Graham Fletcher Wins £1.5 Million on ITV’s “Red or Black?”
ITV’s Red or Black? is in some serious trouble with its low ratings, but it’s still giving away unbelievable sums of money. You may have missed it or not heard (I forgot all about it), but the big money game show hosted by Ant and Dec gave away the biggest prize in British television history this weekend. Graham Fletcher from Reading won £1.5 million by correctly guessing the ball would land on Black in the Vortex. The win leaked out months ago, and it was even publicized by the show’s producer Simon Cowell.
Click here to watch the big win on YouTube.
Despite this Red or Black? could still only pull in around four million viewers. Reports from The Sun say that the show has been axed, though hosts Ant and Dec deny this. At yesterday’s TV Choice Awards in London, Ant said, “I’m sure you’ve read what I’ve read and we’ve had no conversations with ITV whatsoever. So since they are still rumours, and nothing has been confirmed or denied, then there’s not really much to say.” I think the writing is on the wall, though. Low viewership and a very high budget means cancellation.
Source : ATV Today
This seems like one of those rare cases where the British are NOT better than us.
Undetermined – we don’t have an equivalent to “Red or Black” for comparison (the whole purpose of Better Than Us)…
The first season of Red or Black was amazing, but when they cut back in Season 2 on showing how the hundreds of applicants got narrowed down to 8, it sort of made the show less appealing to me. They also got rid of the amazing announcer, the theme music, and pretty much everything else that made the show good.
Now, that being said, I still cannot wrap my heads around ratings. Having 4 million people watch may not be the 100 million that the network wants, but it’s still a ton of viewers. If I had 4 million people watch my videos on YouTube, I’d be shocked and astounded. Heck, even if I had just 500,000 people watch my videos on a daily basis, I’d be happy.
I hate how TV ratings of a show are judged by comparing them to the highest rating the network has ever gotten. Not every show is going to get 20 million viewers, but networks seem to shy away from game shows that can’t get more than 3-4 million per episode. The Exit List and Secret Fortune are two examples of this. Red or Black is another, but as Alex said, Red or Black’s budget is too expensive to warrant renewing it for a 3rd season.
I doubt you put millions of dollars into your youtube video though. (And actually I bet if I put millions of dollars into a youtube video, I could get 4 million hits.