Million Dollar Pound Money Drop

Last week, Fox debuted a new game show franchise titled, "Million Dollar Money Drop", based on the British hit-show "Million Pound Money Drop".

According to recent statement by friends at Fox:

MILLION DOLLAR MONEY DROP, the ultimate high-stakes game show, created and produced by Endemol ("Deal or No Deal"), gives a couple $1 million in cold, hard cash and all they have to do to keep it is correctly answer seven multiple-choice questions.

The show is being called a suspense-thriller - love when movie descriptors are used for television game shows.

In rare fashion, I have indeed seen the second episode of the show in limited viewing (I commonly do not watch shows beyond the first episode). The idea is that during the show the couples work together to answer moderately difficult (To the non-Trivial Pursuit expert) multiple choice trivia questions.

The amount of money lost is determined according to the amount of the wager and whether or not the correct answer has been chosen. In a nutshell, one might even venture to say the concept is very similar to gambling...

My great business/production partner had a similar idea in 2005, prior to the development of the show - with the concept of being: Begin with the money and work your way backwards to keep.

Timing is Everything
At the moment, the show appears to be quite popular among viewers (Despite recent controversy over a couple's recent $800,000 alleged wrong answer about Post-It notes), I would strongly advise giving the couple another opportunity to appear on the show to preserve good will and PR for the show.

Further, credit to Fox for airing a new program during the holiday season of repeat and melancholy programming presented by most other networks. The strategy is clearly obvious as Fox will literally deliver favorable viewership to the new season of American Idol.

Having said, there are a few minor concerns about Million Dollar Money Drop...

First, the show airs in nightly rotation this week and if you may recall, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? was a previous program that had once also been in full rotation, however the show eventually met with over saturation.

Should this schedule continue, a question of whether or not game show serials can achieve longevity/stability (Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune) in a nightly prime-time slot remains to be determined.

The second concern is that the show is hosted by Kevin Pollack (Comedian, Web Host), and really, I am not 100% with this obscure choice of host - not a fan. Bottom line, keep the show, get rid of the host.

I would have much preferred a choice of host somewhere around the line of Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, 'Cash Cab' guy or even Ellen DeGeneres. As well, Dane Cook, who happens to be easy on the eyes, would have been a blast!

We'll see what happens...The show airs at 8PM on Fox.