Sale of the Century (Australian game show)
| Sale of the Century | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Sale of the New Century (2000) |
| Genre | Game show |
| Created by | Al Howard |
| Directed by | Terry Higgins Dennis Rawady Tony Skinner Peter Ots Craig Coster Gayle Pickett Adrian Dellevergin Graeme Sutcliffe |
| Presented by |
Hosts: Tony Barber (1980–1991) Glenn Ridge (1991–2001) Co-hosts: Victoria Nicholls (1980–1982) Delvene Delaney (1982–1985) Alyce Platt (1986–1991) Jo Bailey (1991–1993) Nicky Buckley (1994–1999) Karina Brown (2000–2001) |
| Narrated by | Ron Neate (1980) Pete Smith (1980–2001) |
| Theme music composer | Jack Grimsley |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 22 |
| No. of episodes | 4,610 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Bill Mason (1980) Andrew Brooke (1981–1987) Martin Rhodes (1987–1992) Michael Whyte (1993–1995) Karen Greene (1996–2001) Paul Waterhouse (1996–1997) |
| Producer(s) | Jim Burnett Lisa Chatfield Pam Barnes Michelle Seers Steve Marshall Suzanne Stark Karen Bentley |
| Location(s) | GTV-9 studios, Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Grundy Productions |
| Release | |
| Original network | Nine Network |
| Picture format |
4:3 PAL (1980–2000) 16:9 576i (SDTV) (2001) |
| Audio format | Stereo |
| Original release | 14 July 1980 – 29 November 2001 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | Great Temptation |
| Followed by | Temptation |
| Related shows | Sale of the Century |
$ale of the Century is an Australian game show that aired on the Nine Network from 14 July 1980 to 29 November 2001. Tony Barber hosted a game show with essentially the same format under the title Temptation from 1970 to 1976, and was also the initial host of Sale for over a decade before being replaced by Glenn Ridge in 1991. Hostesses over the years have included Victoria Nicholls, Delvene Delaney, Alyce Platt, Jo Bailey, Nicky Buckley and Karina Brown. Pete Smith was Sale's announcer for the majority of its run. Ron Neate was announcer for only the first ten episodes in 1980 before Smith took over.
From 30 May 2005 to 23 January 2009, the series was revived under its original Australian title, Temptation.
The Sale of the Century format has been used internationally.
The game usually involves three contestants competing to amass the highest score by answering questions correctly and playing several games. The champion from the previous episode will usually be invited to return as a carry-over champion.
Each contestant is spotted with $20 to start.
The host reads a trivia question to the contestants. The first to press a buzzer gets an opportunity to answer the question, interrupting the host if in the middle of reading the question. Players' scores increase by $5 for each correct answer and decrease by $5 for each incorrect answer. If a player answers incorrectly, the correct answer is revealed and the game goes on to the next question, as only one player can try to answer each question.
At the end of each of the first two rounds (and in early years, also at the end of the third round), the highest-scoring player gets to go to a "Gift Shop" and is offered the chance to sacrifice part of his/her score to "purchase" a prize at a "low price". The prizes, and the cost, increased in each round. Contestants were allowed to haggle with the host, who, depending on the game situation, might reduce the price and offer inducements including actual cash in order to entice the contestant to purchase. If two or more players had the same score at this point, a Dutch auction was conducted for the prize whereby the host would incrementally reduce the selling price until either contestant buzzed in or the host decided not to lower the prize any further and announced "no sale".
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