GMT on ITV.

Source: Daily Star

6 comments:

  1. Why do I get the feeling this show is going to suck badly?

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  2. I hope not - I'm on it!

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  3. Aload of rubbish! The competitors have no chance the host is so bloody slow your 1/2 way down the conveyor when he has finished the question ! WASTE OF MONEY ITV

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  4. A third hand article written from a second hand inaccurate article. Where do you get your information from??

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    Replies
    1. http://www.dailystar.co.uk/showbiz-tv/hot-tv/374243/Andi-Peter-s-new-game-show-Ejector-Seat-had-to-bribe-audience-to-watch

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  5. Thanks for the article Dexter. I don’t see iTV coming to my country anytime soon. However, there are plenty of workarounds available to access it here in my country. Personally, I use UnoTelly for more than a year and I can access iTV like I am in UK.

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