How do game show award money amounts work? Some game shows are only able to give away a few thousand dollars and others can give away millions. Who sponsors / funds shows and how are final award amounts decided?
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Noncash prizes are almost always provided to the show free of charge by the maker, in exchange for having the product and company name mentioned in the product description. (The Price is Right, in particular, has that part of the market down)
For cash prizes…. the prize amounts are mostly based on producing excitement and show budget. For something like Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy, the prize money can be pretty big, because the shows get lots of prime time viewers, so ads are valuable (besides, Pat/Vanna/Trebek make way more per episode than the winner gets in prize money)
Daytime or cable shows have lower budgets because they have lower viewership and thus cheaper ad slots to pay for the show. These shows, except for Price is Right, get remarkably little viewership, which is why they usually look low budget all the way around, not just in prize money
“Millionaire” was a really big deal at first — it only ran occasionally, always in prime time. That million dollar prize possibility was a huge draw. Even so, those prizes were covered by insurance — indeed, at one point, the insurance company threatened to sue the show, because the early questions were easier than they’d been led to believe, and so more people than expected we’re winning 8/16/32k
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