The Phone
| The Phone | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre | Reality television |
| Created by | Park Lane TV |
| Presented by | Frederik Brom |
| Country of origin | Netherlands |
| Original language(s) | Dutch |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | Various |
| Running time | 40 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | AVRO (Nederland 3) |
| Original release | July 6, 2007 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
The Phone is a Dutch television reality show, which is created by Willem Brom, Beau van Erven Dorens and Marc Bennink.
In each show two cell phones will be hidden at random places by the producers of the show. The phones will start ringing and the people answering the calls are from that moment participants in the game. These two people now have a chance of winning €25,000 by collaborating in the hunt for accomplishment of the given missions. The unique aspect of the show is that it's filmed as being a movie rather than a reality show. It was inspired by movies like Die Hard with a Vengeance.
The first episode of The Phone was aired by Dutch public broadcaster AVRO on July 6, 2007. The show has already been sold to 52 different countries.
It won the Best Reality prize at the 2008 Rose d'Or ceremony.
The two contestants have only a limited time of three hours to complete all assigned tasks, after which the prize, in a brief case is removed.
In the earlier format, three USB "thumb drives" are hidden at various points around the city. One commonly used site is one of the city's cathedrals. Each drive holds clues to the whereabouts of the brief case and these are revealed in the penultimate stage of the game where the "thumb drives" are plugged into a specially constructed display unit which is also on contact with the "Operator".
Any "thumb drives" not located within the allotted time incur a penalty of €5,000 and less clues at the penultimate stage of the game. Final clues are given as images of the terrain close to where the brief case is physically located and locals of that city should be able to deduce the location from landmarks or other clues in the images. The fewer "thumb drives" found the fewer image clues given.
Both contestants are given access to the brief case at the conclusion of the game and often the "Operator" is seen in a vehicle nearby.
Failure to find any of the "thumb drives" incurs a penalty of €15,000, but this still leaves €5,000 to each contestant for being "run all over town" for an afternoon.
Sometime during the series run the format was altered in a number of ways. The "thumb drives" were replaced by "S.I.M." cards the contestants had to insert into the one of the found 'phones in order to reveal the next set of clues.
Any tasks not completed in the allotted time resulted in a call from the operator with an offer to sell the contestants the answer or a clue to the current task. They a given one minute to decide if they wish to "purchase" the answer or clue for €5,000 drawn from the prize pool. In this manner it is possible for the contestants to use up the entire prize pool.
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Wikipedia