Raise the Roof (game show)
Encyclopedia
Raise the Roof was an unsuccessful British
television
game show
which ran from 2 September 1995 to 13 January 1996, co-produced by Yorkshire Television
and Action Time for ITV
and hosted by Bob Holness.
's prize limits, by giving away a large, valuable house as the star prize. The show debuted on 2 September 1995 and lasted twelve episodes, with the final broadcast on 13 January 1996. The format featured several rounds of questions which progressively whittled the contestant pool from six to one. The final round offered the house as the grand prize, with cash amounts awarded as consolation prizes at each stage of the competition.
The program made little impact with the public and was not recommissioned. A typical audience was 6.1 million viewers as opposed to 13.8 million for BBC One's
Casualty
. Raise the Roof has since been described as the last example of the era when it was seen as "vulgar" to give away large sums of money and more appropriate to give away prizes of the same value instead. Another criticism was that the questions were too easy to generate real suspense, and the pacing was too slow to keep viewers interested.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
which ran from 2 September 1995 to 13 January 1996, co-produced by Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
and Action Time for ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
and hosted by Bob Holness.
History and gameplay
Raise the Roof was one of the first game shows to exploit the lifting of the Independent Broadcasting AuthorityIndependent Broadcasting Authority
The Independent Broadcasting Authority was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television - and commercial/independent radio broadcasts...
's prize limits, by giving away a large, valuable house as the star prize. The show debuted on 2 September 1995 and lasted twelve episodes, with the final broadcast on 13 January 1996. The format featured several rounds of questions which progressively whittled the contestant pool from six to one. The final round offered the house as the grand prize, with cash amounts awarded as consolation prizes at each stage of the competition.
The program made little impact with the public and was not recommissioned. A typical audience was 6.1 million viewers as opposed to 13.8 million for BBC One's
BBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
Casualty
Casualty (TV series)
Casualty, stylised as Casual+y, is a British weekly television show broadcast on BBC One, and the longest-running emergency medical drama television series in the world. Created by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin, it was first broadcast on 6 September 1986, and transmitted in the UK on BBC One. The...
. Raise the Roof has since been described as the last example of the era when it was seen as "vulgar" to give away large sums of money and more appropriate to give away prizes of the same value instead. Another criticism was that the questions were too easy to generate real suspense, and the pacing was too slow to keep viewers interested.