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TV
Bingo sets sights on prime time - 16th April 2008
The new wave of TV Bingo shows
sweeping the nation has – much like online
bingo - helped bring the UK’s favourite
game into people’s living rooms, but bingo
on television is by no means a new phenomenon.
Throughout
television history, broadcasters have tried to
harness bingo’s popularity, with varying
degrees of success. Some colourful celebrities
and TV personalities have done their best to engage
audiences and deliver the atmosphere of the bingo
hall to homes around the world.
As
early as 1958, bingo first became a hit on the
small screen in the U.S. when American presenter
Monty Hall fronted Bingo At Home on the DuMont
Television Network. Station manager Steve Krantz
came up with the idea for the show, which was
so successful that switchboards at Channel 5 burned
out when a deluge of calls came in from viewers
first bombarded the show’s hotline.
Various
European countries took up the idea and aired
bingo shows, with a loyal audience emerging in
Scandinavian countries. However, bingo failed
to attract primetime audiences in the UK, where
land-based bingo halls remained the choice of
bingo fans.
The
struggles faced by land-based bingo in the new
millennium and the emergence of online bingo have
prompted a string of fresh TV bingo productions,
both in the UK and abroad.
Gala
Bingo, part of the Gala Coral Group and the UK’s
number one bingo operator, launched Gala TV, the
first live interactive bingo television channel,
in late 2006.
Gala
Bingo teamed-up with Endemol UK to produce Gala
TV, which is available on the Sky Digital platform,
Channel 841. This interactive live bingo and gaming
channel is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week and includes 8 hours of live, presenter-led
bingo between 5pm – 1am daily. These live
bingo sessions combine experienced bingo callers,
who have been selected from Gala Bingo’s
clubs across the UK, with experienced TV presenters.
In
the U.S., ABC’s National Bingo Night hit
screens nationwide in May 2007. Ed Sanders, host
of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, presented the
show, which pitted a solo contestant against a
studio audience in a game of bingo.
Despite
much hype surrounding the show’s launch,
National Bingo Night achieved disappointing viewing
figures on its first night and ABC eventually
shipped it to rival network GSN.
In
the UK, the success of Gala TV prompted competitor
productions to emerge, such as BigBoxBingo.
Fronted
by Greg Scott and originally broadcast out of
Lithuania, each programme features six games of
bingo, with cards costing £1.50 each. The
show has proved popular and recently moved to
studios in London.
Less
successful was Bingo Lotto, which aired for six
weeks in 2008 on the Virgin 1 and Challenge channels.
Popular
comic Joe Pasquali and former Hear’say popstar
Suzanne Shaw teamed up to present the interactive
show, which invited viewers to pre-buy their tickets
in shops and play along with the action.
However,
poor ticket sales cut the show’s run short
and a second series is rumoured to be in doubt,
despite initial plans to air the programme continuously.
The
latest TV bingo production promises to marry online
bingo and TV simultaneously, and is bringing back
some British TV favourites to help present the
show. Celebrity TV Bingo will star former Bullseye
presenter Jim Bowen, along with comedy duo Cannon
& Ball and host Greg Scott.
Should
the show achieve the kind of success that Bullseye
enjoyed in the 1980s and 90s, bingo on television
could finally find a permanent place in the hearts
of a nation.
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