Sale of the Century
Sale of the Century
Australian Game Show
Sale of the Century is the most successful game show ever produced and shown on Australian television. The series began on the Nine Network early in 1980 and. apart from the short four-week summer break each year, has been transmitted in the same prime-time access slot of 7:00 P.M. five nights a week ever since. Apart from the historical ratings dominance of the Nine Network in the Australian television market place, the reasons for the success of Sale have much to do with the format of the program. its pace, and its prizes. The game consists of three rounds in which three contestants compete for the right to buy luxury prizes at low prices. The first to sound a buzzer gains the opportunity to answer a general knowledge question. Each contestant begins with a bankroll of $25, re ceiving $5 for a correct answer and losing $5 for an in correct one.
Sale of the Century.
Photo courtesy of Grundy Television Pry Ltd.
Bio
At the end of each round, the contestant with the highest score is offered the opportunity to buy a luxury item, such as a color TV set, with some of the points. At the end of the program, the overall winner goes to a panel where he or she tries to guess the location of a particular prize behind a set of panels. Whether lucky or not, the contestant returns to the next episode of Sale. From time to time, the producers have varied the format as Celebrity Sale of the Century, using televi sion personalities and other celebrities as contestants, playing for either home viewers or charity.
The program succeeds because it is a blend of general knowledge, luck, and handsome prizes. The question-and-answer format, combined with the time factor, draws in the home viewer, while guesses at the panels and whether to buy items offered involve luck and risk. This combination gives Sale of the Century a pace and interest that make it a bright, attractive game show.
Sale of the Century originally ran on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC}, the American television network, from 1969 to 1973. The Australian-based Grundy Organization had since 1961 been a very frequent licensee/producer of American game show for mats, but it had decided in the early 1970s to develop or buy in formats of its own. Grundy bought the format for Sale of the Century in 1979 and later the same year sold the program to the Australian Nine Network. By this time, the Grundy Organization was the biggest pro gram packager in Australian television and had decided that the only way to continue to expand was to internationalize its operation. However, because of differing licensing arrangements, Grundy was aware that many of the American game-show-format license rights were not available to the company in other territories hence the decision to buy format copyrights on pro grams such as Sale. The outstanding rating success of Sale in the Australian television market made it easier to sell the format elsewhere. Thus, since 1982, the com pany has reversioned Sale of the Century in five other territories: Hong Kong (RTV, 1982), United States (NBC, 1982/1988), United Kingdom (Sky, 1989/1991), New Zealand (TVNZ, 1989/1993), and Germany (Telos/DSP, 1990/1993).
Some of the program's hosts in different countries have included Tony Barber (Australia), Joe Garagiola (United States), Jack Kelly (United States), Steve Parr (New Zealand), Nicholas Parsons (United Kingdom), Jim Perry (United States), and Glen Ridge (Australia).
Series Info
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Nine Network 3,460 episodes
July 1980-
Weeknights 7:00-7:30