New Chinese game show gives viewers chance to win
Who wants to be a millionaire? Pretty much everyone in China, and Communist leaders are urging them on. Now, the latest Chinese game show is offering treasure-seeking citizens a novel path to the riches their government is encouraging -- the chance to win cash simply by watching TV.
“Everyone Wins,” unveiled Wednesday in the booming city of Shanghai, is billed by its creators as the first TV quiz show in the world that enriches viewers as well as contestants.
The show, which debuts New Year’s Day in Shanghai, looks familiar enough: Seven players in a studio compete for cash prizes by answering questions on everything from history to science.
But there’s a twist, which executives at Shanghai Oriental Television say they hope will prove irresistible to viewers in this money-mad city of 17 million. At show’s end, the final digit of each player’s score will be strung together to form a seven-digit “lucky number.” Though producers didn’t spell out details at a news conference, they said viewers who can match all or part of it with any personal number -- a home phone number, an official ID, a utility bill, even a car license plate -- will collect up to $500.
That’s about four months’ salary, even by the standards of China’s wealthiest city.
“People in Shanghai are going to like this,” predicted Teng Junjie, an executive director at Shanghai Oriental Television.
The producer, Hong Kong-based Robert Chua, is a Singaporean executive who also founded a 24-hour Chinese-language family channel.
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