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On The Table Read Magazine, “the best entertainment magazine in the UK“, we check out the UK’s most memorable and iconic game show moments in TV history.
According to reports into British habits, on average, Brits are spending 28 hours every week glued to their TVs. This equates to 112 hours every month [1], really proving that the UK is a TV obsessed nation!
Over the decades, the UK has provided audiences with a selection of captivating game shows that have created so many memorable TV moments that have turned into viral sensations, and with Deal Or No Deal making a return, Casino Hawks were keen to discover the UK’s most iconic game show moments. To do this, they looked into the number of YouTube views, likes and monthly search volumes to find the UK’s most popular game show moments.
The UK’s Most Iconic Game Show Moments
| # | Game Show moment | Game Show | Game shows monthly search vols | YouTube Likes | YouTube Views | Overall popularity
score /10 |
| 1 | UK’s first millionaire winner | Who Wants To Be A Millionaire | 11,000 | 78,000 | 7,700,000 | 8.64 |
| 2 | The cleverest split on golden balls | Golden Balls | 4000 | 172,000 | 13,000,000 | 8.60 |
| 3 | Fanny Chmelar question | The Chase | 29,000 | 19,000 | 6,500,000 | 8.18 |
| =4 | “You won Jane” | Come Dine With Me | 6,800 | 228,000 | 5,400,000 | 7.85 |
| =4 | Stealing 40k off their contestant | Golden Balls | 4000 | 87,000 | 5,900,000 | 7.85 |
| 6 | Mark Labbett walks off set | The Chase | 29,000 | 31,000 | 5,400,000 | 7.75 |
| 7 | Coughing cheating scandal | Who Wants To Be A Millionaire | 11,000 | 41,000 | 4,600,000 | 7.46 |
| 8 | Dick Tingeler question | The Chase | 29,000 | 11,000 | 3,800,000 | 6.89 |
| 9 | Quickest £10,000 win ever | Tipping Point | 12,000 | 5,200 | 2,300,000 | 5.75 |
| 10 | Contestant wins 250k | Deal Or No Deal | 5,900 | 6,600 | 2,000,000 | 5.57 |
Who Wants To Be A Millonaire
WRanking first amongst the UK’s most iconic TV game show moments, is the first contestant to be crowned a millionaire on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. With an overall popularity score of 8.64 out of 10, this unforgettable TV moment has raked in over 7 million YouTube views since broadcasting in 2017 (7,700,000) – 67% more views than the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire coughing cheating scandal (4,600,000).
Who Wants To Be a Millionaire has made it twice in the top 10 list with 11,000 average monthly searches, making it one of the UK’s most popular game shows to date – over double the number of monthly searches for Deal or No Deal (5,900).
Golden Balls
In a close second with an overall popularity score of 8.60/10 we have ‘the cleverest split on Golden Balls’. In this moment, one contestant smartly “out plays” their opponent by stating he will “100% steal the prize pot” despite this not being his intention. Ultimately, they both split and win the £13,600 prize pot.
Raking in a massive 13 million YouTube views, this moment is the most viewed video on the list – almost double the number of views of the first millionaire moment in first place. It’s accompanied with 172,000 YouTube likes making it the second most liked video out of the list – just 24% fewer likes than the “You won Jane” moment on Come Dine With Me – the highest liked game show moment on the list. However, as Golden Balls ended in 2009, the average monthly searches are the lowest on the list at 4,000.
The Chase
A truly memorable moment from The Chase has made it third on the list with an overall popularity score of 8.18/10. One question was about a famous alpine skier called Fanny Chmelar, setting presenter Bradley Walsh off in a fit of laughter as he struggled to regain his focus. The video showing this moment has over 6 million YouTube views (6,600,00). This is 17% more views than the moment Mark Labbett walks off set in The Chase, placing sixth in our ranking, despite Labbett’s moment having 39% more likes (31,000).
Moments from The Chase have made it into our top 10 three times with 29,000 average monthly searches – making it the UK’s most popular game show.
Come Dine With Me
In joint fourth place with an overall popularity score of 7.85 out of 10 are two iconic TV moments from Come Dine With Me and Golden Balls. The scene from Come Dine With Me, which has since gone viral, shows one contestant announcing Jane as the winner and famously quoting “Dear Lord, what a sad little life Jane.” This hilarious scene has over 200,000 YouTube likes (228,000), making it the most liked video on our list. Ranking alongside “You won Jane”, we have the moment on Golden Balls where one contestant steals £40,000 off the other. This has received 5.9 million YouTube views – 500,000 more than the “You Won Jane” speech on Come Dine With Me.
Deal Or No Deal
Deal Or No Deal £250k win rounds off our top 10 list
Deal Or No Deal rounds out the list in tenth with an overall popularity score of 5.57 out of 10. The contestant wins £250,000 on the last round, where it was a toss up between 1 pence or £250,000. This nail-biting clip has collected 2 million YouTube views and over 6,000 likes (6,600) – over a fifth (21%) more likes than the quickest £10,000 to ever be won on Tipping Point in ninth place (5,200).
Methodology:
- Casino Hawks sought to discover the UK’s most popular TV game show moments.
- To do this the experts created a seedlist from sources including TV Insider and Yahoo Entertainment! that looked into the articles on the most ‘popular’, ‘funniest’ and ‘iconic’ TV game show moments over the years.
- From this, a list of 30 game show ‘memorable’ moments was created.
- Next, they collected the data on YouTube for the number of YouTube views, number of YouTube likes on the most popular TV game show moments from the seedlist. The videos were filtered from highest to lowest views, and the YouTube video with the most views was the one analysed for the study.
- The experts then went on to collect the average monthly YouTube search volumes for each moment in the list as well. Please note, due to insufficient search data, the total number of monthly searches for the overall game show was included for the study.
- From this, a points-based index system was created taking into account YouTube views, likes and search volumes with a higher weighting on YouTube views as an indicator of most iconic game show moments. This created the top 10 list used in this release.
- The full dataset used throughout this study, including the YouTube clips used can be found here.
- The data was collected in July 2023 and is accurate as of then.
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