Sale of the Century (UK game show)

Sale of the Century
Genre	Game show
Created by	Al Howard
Presented by	Nicholas Parsons (1971–83); Steve Jones (1981 celebrity special); Peter Marshall (1989–91); Keith Chegwin (1997)
Voices of	Peter Marshall (1971–2); John Benson (1972–83); Mitch Johnson (1989); Martin Buchanan (1989–91); Robin Houston (1997)
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	11 (ITV) [1] ; ?? (Sky Channel); ?? (Challenge TV)
No. of episodes	411 (ITV) [1] ; ?? (Sky Channel); ?? (Challenge TV)
Production
Running time	30 minutes (inc. adverts)
Production company(s)	Anglia (1971–83); Reg Grundy Productions (1989–91, 1997)
Distributor	ITV Studios ; Fremantle
Release
Original network	ITV (1971–83); Sky One (1989–91); Challenge TV (1997)
Picture format	4:3
Original release	9 October 1971 –; 1997
Chronology
Related shows	Sale of the Century

Last updated April 09, 2019

Sale of the Century is a British game show based on a US game show of the same name. It was first shown on ITV from 9 October 1971 to 6 November 1983, hosted by Nicholas Parsons. Special edition Celebrity Sale of the Century aired occasionally, starting on 2 January 1981 with Steve Jones as a host. The first series was supposed to air only in the Anglia region, but it rolled out to other regions since 8 January 1972 and achieved full national coverage by the end of 10 May 1975, at which point it was one of the most popular shows on the network – spawning the often-mocked catchphrase "and now, from Norwich, it's the quiz of the week." Since Norwich was considered something of a backwater compared to London, it was often used ironically.

ITV is a British free-to-air television network with its headquarters in London, it was launched in 1955 as Independent Television under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to BBC Television, that was established in 1932. ITV is also the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, namely BBC 1, BBC 2 and Channel 4. In part, the number 3 was assigned because television sets would usually be tuned so that the regional ITV station would be on the third button, with the other stations being allocated to the number within their name.

Christopher Nicholas Parsons is an English actor and radio and television presenter. Still active in his 90s, Parsons' long career in television, radio and theatre has made him a household name and he has been described as "the ultimate quiz show host" because of his "geniality, clarity of diction and the speed with which he rattled through questions".

Norwich is a historic city in Norfolk, England. Situated on the River Wensum in East Anglia, it lies approximately 100 miles (161 km) north-east of London. It is the county town of Norfolk and is considered the capital of East Anglia, with a population of 141,300. From the Middle Ages until the Industrial Revolution, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important.

Rules (1971–83; 1997)

The ITV and Challenge versions followed the rules of the original American version. Three contestants start off with £15 (£10 in the earliest series). Questions are worth different values starting with £1, increasing to £3 after the second instant bargain, and finally £5 after the fourth; by the final two ITV series, the values started at £3 but increased to £5 after the fourth instant bargain. The question is asked and players can buzz in at any time. Correct answers add the money to their score and incorrect answers subtract the money from their score with only one player allowed to buzz in on each question. If a contestant runs out of money at any time, they are eliminated from further play, but may remain in their seat for the remainder of the show.

Instant Bargain/Instant Sale

At four points during gameplay (later five), all contestants would be offered the opportunity to purchase merchandise at a bargain price. The first player to buzz in after the prize was revealed purchased that prize. (In so doing, a "losing" contestant might not advance to go shopping at the end of the show, but could leave the show with a considerable haul for one day's play.) In the early days, the prices of all prizes offered were expressed much as one would hear in a department store (e.g., £7.95, £11.95, £14.95, £21.95). All prize values were rounded off to the nearest pound before being subtracted from the score of the player who purchased the prize (later on, prizes were in full pounds, like £8, £12, £15, £22, and increased as the show progressed). Each instant bargain was hidden behind a curtain; the announcer would mention the price, and then the curtain would open as the prize was revealed. If a contestant buzzed in before the curtain opened, it was declared "No Sale", the contestant would have the price deducted from his/her score (but not win the prize), and the other contestants could then buzz in.

Also during the early ITV series, an "Open Sale" was offered just before the commercial break, in which a number of smaller gifts were offered for less than £5 each. In this situation, more than one player could buy a given gift, and a player could buy any or all of the prizes on offer. They could even buy two or more of some items. By 1982, Open Sale had been replaced by an instant bargain.

The Challenge TV version kept the rules of the ITV version, except there was no "Open Sale", and players were spotted £15 to start. There were five rounds with questions being worth £1 in round one, £3 in rounds two and three, and £5 in rounds four and five. Finally, the game ended with 60 seconds of £5 questions. The player in the lead at the end of this round was declared the champion.

Rules (1989–91)

The Sky Channel version had rules that were based on Australia's 1980–1988 format and America's 1983–1989 format, with better prizes than before.

In this format, each player started with £20, and each question was worth only £5.

There were only three "Instant Sales" (renamed Gift Shops), and only the player in the lead could buy.

The biggest change was the "Fame Game": Here, a succession of increasingly larger clues were given to the identity of a famous person, place, or event. In this round, players could buzz-in and answer at any time, with the player shut out for the remainder of the question if they gave an incorrect answer.

If one of the players buzzed-in and answered correctly, the contestant chose from a game board with nine squares. If all three contestants failed to come up with a right answer, then nobody got to pick. Once chosen, the space selected would be spun around to reveal either a relatively small prize (typically appliances or furniture valued at around a weekly wage) or a bonus money card, which added to the player's score.

There were £10, £15, and £25 bonuses added each round; in addition, in the third round was a "Wild Card", which offered the choice of £100 or a chance to pick again.

The game ended with the Speed Round where the host would ask as many questions as possible within 60 seconds. The player with the most money when time ran out won the game.

If there was a tie for the lead after the Speed Round, another question was asked of the tied players. Answering this question awarded £5 and the win; missing the question deducted £5 and lost the game.

Shopping

The winning contestant would be given the opportunity to spend their cash total on at least one of four grand prizes at the "Sale of the Century" which almost always included a new car. Originally, champions could buy prizes totaling no more than £1,000 (£2,500 in the late 1970s). From 1981 to 1983, any champion who won the game with £140 or more could choose to purchase one of the lesser four prizes or correctly answer a possible four of five questions, with no risk, to win a car.

On the 1989–91 & 1997 versions, there were a series of six prizes (five in 1997) and as the contestant's score built up, it applied to the next highest prize, with a car again being the top prize, which was available for £585 (£500 in 1997). Like the Australian and American versions, they could buy the prize and leave or risk it and come back. However, unlike the Australian and American versions, there was no cash jackpot available or the chance to buy all the prizes on stage.

On all versions, losing contestants kept the money and prizes earned.

Other background information

The series was one of the most consistently high-rating entertainment shows of the 1970s, gaining peak viewing figures of 20 million. This original version of the show was restricted in the prize amount through then national agreements, meaning that the featured cars had to be below set limits. The producers hence preferred to engage with foreign manufacturers to provide better value prize, often including top of the range Ladas.

Lada is a brand of cars manufactured by AvtoVAZ, a company owned by the French Groupe Renault. The first cars manufactured by AvtoVAZ, with technical assistance from Fiat, were marketed under the Zhiguli brand, allegedly chosen after it was suggested by the designer, A. M. Cherny. When the cars began to be exported on foreign markets, the Zhiguli brand was found to be inappropriate, as it was hard to pronounce for non-Russian speakers, and it was said to resemble too closely the word gigolo.

On 22 December 1978, an all-out strike at the BBC meant that 21.2 million viewers watched the programme, the highest ever rating for a game show produced by ITV.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London, and it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total, 16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed-contract staff are included.

A game show is a type of radio, television, or stage show in which contestants, individually or as teams, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles, usually for money or prizes. Alternatively, a gameshow can be a demonstrative program about a game [while usually retaining the spirit of an awards ceremony]. In the former, contestants may be invited from a pool of public applicants. Game shows often reward players with prizes such as cash, trips and goods and services provided by the show's sponsor prize suppliers.

By the time the original version ended, it had awarded 500 contestants over £500,000 in prizes.

Celebrity special aired occasionally from 2 January 1981, with prizes won going to charities.

The show is often famed as having been the place that record producer Simon Cowell made his television debut. The video (of his appearance on the 1989 version) is available on YouTube and extracts of it were shown during the National Television Awards whilst Cowell was receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. Cowell appeared on 2 episodes (winning his first game) and won only £20 worth of cooking utensils.

Simon Phillip Cowell is an English television music and talent competition judge, businessman, A&R executive, talent manager, and television producer. He has judged on the British TV talent competition series Pop Idol, The X Factor and Britain's Got Talent, and the American TV talent competition shows American Idol, The X Factor and America's Got Talent. Cowell is the principal, founder and chief executive of the British entertainment company Syco.

YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. Three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—created the service in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion; YouTube now operates as one of Google's subsidiaries.

The National Television Awards is a British television awards ceremony, broadcast by the ITV network and initiated in 1995. The National Television Awards are the most prominent ceremony for which the results are voted on by the general public, and are often branded as 'television's biggest night of the year'.

The show's theme tune, composed by Peter Fenn, was entitled "Joyful Pete", in tribute to the show's original producer, Peter Joy.

Transmissions

ITV era

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	9 October 1971^[1]	30 March 1973^[1]	75^[1]
2	15 September 1973^[1]	6 July 1975^[1]	95^[1]
3	6 September 1975^[1]	25 June 1976^[1]	43^[1]
4	1 October 1976^[1]	8 July 1977^[1]	41^[1]
5	5 November 1977^[1]	15 July 1978^[1]	37^[1]
6	17 November 1978^[1]	9 March 1979^[1]	18^[1]
7	14 July 1979^[1]	18 August 1979^[1]	6^[1]
8	22 December 1979^[1]	30 August 1980^[1]	40^[1]
9	24 April 1981^[1]	18 September 1981^[1]	22^[1]
10	4 April 1982^[1]	5 September 1982^[1]	20^[1]
11	7 August 1983^[1]	6 November 1983^[1]	14^[1]

Regional transmissions information

1971–2

Anglia: 9 October 1971
ATV, HTV, Westward, Southern: 8 January 1972
Border: 12 February 1972
LWT, Channel: 19 February 1972
Ulster: 14 July 1972

1974–5

Yorkshire, Tyne Tees: 13 September 1974
Granada: 27 September 1974
Scottish: 27 October 1974^[2]
Grampian: 10 May 1975

Sky Channel era

Sky One era

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	6 February 1989	1991	458^[3]

Challenge TV era

Series	Start date	End date	Episodes
1	3 February 1997	1997	??

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References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 "TVBrain - Kaleidoscope - Lost shows - TV Archive - TV History". www.tvbrain.info.
↑ "The Glasgow Herald - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com.
↑ "Fremantle Archive Sales - SALE OF THE CENTURY (SKY)". archive.fo. 8 July 2013. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013.

External links

Sale of the Century at UKGameshows.com

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[lostshows-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 "TVBrain - Kaleidoscope - Lost shows - TV Archive - TV History". www.tvbrain.info.

[2] "The Glasgow Herald - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com.

[3] "Fremantle Archive Sales - SALE OF THE CENTURY (SKY)". archive.fo. 8 July 2013. Archived from the original on 8 July 2013.