The People Versus

Last updated

The People Versus
GenreGame show
Created byDavid Briggs
Steven Knight
Mike Whitehill
Presented by Kirsty Young (2000)
Kaye Adams (2001–2002)
Composer Keith Strachan
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series2
No. of episodes125
Production
Running time30 minutes (inc. adverts)
Production companies Celador
Sony Pictures Television
Original release
Network ITV
Release13 August 2000 (2000-08-13) 
18 June 2002 (2002-06-18)

The People Versus is a British game show that aired on ITV from 13 August 2000 to 18 June 2002. Series 1 was hosted by Kirsty Young and Series 2 by Kaye Adams. The central format was that the questions were sent in by the viewers.

Contents

Formats

Series 1

For every question the contestants got correct, they won £5,000. The rules were: In each round the players were shown five questions from one of their specialist subjects. In Round One, each contestant had to attempt and answer correctly one of those five questions - "one of five to stay alive". In Round Two, on a different subject they had to answer two correctly to stay in, Round Three, three, Round Four, four and finally in Round Five, they had to answer all five. In each round, the player could, if they wanted, earn more cash by answering more questions than the quota required, again for £5,000 a piece. To help, each player was shown all five questions at the start. Each player was also given three 'flips'. If a player wanted to use a flip, they could substitute any of the five given questions for another one. Also, if they had the cash, they could elect to 'buy' answers to questions at £10,000 a time.

Finishing Round 5 meant the contestant would begin again at Round 1. There was no limit on the amount of money someone could win which theoretically meant someone could win more than a million pounds, the top prize of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? , although no contestant ever won anywhere near this amount of money.

If a person got their question wrong, they lost all money in that round and their seat in the game went to the person who set the question.

Series 2

Studio contestants were asked general knowledge questions set by the public. The rounds were as follows:

The contestant had a four-minute time limit to finish the rounds. Running out of time meant they lost.

If the contestant was stuck on a question, he or she could pass (which discards the question for good), but if they cannot pass any more, they must use a 'Flip'. A contestant had three flips at their disposal. These substituted the question for an alternative one on their specialist subject.

Finishing Round 5 meant that the contestant would bank the £3,000 and have the chance to restart from Round 1 again with their Flips restored. As in the first series there is an unlimited amount of money to be won. The highest sum of money won on the daytime version was £15,900.

If a contestant answered a question incorrectly or could not give an answer within the time limit, then they were knocked out of the game. The person who set the question won £100. (Later in the series this changed to £50 for a Round 1 knockout, with no money being awarded for an elimination in a later round.) The Bong Game was then played.

The studio contestant had the choice of 3 Bong games. One of these three games did not have a bong in it all and went all the way to the money he had in play. An automated voice read out increasing amounts of money. The aim was to stop the voice before the bong sounded. The contestant had to press a button to stop the voice and win whatever was shown on the screen.

If the contestant managed to beat the bong, the rest of the money in play went to the person who caught the studio contestant out. If the studio player failed to beat the bong, then they would win nothing and the member of the public won all of the money in play. The contestant then found out where the bong would have come in.

Transmissions

SeriesStart dateEnd dateEpisodesPresenter
113 August 20004 September 200010 Kirsty Young
225 June 200118 June 2002115 Kaye Adams

Series 1 was broadcast each weekday around 20.30. From Series 2 the series was moved to early evening broadcasting each weekday around 17.00 until 2 November. From 5 November 2001 the series was broadcast on a Monday and Friday with episodes of Night and Day being shown on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Two episodes were never broadcast until Challenge aired them in 2007.

new series this Spring 2024.

International versions

CountryNameHostChannelThe values of each roundYear aired
Flag of the Basque Country.svg  Basque Country Euskadi RetaJorge Fernández ETB 2 Round 1: €50
Round 2: €100
Round 3: €200
Round 4: €400
Round 5: €1,000
2004
Flag of Georgia.svg  Georgia ხალხის პირისპირ
Khalkhis p'irisp'ir
Unknown Rustavi 2 Round 1: 50
Round 2: 100
Round 3: 200
Round 4: 400
Round 5: 1,000
Unknown
Flag of Hong Kong.svg  Hong Kong 各出其謀
Gok ceot kei mau
Meg Lam ATV Round 1: HK$5,000
Round 2: HK$10,000
Round 3: HK$20,000
Round 4: HK$40,000
Round 5: HK$100,000
1 January 2002 – 29 March 2002
Flag of Russia.svg  Russia Народ против
Narod protiv
Dmitry Dibrov Channel One Round 1: 1,000
Round 2: ₽2,500
Round 3: ₽5,000
Round 4: ₽15,000
Round 5: ₽50,000
26 February 2002 – 30 August 2002
Alexander Miloserdov REN TV 7 April 2003 – 3 September 2003
Flag of Serbia.svg  Serbia Сам против свих
Sam protiv svih
Ivan Bauer RTS 1 Round 1: din  1,000
Round 2: din  5,000
Round 3: din  10,000
Round 4: din  30,000
Round 5: din  100,000
20 December 2002 – 3 October 2005
Narod protivMiloš Milovanović B92 17 February 2009 – 10 July 2009
Flag of Spain.svg  Spain Madrid RetaJavier Capitan Telemadrid Round 1: €100
Round 2: €250
Round 3: €500
Round 4: €1,000
Round 5: €3,000
2003–2004
Flag of Turkey.svg  Turkey Türkiye YarışıyorOsmantan Erkır TRT Round 1: TL  100,000,000
Round 2: TL  250,000,000
Round 3: TL  500,000,000
Round 4: TL  1,500,000,000
Round 5: TL  5,000,000,000
2003–2004
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  United Kingdom The People Versus Kirsty Young ITV 13 August 2000 – 4 September 2000
Kaye Adams Round 1: £100
Round 2: £250
Round 3: £500
Round 4: £1,000
Round 5: £3,000
25 June 2001 – 18 June 2002

Georgia

Called ხალხის პირისპირ (Khalkhis P'irisp'ir, lit. in front of people). The show was originally aired on Rustavi 2.

The values of each round were 50 lari, 100 lari, 200 lari, 400 lari and 1,000 lari respectively.

Hong Kong

Broadcast on ATV, called 各出其謀 (lit. everyone gives his strategies) and hosted by Meg Lam (林建明).

On 31 December 2001, on the last episode of the first series of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? , the last contestant(Paul Yip) was invited to play the game, but he failed to finish Round 5 and he lost the Bong Game.

The first regular episode was aired on 1 January 2002 and the last was on 29 March 2002.

The values of each round were HK$5,000, HK$10,000, HK$20,000, HK$40,000 and HK$100,000 (about £6,451) respectively.

Russia

Called Народ против (Narod Protiv, lit. people against). The show was originally aired on Channel One, then a new series aired on REN TV. Hosted by Dmitry Dibrov and Alexander Miloserdov.

The values of each round were 1,000 rubles, 2,500 rubles, 5,000 rubles, 15,000 rubles and 50,000 rubles (about £1,029) respectively.

Serbia

In Serbia, The People Versus aired on RTS 1 (between 2002 and 2005) as Сам против свих (Sam protiv svih, lit. Alone vs. all) .

In 2009, B92 and Advantage bought rights and will air it as Narod protiv / Народ против (lit. people against). The new season began airing on 19 February 2009.

Spain

In Spain, it was aired on Telemadrid as Madrid Reta in 2003, hosted by Javier Capitan.

Basque Country

In Basque Country, it was aired on ETB2 as Euskadi Reta in 2004, hosted by Jorge Fernández.

Turkey

In the Republic of Turkey, it was produced by STR was titled Türkiye Yarışıyor airing on TRT between 2003 and 2004 and was hosted by Osmantan Erkır.

The values of each round were 100,000,000 lira, 250,000,000 lira, 500,000,000 lira, 1,500,000,000 lira and 5,000,000,000 lira respectively.

Related Research Articles

<i>Hollywood Squares</i> American television game show

Hollywood Squares is an American game show in which two contestants compete in a game of tic-tac-toe to win cash and prizes. The show piloted on NBC in 1965 and the regular series debuted in 1966 on the same network. The board for the game is a 3 × 3 vertical stack of open-faced cubes, each occupied by a celebrity seated at a desk and facing the contestants. The stars are asked questions by the host and the contestants judge the truth of their answers to gain squares in the right pattern to win the game.

Family Fortunes is a British television game show based on the American game show Family Feud. The programme ran on ITV from 6 January 1980 to 30 December 2002. A celebrity version, All Star Family Fortunes, followed from 2006 to 2015. In 2020, the original version of the show returned after 18 years with Gino D'Acampo as host.

<i>Win Ben Steins Money</i> American television game show

Win Ben Stein's Money is an American television game show created by Al Burton and Donnie Brainard that aired first-run episodes from July 28, 1997 to January 31, 2003, on Comedy Central. The show featured three contestants who competed to answer general knowledge questions in order to win the grand prize of $5,000 from the show's host, Ben Stein. In the second half of each episode, Stein participated as a "common" contestant in order to defend his money from being taken by his competitors. The show won six Daytime Emmy awards, with Stein and Jimmy Kimmel, the show's original co-host, sharing the Outstanding Game Show Host award in 1999. The show was produced by Valleycrest Productions, Ltd. and distributed by Buena Vista Television, both subsidiaries of The Walt Disney Company.

<i>Supermarket Sweep</i> American television game show

Supermarket Sweep is an American television game show. The format combines an ordinary team-based quiz show with the novel concept of a live, timed race through a supermarket. In the timed race, cameras follow the teams with shopping carts through a large vacated supermarket with several aisles; the value of items thrown into the cart determine the winning team. The original show was broadcast on ABC from December 20, 1965, to July 14, 1967. Later seasons aired on Lifetime from February 5, 1990, to June 16, 1995, and later from April 3, 2000, to May 23, 2003, with reruns airing until March 26, 2004. Another version of the show aired from October 18, 2020, to January 30, 2022, also on ABC.

<i>Sale of the Century</i> American game show

Sale of the Century is an American television game show that originally debuted on September 29, 1969, on NBC daytime. It was one of three NBC game shows to premiere on that date, the other two being the short-lived game shows Letters to Laugh-In and Name Droppers. The series aired until July 13, 1973, and a weekly syndicated series began that fall and ran for one season.

The Joker's Wild is an American television game show that aired at different times between 1972 and 2019. In the show, contestants answer questions based on categories determined randomly by a mechanism resembling a slot machine. The show's title refers to the game's slot-machine mechanism also having jokers.

<i>Chain Reaction</i> (game show) American television game show

Chain Reaction is an American television game show created by Bob Stewart, in which players compete to form chains composed of two-word phrases.

<i>Make the Grade</i> American television series

Make the Grade is a children's game show that aired from October 2, 1989, to September 14, 1990, on Nickelodeon.

<i>Stump the Schwab</i> American sports trivia game show

Stump the Schwab is an American game show that aired on ESPN2 and ESPN Classic from July 8, 2004 to September 29, 2006. The show featured three contestants trying to defeat Howie Schwab, ESPN's first statistician, in a sports trivia contest. Stuart Scott was the show's host. The show also appeared on Canada's The Score Television Network.

Going for Gold is a British television game show that originally aired on BBC1 between 12 October 1987 and 9 July 1996. It was revived for Channel 5 from 13 October 2008 to 20 March 2009.

<i>History IQ</i> American TV series or program

History IQ is a game show on The History Channel which premiered on October 2, 2000 and aired for two seasons. Marc Summers hosted and Harvey announced, reuniting the two from the Nickelodeon game show Double Dare. History IQ was produced by Glow in the Dark Productions.

<i>Temptation</i> (Australian game show) Australian TV series or program

Temptation is an Australian game show which premiered on the Nine Network on 30 May 2005 and aired at 7.00pm. Hosted by Ed Phillips and Livinia Nixon, the show was a remake of Sale of the Century, which aired on Nine in the same timeslot for more than twenty years between 1980 and 2001. Temptation had the same general format of its predecessor, but with several new features and a de-emphasis on the "shopping" aspects of the endgame. The show ran until 30 November 2007, when it was placed on hiatus by the network following strong competition from game show Deal or No Deal on the rival Seven Network; during the hiatus, Nine filled the timeslot with episodes of the American sitcom Two and a Half Men. When Ed Phillips made an appearance on The NRL Footy Show he announced "maybe summer" would be the return of the show. This statement was accurate, as Temptation returned for a shortened fourth series from 1 December 2008 with unaired episodes which were recorded during 2008. During that time, Ed Phillips was dumped by the Nine Network after his contract expired in November, and Temptation never returned to the schedule. After 23 January 2009, when the show's final episode aired, all Temptation websites were removed, and Two and a Half Men returned to Channel Nine's 7:00pm schedule.

Lose a Million was an early 1990s British game show which was produced by Action Time for Carlton Television and was hosted by Chris Tarrant. The show featured voiceovers by Honor Blackman.

My Kind of Music was a British game show that aired on ITV from 8 February 1998 to 29 March 2002 and is hosted by Michael Barrymore.

<i>The Vault</i> (game show) British TV series or programme

The Vault is a British game show based on the original Israeli version called HaKassefet Hebrew: הַכַּסֶפֶת) that aired on ITV from 11 May 2002 to 24 August 2004. It was first hosted by Davina McCall in 2002, then hosted by Melanie Sykes from 2003 to 2004 and finally hosted by Gabby Logan who stepped in for Sykes for the latter half of 2004 when Sykes went on maternity leave.

Temptation: The New Sale of the Century is an American syndicated television game show loosely based on both the original Australian and American Sale of the Century versions, plus the 2005 Australian version, also titled Temptation. The show began airing in syndication on September 10, 2007, with the last first-run episode airing on May 23, 2008. Reruns continued until September 5, 2008.

<i>Blockbusters</i> (American game show) American television game show

Blockbusters is an American game show, created by Steve Ryan for Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions, which had two separate runs in the 1980s. On this program, contestants answered general-knowledge questions to complete a path across or down a game board composed of hexagons. The first series of the show debuted on NBC on October 27, 1980, and aired until April 23, 1982. In the first series, a team of two family members competed against a solo contestant. Blockbusters was revived on NBC from January 5 to May 1, 1987, but featured only two solo contestants competing.

On the Spot is an American game show produced by and broadcast on KGW-TV in Portland, Oregon as a daily series from September 1984 to October 1988. Newscaster Larry Blackmar was host, while local disc-jockey Michael Bailey announced.

<i>A Question of Genius</i> British TV series or programme

A Question of Genius is a game show hosted by Kirsty Wark and produced by BBC Scotland. The show was broadcast on BBC Two. It was recorded at BBC Pacific Quay in Glasgow. It ran from 16 March 2009 to 4 June 2010.

<i>Second Chance</i> (game show) American TV series or program

Second Chance is an American game show that ran from March 7 to July 15, 1977, on ABC. Jim Peck hosted, with Jay Stewart and Jack Clark serving as announcers. The show was a production of the Carruthers Company in association with Warner Bros. Television.