ITV Play

ITV Play is a 24/7 participation television channel in the United Kingdom owned by ITV plc.

ITV Play was launched on March 31 2006 at 12am on ITV1, with the first edition of The Mint. And ITV2 launched ITV Play on the same night with Quizmania (previously on ITV1). It was launched on its own channel on Freeview (taking on the slot which was previously occupied by the Men & Motors channel) on 19 April 2006 and will broadcast on Sky Digital later in the year. ITV Play is a dedicated gaming channel and was created in response to and hoping to cash-in on the popularity of latenight quizshows on ITV1 and ITV2 such as Quizmania, Play Sudoku and Dare.

ITV has promised to make its programmes with higher production values than quiz programmes on other quiz channels.

During the run of ITV reality show Love Island, ITV Play will simulcast live coverage from the island. [link]

Contents

1 Shows

1.1 The Mint
1.2 Quizmania
1.3 Rovers Return: Quiz Night
1.4 This Morning Puzzle Book
1.5 Friends Reunited: The School Run
1.6 ITV Playalong

2 Defunct Shows

2.1 Extra Mint
2.2 The Daily Quiz!

3 External links

Shows

The Mint

Presenters of The Mint.

ITV Play programming includes a late night compendium of games called The Mint presented by various presenters including Brian Dowling, Kat Shoob and Craig Stevens. The Mint is shown simultaneously on ITV2 daily and on ITV1 between Monday and Thursday.

Quizmania

Quizmania was the first phone-in quiz show produced for ITV. The success of this show was one of the main reasons ITV decided to branch out and create a dedicated channel for shows of this nature. Quizmania is shown on ITV Play and Men and Motors on weekday afternoons between 15:00 and 18:00 and on ITV1 on Friday-Sunday during the early hours of the morning.

Rovers Return: Quiz Night

This Coronation Street inspired pub quiz, based on the fictional public house, the Rovers Return: Quiz Night shows daily from 21:00 on Monday's and 20:00 between Tuesday and Sunday. The show is comprised of two teams taking on callers to the show in order to win a jackpot prize. The show differs from the other quiz programmes in that it allows more than one caller to take part at any one time. In the first part of the show, there is a pub-quiz style round for between 1 hour and 1 1/2 hours where viewers play along at home and answer multiple-choice questions on their phones. The highest scoring people get into the 'snug' where one caller is randomly selected. They automatically win £100 and take part in the 'Newton or Ridley' jackpot game. They have to guess which word, Newton or Ridley, is behind bottles of beer. Prizes include an extra £500, £1,000, £2,000 and £10,000 for people with lots of luck and big gamblers. After this pub-quiz, one presenter gives viewers puzzles, just like other quiz shows. They call this 'happy-hour' as a different phone number is used and the call charges are reduced. The show presenters include Terri Dwyer, Paul Hendy and Beverley French.

This Morning Puzzle Book

ITV Play airs This Morning Puzzle Book Monday to Friday from 12pm to 3pm and weekends from 3pm to 6pm. It's questions are mainly celebrity based, although General Knowledge games have also been played. The This Morning Puzzle Book was the first interactive quiz show to be shown on ITV Play. This Morning Puzzle Book has games including Matchmaker, Picture Perfect, Bag Ladies and Wild in the Aisles. Matchmaker is usually extended into Super Matchmaker where there are five different words to find and Mega Matchmaker where there are fifteen words to find which either follow or go before a given word. The presenters include Ben Baldwin, Zo Christien and Alison Hammond. Ben Baldwin usually presents on weekdays.

The show was extended by three hours for 1 week after The Daily Quiz! was removed from the ITV Play schedules.

Friends Reunited: The School Run

ITV Play has recently launched Friends Reunited: The School Run, aired from 6pm every day. One of The School Run's main presenters is Tim Dixon, and Emma Lee also presents occasionally. The aim of the game is to answer questions. Some of the games include King of the Castle - Word Association, Guess the occupation, Famous people beginning with the letter... You can text in and your message may appear on the screen as well as playing along by phone.

ITV Playalong

A text based quiz shown during the morning from 4 a.m and finishing at 12:00 (Weekdays) and finishing at 15:00 (Weekends). This show is simulcast on ITV2 between 4 and 6 a.m. Allowing players to use SMS to contact and play. ITV Playalong doesn't feature a presenter, but pre-recorded voices. It features two games: Buzzwords and izit? The Top 5 high scorers on each game are entered into The Bonus Ball Bonanza where a random draw, like the lottery, takes place. They are given 5 numbers and if 3 numbers match, then £20 is won. If 4 numbers match, £100 is won and if 5 numbers match, £1000 is won.

Defunct Shows

Extra Mint

Extra Mint is similar to The Mint but was shown in the early evenings on ITV Play. This version doesn't feature the trademark £100,000 jackpot, but instead uses the teapot jackpot, which players have to try to spell out the word 'minttea'.

On the 14th of May 2006 the last show of the Extra Mint was shown, and has now been replaced by, Friends Reunited: The School Run.

The Daily Quiz!

ITV Play showed The Daily Quiz!, which was also simulcast on Men & Motors from 3pm-6pm every week day. One of The Daily Quiz's main presenters, Kat Shoob, is also a presenter on ITV Play's flagship programme, The Mint. The Daily Quiz! launched on the 13th March 2006.

On 19 May 2006, officers from the Fraud Squad raided the offices of BIG Game TV!, makers of The Daily Quiz! after a BBC Radio 4 investigation for the You and Yours programme found that receptionists were told to ignore all incoming calls for long periods of time while 150-200 calls per minute were clocked up at 75p a time.

For this reason, The Daily Quiz! is no longer shown on ITV Play.

External links

ITV
British television | Channels

Regions North Scotland: Grampian Television | Central Scotland: Scottish Television | Scottish/English Border: Border
North and North West England: ABC, Granada | North East England: Tyne Tees | Yorkshire: Yorkshire | Northern Ireland: UTV
Wales and the West of England: TWW, WWN, ITSWW, HTV | Midlands: ATV, ABC, Central | East Anglia: Anglia
London: Rediffusion, ATV, Thames, LWT, Carlton | Southern England: Southern, TVS, Meridian
South West England: Westward, TSW, Westcountry | Channel Islands: Channel Television

Breakfast: TV-am, GMTV | Teletext: ORACLE, Teletext Ltd.
News: ITN, ITV News Sport: ITV Sport

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