WORK/MILLION POUND DROP

“For Million Pound Drop, Monterosa created an online experience that’s inseparable from the show. Their software is flexible enough to cope with the demands of a live TV show, turning stats around rapidly, which are fed straight back into the broadcast. The play-along game allows viewers to experience every nail-biting moment for themselves and has united the audience, making every show a social viewing event.”
Jody Smith, Cross Platform Commissioner C4

See it in action

The Goal and The Challenges

Endemol and Channel 4 came to us just eight weeks before the show was due to go live. Could we create a live play-along game that would run in sync with the show, and that would boost the sense of event and drive buzz? Could our platform handle 200,000 simultaneous users, and feed statistics back into the show in realtime? We worked closely with the production team to make a game that blends seamlessly into the show.

How it works

If you haven’t seen it, Million Pound Drop is Channel 4’s hit gameshow created and produced by Endemol. It goes out live, usually in a 10pm slot and features a procession of hopefuls, testing their wits and nerve against The Drop. Every pair of contestants begins the game with a million pounds in cash, and must survive eight multiple-choice questions to win. For each question, they can choose to split their money across the possible answers or just place it all on one, but here’s the catch: they must always leave at least one trapdoor empty, and must move all of their money on every question.

Picture this: it’s Saturday night, you’re about to settle into the show and Davina McCall appears in a pre-show promo reminding you to get online and prepare to play along with tonight’s show. This is the first of a series of carefully placed “Calls to action” which drive people to the online game.

If you’re not content with simply barking your answers at the television, Davina encourages you to play along online and join the ever-growing legion of online players who relish the chance to live the show’s thrills and spills for themselves (including her Dad).

As you’re waiting for the timer on the Channel 4 website to reach zero, you’re asked to answer a few optional demographic questions. These will directly feed the statistics that are produced and used live on-screen during the show. If you don’t answer them, they’ll give you a gentle nudge later.

You’re also asked if you’d like to sign in with Facebook, which enables you to compete directly with your friends and to easily share your achievement badges.

You’ll now spend the next hour answering exactly the same questions as you see on the show, in sync, moving your cash and trying to retain as much of it as you can.

1. The clock is ticking
2. Start moving your money
3. You’ve split between two answers. Here comes the drop…
4. Yes! You’re still in the game

How it all started

 

Creating the Parallel Experience

One of the challenges of working with contestant gameshows is that their game tends to end abruptly when they get an answer wrong. We want to keep the at-home audience playing, so we had to create a slightly different parallel game, which continues no matter what the contestants do.

So we introduced a concept called “Survivors”. Everyone begins every episode with a fresh million and, in keeping the show, the aim is to keep as much of that million in tact. In the event that someone loses all of their money, they can rejoin the game at the next question with a new million – but with one Restart against their name. Players can restart as many times as they need, but only those who manage to survive the entire episode without doing so will have their names published on the Channel 4 website. Furthermore, “Survivors” are now rewarded with an exclusive application to be a contestant on the live show itself.

Making it Social

Connecting an audience with a show in realtime stimulates conversation. Players can Tweet their scores, but we also give them something to shout about. This increases the reach of the show dramatically.

Million Pound Drop users have a higher than average number of Facebook Friends, so when they talk there’s a lot of other people listening and being exposed to the show. Twitter has a similar influential effect, and the show regularly trended globally and in the UK:

 

Increasing Conversion Rates

We’ve been doing 2-Screen for a while, and with better creative execution, tighter integration with the TV show and ongoing developments to our platform, we’re seeing incredible growth in people’s desire to engage. The graph below shows the peak conversion rates from passive viewer to active participant during various series from The Apprentice Predictor to Four Weddings to Million Pound Drop. (TV audience from BARB).

 

What we proved

• It is possible to play-along with a TV show and not be distracted
• People are enjoying this new type of TV in ever-increasing numbers
• It isn’t a gimmick
• 2-Screen TV has a bright future

 

What The Industry Said

“Million Pound Drop back with 2m and record online players…unique players taking part online soared to 127,000 – a 25% increase on last series’ top figure…”
Jake Kanter, Broadcast Magazine, 26^th Oct 2010

“The best example of a synced play along we have seen in UK broadcasting”
Broadcast Digital Award judging panel

“another layer the show has cleverly delivered – the fact that it’s live means that you can play along on your laptop or fill Twitter and Facebook with your eloquent snark. All those pauses and spaces give you time to multi-task.”
Johnny Dee, guardian.co.uk, 28th Jan 2011

“Tuesday 26 October proved the most popular night for the web-based game too, with 189,000 players joining in during the hour the show was on air.”
David Burrows, NMA, 1^st Nov 2010

“the benchmark for the future of entertainment in which the internet and television are interwoven, creating a new genre”
freshegg.com

 

Awards and Recognition

Links

BAFTA acceptance video
Broadcast Digital Award winners
NMA Effectiveness Award winners
millionpounddrop.com
The Facebook Page