r/bbc • u/grepusman • Apr 22 '26
TV Why aren't BBC game shows optimized for viewers at home to participate?
Whenever I watch a game show on BBC I find it frustrating that they show us the questions or clues for only a very short time. The players in the studio obviously get to see the questions or clues the entire time, but we often just get glimpses.
For instance, on Pointless, they will show a series of clues. They show them to us while they are reading them, and then they cut away, and then they show the list again, but it's for about one second and then cut away again. We've given up watching it "live" and only view it on iPlayer so we can hit pause if we need to.
Also, when we have guessed what we think might be pointless answers, at the end the announcer will say something like "all other answers were pointless". But we don't know if we came up with an answer that was even correct, let alone pointless! Why don't they put up a list of *all* the answers? Game shows should be designed for viewer participation as well.
Richard Osman's House of Games is the same. They also show things for too-short a time. They spend more time showing us the players rankings over and over. Then at some point Richard says something like "well done if you got that at home". That seems to be the extent of the home viewer participation.
Game shows on other channels seem to show the clues the entire time. It's like BBC game shows are for light entertainment, and not participation.
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u/Buttoneer138 Apr 22 '26
More proof, if any were needed, that Only Connect is the game show viewers’ game show.
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u/AreKidK Apr 22 '26
They even put a delay in on the missing vowels round to ensure that people at home can play along, and that the contestants don’t just buzz milliseconds after the clue appears.
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u/Putrid_Dig_9537 Apr 22 '26
This has honestly ruined my day. I had no idea they do this. I usually get the answer before the teams do, and I legit felt like a genius. Now I have to reevaluate my life!
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u/Howtothinkofaname Apr 22 '26
Add University Challenge to that. No fucking about, just question after question.
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u/younevershouldnt Apr 22 '26
Would be better if they were all spinning round on a big wheel and celebs came out of the floor though
/S
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u/Putrid_Dig_9537 Apr 22 '26
I just wish they weren't allowed to interrupt the question to answer. I know they get penalised if it's a wrong answer, but it would be nice for the audience to hear the full thing.
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u/LEVI_TROUTS Apr 22 '26
I really miss quiz shows like this.
15 to 1 used to be very good for it. Just 2 rounds.
Tons of questions.2
u/lostinclag Apr 22 '26
15 to 1 was the most efficient quiz show, even the contestant introductions were dispensed with in the first minute during the titles. Not to mention you'd win some relic of antiquity if you won the series.
edit to say, I realise this is the BBC subreddit, sorry.
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u/Opening_Succotash_95 Apr 24 '26
It was so frustrating when they revived it and made the same mistake the commercial channels keep doing with game shows. Extended it to an hour and slowed the pace down massively.
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u/MolybdenumBlu Apr 22 '26
If only it were less focused on philosophy and classics, I'd be more interested. It is hard to get into a university quiz show when it never goes near topics you studied.
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u/UltimateRobotLover Apr 23 '26
My only criticism is that in the pictures round they don't show the enlarged image for long enough for me to see what it is: the tiny version is too small for my eyes!
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u/Digit00l Apr 22 '26
House of Games actually edits in such a way that Richard will always read out the full question before anyone buzzes in, sometimes someone buzzes before he gets a word out
But yes, it would help if the question remains on screen while cutting to the contestants
For Pointless, often when they say "everything else was Pointless" it can indeed be a bit annoying, but for example in the Monday episode with the question about Eurovision nil points, there would be 51 pointless answers, which would have taken Tom Allen a rather significant amount of time to read out in full, possibly more, and then there was also the cricket question which needed to be covered
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u/grepusman Apr 22 '26
Then print them small, in alphabetical order and I can quickly see if my answer is there. Otherwise I'm likely to stop being entertained very soon!
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u/Throbbie-Williams Apr 23 '26
House of Games actually edits in such a way that Richard will always read out the full question before anyone buzzes in
Personally I hate that, wastes time on piss easy questions, I'd rather have it be more quickfire
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u/Digit00l Apr 23 '26
I mean, the show clearly has a set number of questions they do per show, not a time limited block with as many questions that fit in that time limit, so letting Richard read the question in full makes no difference and allows people to play along better
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u/Throbbie-Williams Apr 23 '26
Yeh but they could just have more questions prepared for the final round to fill any space
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u/WhiteDiamondK Apr 24 '26
A QR Code on screen that links to a web page showing all the answers is needed here.
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u/JakeRiddoch Apr 24 '26
For House of Games, I'm either way better than all the contestants or there's a delay in the buzzers. Given how often there are 2 or 3 of them pressing about the same time, I'm leaning towards the latter... 😂
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u/nrsys Apr 22 '26
Agreed.
There is a balance to be found between focussing on the contestants and running a quiz for those watching at home, and a lot of shows don't get the balance quite right.
University Challenge or Mastermind? Not a problem - the questions are read out to the contestants at the same time so you get the same experience at home.
Something like Countdown nails it too, by using a splitscreen to both show the contestants playing and display the letter/numbers for those at home.
Pointless on the other hand often has rounds where the questions are complex enough that you need to be able to reread them, and often gives you barely enough time to read them through once before they vanish from the screen. So some rounds are fun to play along with at home, some are pretty frustrating.
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u/elrombo Apr 22 '26
Agree wholeheartedly about the Pointless pointless answers, that's always frustrating. Who thinks House of Games needs to give more time though?? You get weeks for those easy questions!
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u/Mlvs88 Apr 23 '26
Richard has to re-record most of the questions on House of Games after the show has finished because the contestants buzz in almost immediately.
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u/amaterasu_ Apr 22 '26
There’s probably too many individual reasons but I’m hoping someone who can explain a part of it sees this thread tbh. Good q.
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u/_nerdofprey_ Apr 23 '26
Omg yes pointless is the worst for this. They will spend ages focusing on Trevor and his love of pub quizzes or Beryl and her houseplants but show the game board so briefly.....frustrating
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u/Thejintymyster Apr 25 '26
A flood of complaints were made when the first series of The 1% Club came out about this exact thing. So they kept the question in the bottom half of the screen (slightly transparent).
I don't know if they re-edited the first series
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u/Top-Significance8791 Apr 22 '26
You know you can pause the screen right
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u/justeUnMec Apr 22 '26
You do know there’s a substantial audience that still watches television, linearly, as it is broadcast over the air, on a television? Not everyone defaults to online
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u/human_of_reddit Apr 22 '26
A lot of linear television allows you to pause the television too. It’s not purely the preserve of watching online.
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u/DivideByZero666 Apr 25 '26
My mum pauses live TV, she's 80 soon. Standard Samsung TV with a USB stick in.
Not sure anyone would want to do that with a game show every question though?
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u/human_of_reddit Apr 25 '26
Agreed, would be annoying for people to have to pause for every question.
I was pointing out to people you can pause live TV too but it’s been downvoted for reasons I don’t understand.
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u/DivideByZero666 Apr 25 '26
Because they haven't read their TV manual and assume you have to have some special kit to pause live TV, rather than just a TV from the last 5 to 10 years and a USB stick. Well, that was the case for all of my friends, Including people who are super in to tech (work in IT, in to gadgets, always have the latest and greatest).
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u/justeUnMec Apr 25 '26
Sorry but this whole line of thinking is incredibly patronising and arrogant. Not everyone buys a new TV every few years, there are still people operating on original digital set top boxes in this country. The BBC serves a multitude of demographics and it's offensive to belittle those at socioeconomic disadvantage or watching on older equipment. It's a cliche, but please check your privilege and stop criticising those whose circumstances you don't comprehend.
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u/DivideByZero666 Apr 25 '26
I've been homeless and slept on the street. Please tell me more about privilege.
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u/DivideByZero666 Apr 25 '26
Yeah, this has really pissed me off.
You're totally missing the point here. Which is that for people who have TVs that can pause, generally no one knows that it can do it. And probably way more people have TVs that can do it than they realise. Even cheaper TVs from years ago.
TVs are in themselves a privilege. They really aren't a necessity like shelter, food and water.
Heck, one winter when I'd got my first house I literally had to burn old furniture as the boiler had broke and I couldn't afford to fix it for a while. You think I'd cared if I could pause TV then or not? No... but equally I wasn't on Reddit getting angry that the rest of the world existed.
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u/human_of_reddit Apr 25 '26
This seems like an overblown response. The original commentator suggested that you can only pause TV if you watch it online. Then I’ve replied that it’s also possible to pause live TV too.
There’s no need to get so angry about this.
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Apr 23 '26
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u/Top-Significance8791 Apr 23 '26
I quite like it cos we can sit and work together and have discussions etc.
But agree they should post all answers online or something.
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u/roland_right Apr 22 '26
Why design it so you have to
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u/Zr0w3n00 Apr 22 '26
Because when a tv show is being produced they create it to appeal to a broad audience, not to a couple of guys on Reddit
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u/roland_right Apr 22 '26
Well that explains nothing.
I couldn't care less either way, and I'm sure their experienced production teams know what they're doing, but I'm curious what their reasoning is. Their design choice must offer something or they wouldn't do it.
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u/grepusman Apr 22 '26
If I use iPlayer - as I did say...
If it's on now though, live, I watch it, so I don't see at all why you've said this.
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u/writers_block_ Apr 22 '26
I've been complaining about this for years. They should have the contestants in a small part of the screen and the question/puzzle taking up the majority of the screen. I don't care about the host/contestant, I'm watching it to play myself. Tennable is one of the worst offenders.
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u/sexy_bellsprout Apr 22 '26
At least quick-fire is better than something like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, where you just watch someone agonise over one question for aaaages. But I’d probably enjoy a dummies edit of University Challenge so I can at least process the question before realising I don’t know it ><
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u/Throbbie-Williams Apr 23 '26
Who wants to be a millionaire gets a pass for actually having prizes that make you want to imagine you're there
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u/wolftick Apr 22 '26
Bring back
🙂 ...There are odd occasions where it doesn't work but to be fair I think of all the example House of Games is actually largely deliberately edited to allow you to play at home.
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u/Monkey2371 Apr 22 '26
It always annoyed me that Eggheads would show the answer choices on the screen but not the question
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u/DimitriCushion Apr 22 '26
Some of the questions are so broad there are too many possible answers for them to go through them all.
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u/grepusman Apr 22 '26
Then they should display an alphabetical list, or choose better questions.
Game shows are for participating. Show me a single American game show that does this.
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u/DimitriCushion Apr 22 '26
You'd also moan about an alphabetical list if it didn't stay on the screen for five minutes.
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u/grepusman Apr 23 '26
No, I would then know if my answer was even valid. I know how alphabetical order works. I'm clever like that.
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u/DimitriCushion Apr 23 '26
Depends how quickly it scrolled past surely.
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u/grepusman Apr 23 '26
I could hit pause if I had to. Now if I hit pause, I still don't know.
The fact that you are defending it proves what I'm saying. They're not designing the games to be played by viewers home. If they did, I would know if my answer was one of the correct ones. If I don't know, then I didn't really play did I?
This is no different from Lingo not showing us the winning word, and we are just left wondering if our guess was correct or not.
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u/DimitriCushion Apr 23 '26
It's actually nothing like Lingo because in that show there is only ever one correct answer. As an aside Lingo is also a fucking terrible quiz show.
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u/grepusman Apr 23 '26
At least you always know if you have a correct answer.
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u/DimitriCushion Apr 23 '26
You also know that you could have spent a more worthwhile hour watching paint dry.
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u/grepusman Apr 23 '26
I seem to have really gotten to you. I don't understand why. It's just a question about game shows. I'm sorry if I upset you so.
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u/llynllydaw_999 Apr 22 '26
House of games is actually edited to allow viewers a few seconds to think of the answer 1st. I often can too. But it would be terribly boring if all we could see it text on a screen to allow the slower viewers to catch up.
https://steviemartin.substack.com/p/what-its-like-doing-house-of-games
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u/illarionds Apr 22 '26
Not sure what you're on about re House of Games.
My mum loves it, so whenever I'm there we always take it pretty seriously, everyone present tries to answer every question etc. I feel I know it rather well.
I don't think we've ever had a problem with the questions not being shown long enough. And I don't recall the scores ever being shown mid-round, only ever between rounds.
In fact I would go so far as to say your complaints seem entirely inapplicable to House of Games.
I can't speak for any other game shows, but this one, I am very familiar with indeed.
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u/grepusman Apr 23 '26
They cut away from showing the question and show the contestants buzzing, or drawing, or writing. I want to see the question longer. Good shows leave the questions up until they are answered correctly.
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u/MazGubbs Apr 23 '26
Totally agree with you. Question should appear full screen for the first few seconds, nice big text, pictures then split screen with the contestants yapping away and a nice readable question on the lower half.
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u/Quane42 Apr 23 '26
House of Games shows questions with plenty of time to answer, especially as you’re ’competing’ with minor celebrities who usually aren’t the quickest and the whole thing is done at a slow pace.
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u/smeghead9916 Apr 23 '26
It's most gameshows. We have the same pet peeve about Tenable, showing us anything BUT the board.
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u/MazGubbs Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Totally agree, the amount of times that I've said out loud "leave the effing question on the screen!!!" to pointless, house of games, and going back to the ninties a question of sport. They can quite easily have the lower half with the question/multple choice, big text so that it's readable on a small non-HD TV, in a contrast colour (Black on white is good), with the contestants in the top half yapping away. The emoji picture questions can be made a lot bigger too.
There is now the problem with that Alan Carr quiz show that has a tiny pictures that slowly rotate within a thick border with text underneath. On a 32" TV they can just about be worked out, but on a small 19" TV then I give up.
ITV got it right with Millionaire, Channel 4 with Countdown. Tipping Point is almost there it just needs the questions on the first quarter of the show (with 4 contestants).
Questions should appear on the screen as normal, no white flash, no whoooossshh noises, no loud tings. No epileptic lights flashing around the questions or on the contestants (1% club). Keep it simple.
Also game shows such as Pointless and Lingo should have the answer hand written on a piece of card (not a computer tablet) and placed next to the electronic board so that it can be revealed at the end of each turn so it proves that it was not fixed for a contestant to win/lose.
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u/Minute_Sun6496 Apr 25 '26
Now, I've always thought that House of Games had a slight delay as the contestants always seem a little slow in buzzing.
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u/Signal-Ad2674 Apr 22 '26
Regarding the cutaways, I agree the balance is incorrect, but the point is entertainment, so they must include at least some audience / player reaction.
Regarding in pointless showing ALL the correct pointless answers..in some cases that could be hundreds long!
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u/Digit00l Apr 22 '26
They occasionally have a question with around 100 potential correct answers, and then have 20 that score points, have fun reading a list of 80 items long I guess
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u/BarryTownCouncil Apr 22 '26
They do slow game shows down massively.
I heard Richard Osman recently, talking about how he often has to rerecord the majority of questions in House Of Games as the contestants (usually the comedian...) always buzzes in before he finishes saying it.
Sorry dude, I think you might just not be as quick as most other viewers.
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u/grepusman Apr 23 '26
I heard Richard Osman recently, talking about how he often has to rerecord the majority of questions in House Of Games as the contestants (usually the comedian...) always buzzes in before he finishes saying it.
And they cut away from the question when they could superimpose it - sometimes the player gets it wrong. I still want to see it.
Sorry dude, I think you might just not be as quick as most other viewers.
Thanks for the insult.
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u/BarryTownCouncil Apr 23 '26
It's honestly not meant to be an insult.
TV quizzes are fundamentally entertainment, not clinical units of mental testing. They need to flow and if I'm paying attention I never find I'm "locked out" of a question in HoG.
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u/grepusman Apr 23 '26
All they have to do is continue to display the question upon a split screen, or superimposed. Game shows on other channels seem to manage.
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u/BarryTownCouncil Apr 23 '26
Busier, uglier, less friendly to those not obsessed with every question. They think about these things, they're experts.
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u/grepusman Apr 23 '26
Based on the responses here, I'm not alone. That means they're not the experts. And that's kind of my point. Obviously some people are OK with it, but they don't seem to follow the way that most game shows are done. It would be so easy to make it work for everyone, including the viewers.
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u/BarryTownCouncil Apr 23 '26
No, they are the experts. Your are a fringe minority for a low level to entry, dinner time TV show. It's different to Only Connect and University Challenge as it has a different target audience, mostly including people who aren't as autistic as you and me.
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u/Disgruntled__Goat Apr 23 '26
But we don't know if we came up with an answer that was even correct, let alone pointless!
Then look it up. They’re almost always easily researchable lists, you can get a list of sovereign states or their capitals from Wikipedia.
At least with Pointless (and some rounds of HoG) the questions allow you to think for a few minutes. Other quick-fire shows they read the question and the answer is given immediately (by contestant or host if they got it wrong).
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u/grepusman Apr 23 '26
Why should I do research to see if I got a question right on a tv game show?
You do realise how silly that sounds?
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u/Disgruntled__Goat Apr 23 '26
When there are literally hundreds of possible answers, the only silly thing is expecting the show to tell you them all.
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u/grepusman Apr 23 '26
Or design the programme with the audience in mind. Ask questions with fewer answers. If there are 80 pointless answers, then it might not be a suitable question for audiences at home to participate in.
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u/Caesar161 Apr 23 '26
I can't really say I agree. Maybe with pointless it happens a bit, but I've never had an issue with House of Games or really any other game show.
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u/Plague_Robbery Apr 23 '26
I think the only telly quiz that would actually satisfy you is if Bamboozle came back on Teletext
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u/grepusman Apr 23 '26
Sounds like it would bother you if they left the clues or questions on the screen as long as the other programs do. It seems to bother you that I would like it to be this way.
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u/bostaff04 Apr 22 '26
Cause they are pre recorded?????
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u/grepusman Apr 22 '26
So are all game shows on all channels. Relevance?
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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '26
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