Greed (game show)

Greed (known as The Very Real Fear of Greed in earlier 3 series) is a Transmanian television quiz show competition program adapted from the same-titled original US format created by Dick Clark and Bob Boden and developed by ??. Contestants compete to answer a series of questions to win a potential top prize of RTÐ1,000,000. It was premiered on September 4, 2000 on ??? and was ended in May 2001. The program's tagline is 'The Richest, Most Dangerous Game in Transmanitain'. Radio 1 presenter Jennifer Woodman hosts.

Auditioning
Members of the public wishing to apply for the program are provided with calling a premium-rate number or submitting an application via the show's ??? website. Once an application is made, the production staff select an episode's contestants through a combination of random selection.

Qualifying round
Six contestants who qualified for the program by applying will be asked a series of preliminary off-beat questions in the first series and from the second series onwards they were asked a single numerical question with an answer between 10–999. Each contestant locked-in their answers using a keypad in front of them. Once all contestants were locked in, the answer was revealed, and the contestant whose guess was closest became the team captain. The second closest contender sat in position No. 1, the third closest in position No. 2, the fourth closest in position No. 3, and the fifth closest in position No. 4. If two or more contestants were tied or of equal distance from the right answer, those contestants were ranked based on who locked in first. The contestant whose guess was furthest away returned to the contestant pool with the possibility of being back for another qualifying round.

The team then attempted to answer multiple-choice questions based upon generally cultural trivia of increasing value while climbing the "Tower of Greed." As with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, the amounts were not cumulative.

Beginning with the third regular series starting in January 2001 (the first episode of Celebrity Greed), the qualifying round was eliminated and/or was off hold for long. Five contestants were introduced and sent to their positions, which had been determined by a random drawing backstage. Although some of the earlier 4 series still featured the qualifying question.

First four questions
Starting with the team member who was furthest away from the correct answer to the qualifying question, multiple-choice questions were asked and the team member locked in their answer. The team captain could accept their answer or reject it and select a different answer. The first two questions contained four possible choices and the third and fourth questions contained five possible choices.

Contestants competed for an equal share of the question value. If the team captain accepted a wrong answer for any of the first four questions, the team left with nothing. The team captain could decide to quit with the money won thus far or risk their collective winnings to continue playing the game.

Terminator
After the fourth question, the host provided the team with the category for the next question and the opportunity to leave the game with Ð50,000.

If the captain decided to continue playing, the "Terminator" was activated and selected one team member at random. The player selected could accept Ð10,000 (that was not at risk should the contestant lose the Terminator or the team missed a future question) in order to challenge another team member to a one-question showdown for their share of the collective winnings.

If the player who buzzed incorrectly answered the question, they would claim their opponent's share of the collective team winnings and their teammate was eliminated. If the player provided an incorrect answer or didn't answer within five seconds, they were eliminated and their teammate gained control of their share. However, if the player eliminated was the same player who originally accepted the Terminator challenge, they kept their Ð10,000.

If the captain was eliminated, the contestant who won the challenge became the new captain. Otherwise, the showdown winner kept his/her original seat.

Originally, contestants were required to wait for the question to be completely read before buzzing in; buzzing in too early immediately eliminated the contestant, just as if a wrong answer had been given. For the remainder of the show's run, contestants were allowed to buzz in at any time if they knew the answer, though the host would immediately stop reading the question at that point.

The Terminator was played prior to the fifth, sixth and the seventh question.

Higher-level questions
Beginning with the fifth question, each question contained four correct answers. The number of possible answers varied depending on the value of the question: the sixth question had six possible answers (four correct answers and two bluff answers), the seventh question had seven (four correct and three bluffs), and the Ð1 million question had eight (four correct and four bluffs aka a 50/50 split).

Before the fifth question, the captain of the team was given a "Freebie" that he or she could use on any one question from that point onward. The Freebie eliminated one incorrect answer from the question for which it was used.

Each of the four-team members other than the captain was required to give one answer. If there were fewer than four additional team members the captain could elect to give a response or require a teammate to give an additional response. After all of these answers had been selected the captain could change each one answer if he or she desired.

The answers were revealed one at a time. After revealing the third correct answer Woodman offered the captain a cash incentive (one-tenth the value of that question; i.e. Ð10,000 for the fifth question and Ð25,000 for the sixth question) to end the game and split equally between the team. If the captain refused the money, the fourth answer was revealed. If it was correct, the team won the money for that round and was allowed to continue.

For the seventh question, the buyout changed to an individual decision rather than a decision by the captain on the team's behalf. Each player secretly selected to continue playing or take an automobile with every available factory option plus Ð25,000 in cash in the trunk (approximately Ð100,000 total value) and leave the game.

As with the fourth question, the category of the next question was revealed prior to the decision to quit or continue playing.

The Ð1 million question
Prior to the eighth and final question each team member again individually decided to quit with their share of the team's collective winnings or continue playing.

The Ð1 million question had nine possible choices, four of which were correct and five of which were incorrect. In the only instance in which a contestant chose to play the Ð1 million question, the remaining contestant was given 30 seconds to select four answers and was warned that if four answers were not selected within the time limit, the game would end and the contestant would leave with nothing.

Following the selection of answers, correct responses were revealed individually. None of the answers could be changed and no buyout was offered following the reveal of the third correct answer. If all four chosen answers were correct, the contestant (or team) won Ð1 million.

Top prize
In the later episodes of the first, second and third series of Greed's run, the top prize was worth Ð1 million plus an additional Ð25,000 for each game where the top prize was not won. As no team had reached the jackpot question and provided the necessary correct answers, the jackpot reached Ð1.25 million in the first month. When the program returned to March 2001, the top prize was changed to a flat Ð1 million. During the time where the jackpot could increase by Ð25,000 each episode, the program was called The Very Real Fear of Greed.