Dave Thorp's Blog

ITV has a new game show in the 5pm slot called Divided. Like the show it took over from (Golden Balls) it seems to be a cost saving venture on the part of ITV as it is a game show that gives people silly amounts of money and then takes it away from them through their own greed or stupidity.

In golden balls players win money, then at the end have to decide whether to split the money in which case everyone wins or try and steal the money in which case only one person wins as long as the other splits. If they both steal the only winner is ITV as the money goes straight back to them. Consequently intelligence suggests that you should split as that way someone is bound to win some money and the day filming has actually been worthwhile as opposed to when you both steal and you may as well have stayed in bed all day!

Divided has a very similar ending where you win the money and then three people have to decide how to split it. In today’s show £30,000 was split into three pots. Pot A had £21,000, pot B had £6000 and pot C had £3000. So all the players had to do was decide who deserved which pot. Of course two greedy people decided they were entitled to the larger share (one of them greedier than the other because she was sadly misguided as she actually cost the team money through her dithering) and they then promptly went through an agonising 100 seconds watching all three pots drop to zero. Once again victory for ITV who saved themselves £30k that they would have had to payout if the contestants had simply not been greedy.

ITV seems to be doing a lot of shows like these two that depend on human greed in order to save them having to payout any cash at all. At times it does make painful viewing though to watch people throw away such huge amounts of cash and today in particular a poor 19 year old girl was in tears begging one of the other two to drop down to a lower pot.

It is such a shame that the human condition has got to the stage where they cant see that if they simply learn to share, they will be better off than if they follow their greed.

People may or may not be familiar with the TV programme Goldenballs on ITV in which people accumulate a vast fortune througout the game and then at the end have the option to split the money meaning everyone takes money home or steal the money which only works if the other person splits because if both steal they leave with nothing.

So we go to todays show where the jackpot is £70k or thereabouts, which is one of the higher jackpots. And what happens, both daft sods steal handing the money straight back to ITV.

If they didn’t want £35000 a piece, the least they could have done is let me know as I’d be more than happy to take it off their hands meaning their day actually meant something rather than they may as well have stopped in bed or spent the day picking their nose rather than appear on a game show