CASE STUDIE

SBy Kiranjit Khera

The Cube is a British game show which first aired on ITV on 22 August 2009. Hosted by Phillip Schofield, it offers contestants the chance to win a top prize of £250,000 by completing challenges from within a 4m × 4m × 4m Perspex cube. It is based on the idea that even straightforward tasks become extremely challenging when confined and put under pressure inside a small, enclosed area whilst surrounded by a large live studio audience. Once inside, contestants can feel both claustrophobic and disorientated, affecting their concentration and abilities. Using "state-of-the-art filming techniques", the show aims to demonstrate the intense anxiety which contestants undergo as they progress through each task. The challenges involve catching, throwing, estimating, reacting, memorising, balancing, etc. Colin McFarlane provides the disembodied voice of The Cube, who explains the rules of the games.

Summary

The Cube

Format• Taking place in a what looks like a miniature arena, with the audience on three sides, looking down slightly on proceedings, the Cube of the title sits in the middle of the studio floor, connected by a swivelling walkway to a small stage. Before each contestant enters the Cube, they have a quick chat with the host, and we are introduced to four members of their friends and family who are watching from the sidelines.

• Once the pleasantries have been completed, we move onto the first challenge, referred to as a game. What this game is varies from episode to episode, and from series to series. Before the contestant enters the Cube, by means of a pre-recorded clip, we are shown the first game being undertaken by a disguised female, known only as The Body, as an ominous voice, known as The Voice of the Cube, explains the rules. Once this is done, and after a quick chat with the host about how they are feeling about the game, the walkway between the small stage and the Cube swivels into place, the doors to the Cube open, and the contestant steps inside to face the first game.

• Each contestant starts the show with nine lives. Should they make a successful attempt at the first game, they win £1,000, and return to the small stage to chat again with the host. However for each unsuccessful attempt at a game they lose one life. Should they lose all their lives, they leave with nothing. During all of the games, we are treated to special camera effects, like those most notably seen in the film The Matrix, where the action freezes, and the camera pans around the exterior of the Cube, before the action starts again.

• Subsequent games play out in a broadly similar fashion, but with the amount of money on offer increasing quite steeply with Game 2 offering £2,000, Game 3 £10,000, Game 4 £20,000, Game 5 £50,000, Game 6 £100,000, and the seventh and final game offering £250,000. As you would expect however, as the money increases, so does the difficulty of the games.

• After successfully completing each game, the contestant can choose to either leave with the money they currently have, or play on. Before deciding whether or not to play each game, like in the first game, the contestant is afforded a look at the game via a video clip featuring The Body. If the contestant decides to play on however, they cannot then back out of a game. In other words they must successfully complete the game, or else leave with nothing.

• The Cube offers contestant two means of help. These are the Simplify and the Trial Run. With the Simplify, one element of the game is made easier. This could be a target area being made larger, or a time limit being increased for example. This can be used at any point, but can only be used once. The second means of help, the Trial Run, allows the contestant to have a go at any game, but without penalty or reward. In other words, should they make an unsuccessful attempt at a game during a Trial Run, they do not lose a life. Conversely, should they successfully complete the game during the Trial Run, they must do it again in live play to win the money on offer for that game. Like the Simplify, the Trial Run can only be used once, but in addition can only be used from the second game onwards. Using the Trial Run does not commit a player to playing any game in live play.

MerchandiseAn electronic board game based on the series was made available in stores. The game comes with an electronic handheld system featuring games such as Time Freeze and Stop Zone, as well as 9 balls. Other equipment in the board game are track pieces, discs, clips, z shaped platform pieces, cannons, blocks, a ball flipper, a beam and card pieces and a plastic cube for playing a series of physical games. The cube is used for a container and to connect onto the cube platform for the electronic games. This is, in almost all games involving the cube, removed in a simplify. Around the time of the release of the board game, a Game App version of the series was made available via the iTunes store for use on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. This app version originally featured sixteen games from the series. Games based on the cube were available to buy in “packs”. There are currently 35 games available to play in the App version.

On 9 November 2012, a Cube game was released on consoles for the first time. It was available on the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo 3DS. 33 games are playable in this version including two unseen new games. If the Cube is beaten, Extreme Mode is unlocked.

Catchphrases• "The next time I see you, you'll either be out here with £X,000... or nothing.“

• "You didn't beat The Cube, but you took £X,000 out of it.“

• "Could you beat The Cube?"Prize moneySince the first episode, The Cube has had a prize money structure starting at £1,000 and ending at the £250,000 jackpot. Below is a breakdown of the prize money structure, showing the game number and amount of prize money that can be won for successfully completing that game. If a player loses all their lives at any point during the game they lose all the money they have accumulated to that point. ContestantsAnyone over the age of 18 can apply to be on The Cube. On the last episode of The Cube, a celebrity Mo Farah was the contestant and won £250,000.

AudienceThere is a live audience watching the game show so tickets are available to buy. The audience does consist of the contestants family too.

The ChaseSummary

The Chase is a British television quiz show broadcast on ITV and hosted by Bradley Walsh. Contestants play against a professional quizzer, known as the "chaser", who attempts to prevent them from winning a cash prize. The chasers are Mark Labbett, Shaun Wallace, Anne Hegerty, Paul Sinha and Jenny Ryan. Labbett and Wallace have both been chasers since series 1, while Hegerty joined in series 2, Sinha in series 4 and Ryan in series 9.Format

A team of four contestants individually attempt to amass as much money as possible, which is later added to a prize fund if the contestant survives their individual chase. The chaser's job is to catch each contestant during their individual chase, eliminating that person from the game and preventing the money from being added to the collective prize fund. Any contestants who survive their individual chase later play collectively as a team for an equal share of the prize fund against the chaser.

SuccessWith a regular audience of three to five million, The Chase is one of

ITV's most successful daytime shows ever. It has been nominated three times for "Best Daytime Show" at the National Television Awards, winning in 2016. It has also become a successful international franchise: regional versions have been made in Australia, China, Croatia, Germany, Norway, Russia, Serbia, Turkey and the United States. Labbett and Hegerty both feature as chasers on the Australian version, with the former also featuring as the sole chaser on the American version.

A spin-off featuring celebrity teams as contestants began airing on ITV in 2011. Unlike the regular version, which is broadcast daily, the celebrity version is broadcast weekly. As with the daily show, the spin-off is hosted by Walsh and features the same chasers (Labbett, Wallace, Hegerty, Sinha and Ryan). The game is played exactly the same as the regular version. However, if all four celebrities have been caught by the chaser, the prize fund during the Final Chase is £20,000. If the team is caught during the Final Chase, a consolation prize of £1,000 is awarded to the charities for each celebrity who advanced to the Final Chase.These celebrity episodes have managed audience shares from 3.13m to 4.58m.

Contestants

A board game based on the show was released in 2012 by Ideal. On 12 December 2012, a version for iOS was released by Barnstorm Games. The app features four chasers (excluding Jenny "The Vixen" Ryan, who had not yet appeared on the programme at the time of release) and can be played by up to four people, as in the actual show. The only differences between the app and the show are that four choices are presented for questions in the Cash Builder and the Final Chase rounds and that no Final Chase is played if all players are caught in their individual chases. The app is designed for both iPhones and iPads.

Merchandise

Take me outSummary

Take Me Out is a dating game show presented by comedian Paddy McGuinness. Based on the Australian show Taken Out, it began airing on ITV in the United Kingdom and simulcast on TV3 in the Republic of Ireland on 2 January 2010. A pilot episode was for Channel 4 in 2009, but it was ITV who picked it up for a series. The show is produced by Thames (formerly Talkback Thames).The first series was recorded at Granada Studios in Manchester, but has since been recorded at The Maidstone Studios in Maidstone, Kent, as it offered increased space and capacity for audience members. A Christmas celebrity special aired on 15 December 2012, featuring Matt Johnson, Keith Lemon and Joe Swash and on 20 December 2013, another special aired as part of Text Santa, featuring 30 women over 50 trying to score a date with one man over 50.In 2012, the show introduced a spin-off show entitled Take Me Out: The Gossip, which aired on ITV2 and was co-hosted by Zoe Hardman and Mark Wright in 2012 and 2013. It did not air in 2014, but returned in 2015 with Wright joined by new co-host Laura Jackson.

FormatThe objective of the show is for a single man to obtain a date with one of thirty single women. The women stand on stage underneath thirty white lights, each with a button in front of them. A single man is then brought down on stage via the 'Love Lift' and tries to persuade the women to agree to this date in a series of rounds, playing a pre-recorded video discussing his background, displaying a skill (such as dancing or playing a musical instrument), or playing another video in which the man's friends or family reveal more about his virtues and philosophy.At any point during the rounds, the women can press the button in front of them to turn off their light if they do not believe a date with this man would be constructive to their well-being and if this occurs, their area of the stage will turn red. If, at the end of three rounds, there are still lights left on, the bachelor will turn off all but two of the remaining lights himself. He will then have a chance to ask one question to the last two women, before choosing which woman he wants to go on the date with by turning off one more light. If the man is left with two lights at the end of round 3, he will just ask his question to the two remaining women and if there is only one light left at the end of round 3, he will go on the date with that girl without asking her his question. There are usually four men brought on in the course of a single episode, though on some occasions segments have been cut and only three men have been shown.

Take Me Out: The Gossip is a behind-the-scenes sister show that began airing weekly on ITV2 from series 3-5 and 7 onwards, following the broadcast of the main programme. It is currently presented by Laura Jackson and Mark Wright. Zoe Hardman previously hosted the show with Wright. A similar format, previously broadcast online, featuring backstage gossip and interviews with the contestants, was regularly made available on itv.com just hours after the broadcast of the main programme.Take Me Out – The Album is a 60-song compilation album, which was released 18 November 2013.A board game was released on 3 August 2011. It contains: light and buzzer number unit, 100 single man cards, 50 the power is in your hand cards, 1 single girl pad, 12 isle of Fernando's vouchers, coloured dice and rules.

Success

Take Me Out returned to an average audience of 2.97 million on ITV.The dating show, which returned for its seventh season, attracted a 13.7% audience share from 8.30pm. A further 284k (1.4%) watched on ITV+1.

Audience