CBS Orders Reality Competition ‘The Summit’ to Series (variety.com)
The competitors have an equal amount added to their equipment, and the first one to reach the summit of an Antarctic mountain gets it all…IF they reach the summit at all. If no one reaches the summit, nobody gets the money.
People will lie about how they actually feel when asked by the show’s medical crew.
There is too much incentive for the producers to make it close to impossible to finish.
The production crew won’t be happy to do the same thing the contestants are doing without a million dollar in sight.
If I’m reading that website correctly, the competitors will literally have to make life or death decisions - continue and get money but let someone die, or else stop to save someone’s life but lose money?
I think we should just drop off a bunch of contestants on an island with hidden weapons, ammo, and sponsored food.
And I want some porn based reality shows. ‘Behind one of these glory holes is Penthouse Pet of the month. Behind the other is an ugly as sin, morbidly obese man. You’ll find out who is where after you have your orgasm.’
Not really. For all of these reality shows the producers have taken out and paid for insurance policies that cover the Big Cash Prize, which helps eliminate that sort of bias. The producers have all the incentive in the world to ensure the climbers reach the summit - it makes for better television and publicity when they go on their press junket tour to talk about how they won.
American Ninja Warrior and the original Sasuke both went for multiple seasons without anyone winning the grand prize. The original has had 6 winners in 41 seasons (2 people have won it twice), the US version has had 3 in 15 seasons. I would argue that while you have to have winners every so often, making it tougher is actually a selling point.
Sure, that’s a fair point. It does seem that there’s a difference between Japanese television contests (and their American counterparts), and regular reality shows though. The Japanese do seem to love ramping up the difficulty to 11.
Nine network has denied a report claiming The Summit “is officially on the chopping block amid poor ratings and astronomical production costs.”
Daily Mail quoted an unnamed network insider stating “The show wasn’t worth the headaches that came with it to be honest. At this stage, it won’t be recommissioned for a second season.”
Nine is indeed yet to make a decision on a second season, having been averaging 720,000 in VOZ numbers, but remains optimistic about international format sales for the show developed with Endemol Shine Australia.