The 1% Club

[Marc Meakin]

Really enjoyed this.
Lee Mack is very good
The questions inevitably start of very easy.
Some questions toward the end are very Only Connect or MENSA.
I also like the fact contestants can keep the £1000 if they get near to the end

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

Lee Mack is an absolute natural, compare him to so many other presenters who struggle to read the auto-cue!

[Mark James]

When and where it is on? Haven't heard of it.

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

Weekend evening, probably Saturday

[James Robinson]

When and where it is on? Haven't heard of it.

Saturday 8:30, ITV.

I did the pilot for this in January 2020. Had so much fun, was also supposed to be on this series, but got COVID the week before recording.

I’ve been told that if it gets a second series, I’ll be on.

[Christy Cooper]

When and where it is on? Haven't heard of it.

Saturday 8:30, ITV.

I did the pilot for this in January 2020. Had so much fun, was also supposed to be on this series, but got COVID the week before recording.

I’ve been told that if it gets a second series, I’ll be on.

I did the second pilot/runthrough which was back in June 2021 (think the pilot filmed in the July)- unfortunately the age range for the main show was 18 and I was only a few weeks away from it whereas I believe the age was 16 for the pilot, so hopefully Series 2 for me as well

[Marc Meakin]

I played along, as it were, in episode 2 and bottled the last question but would have won 10 grand

[Marc Meakin]

Just applied to go on this.
Hoping to get an audition around the time of my Countdown taping

[John Garcia]

Graham Nash was on The 1% Club on Saturday 21st May 2022. He made it all the way to the second to last round, but got a relatively easy question wrong and so didn't make it to the final question.

[Fiona T]

Graham Nash was on The 1% Club on Saturday 21st May 2022. He made it all the way to the second to last round, but got a relatively easy question wrong and so didn't make it to the final question.

Saw Mike Brailsford on there too

[Philip A]

Heads up!

Series 3 starts 17th February at 8:50 pm. And it’s twice longer; 16 shows!

[Marc Meakin]

Season 3 has started and there has been a significant shift to logic questions over word related ones (apart from the 1% question ironically)
I find to make the show more enjoyable towards the sharp end I'm freeze framing the questions to give me enough time to get it right.
I usually have to read questions twice for it to sink in sometimes.

I freeze frame conundrums too during CoCs and Countdown series finals.

Still 1% club is by far the best quiz/ light entertainment show on tv

[Steve Hyde]

Is it just me or were there 3 or 4 questions where you could make a decent argument for more than one answer being correct tonight? 5% question in particular can eff right off

[Ian Fitzpatrick]

Is it just me or were there 3 or 4 questions where you could make a decent argument for more than one answer being correct tonight? 5% question in particular can eff right off

Yes, there were at least two, what I called ambiguous, questions last night.

[Elliott Mellor]

Is it just me or were there 3 or 4 questions where you could make a decent argument for more than one answer being correct tonight? 5% question in particular can eff right off

Yes, there were at least two, what I called ambiguous, questions last night.

Aye, some horrible questions there. I'd have gone 5 instead of 2 on national anthem question, but you can make a strong argument for both. The eyes/is thing was brutal too - it's not so much ambiguous as a question, but when read out...

Also, we had a difference of opinion on "first letter of the alphabet" - I gravitated towards a, whereas my sister was going for t.

[Philip A]

Is it just me or were there 3 or 4 questions where you could make a decent argument for more than one answer being correct tonight? 5% question in particular can eff right off

Yes, there were at least two, what I called ambiguous, questions last night.

Aye, some horrible questions there. I'd have gone 5 instead of 2 on national anthem question, but you can make a strong argument for both. The eyes/is thing was brutal too - it's not so much ambiguous as a question, but when read out...

Also, we had a difference of opinion on "first letter of the alphabet" - I gravitated towards a, whereas my sister was going for t.

To be fair, if you read the question properly it clearly stipulates a “commonly-used word”. According to Lexplorer:

EFF has an estimated obscurity of 66% (rare) and returns about 158,000,000 Google results.

WHY has an estimated obscurity of 0% (ubiquitous) and returns about 20,800,000,000 Google results.

The national anthem question also stipulates words in the verse, not different words, which would otherwise make the answer 2.

The winner was impressive. My brain gave way from 25% onwards!

[Elliott Mellor]

Yes, there were at least two, what I called ambiguous, questions last night.

Aye, some horrible questions there. I'd have gone 5 instead of 2 on national anthem question, but you can make a strong argument for both. The eyes/is thing was brutal too - it's not so much ambiguous as a question, but when read out...

Also, we had a difference of opinion on "first letter of the alphabet" - I gravitated towards a, whereas my sister was going for t.

To be fair, if you read the question properly it clearly stipulates a “commonly-used word”. According to Lexplorer:

EFF has an estimated obscurity of 66% (rare) and returns about 158,000,000 Google results.

WHY has an estimated obscurity of 0% (ubiquitous) and returns about 20,800,000,000 Google results.

The national anthem question also stipulates words in the verse, not different words, which would otherwise make the answer 2.

The winner was impressive. My brain gave way from 25% onwards!

How is that in any way related to what I said? I didn't refer to that question anywhere.

[Gavin Chipper]

What were the actual questions and "correct" answers? Might as well make it explicit at this point.

[Philip A]

Aye, some horrible questions there. I'd have gone 5 instead of 2 on national anthem question, but you can make a strong argument for both. The eyes/is thing was brutal too - it's not so much ambiguous as a question, but when read out...

Also, we had a difference of opinion on "first letter of the alphabet" - I gravitated towards a, whereas my sister was going for t.

To be fair, if you read the question properly it clearly stipulates a “commonly-used word”. According to Lexplorer:

EFF has an estimated obscurity of 66% (rare) and returns about 158,000,000 Google results.

WHY has an estimated obscurity of 0% (ubiquitous) and returns about 20,800,000,000 Google results.

The national anthem question also stipulates words in the verse, not different words, which would otherwise make the answer 2.

The winner was impressive. My brain gave way from 25% onwards!

How is that in any way related to what I said? I didn't refer to that question anywhere.

Apologies, my fault for not quoting separately; sorry if this is confusing. My 4th sentence down related to, “you can make a strong argument for both.” 5 is definitely the only correct answer.

Anyways, our and r so you all win.

[Philip A]

The 5% question was:

“YOU is a three-letter word that when you remove the first two letters and just the third letter remains the word still sounds the same. What other commonly-used three letter word does this?”

The “correct” answer, according to the show, was WHY - Y. Indeed, the phonetic spellings match in Oxford Dictionaries Premium. However, OUR has two phonetic spellings in Oxford Dictionaries Premium, the latter being identical to the letter R. When discounting commonly-used words, ELL - L and the aforementioned EFF - F also work. For what it’s worth, any of these should be accepted IMHO.

[Fiona T]

Yeah that's daft - I pronounce the h in why as do many people!

[Gavin Chipper]

OK, thanks.

[Marc Meakin]

It's moot unless any of the contestants answered the alternate choices

[Gavin Chipper]

You could potentially also have ESS, like the ess bends at Suzuka (racing track).

[Steve Hyde]

For the record I don't really think EFF is commonly used enough to be a valid answer, regardless of how many times I used it during last night's episode. I was trying to avoid spoilers. OUR and WHY definitely are though

[Steve Hyde]

It's moot unless any of the contestants answered the alternate choices

It's annoying for those of us playing along in the app

[Gavin Chipper]

For the record I don't really think EFF is commonly used enough to be a valid answer, regardless of how many times I used it during last night's episode. I was trying to avoid spoilers. OUR and WHY definitely are though

"Common" is too vague to use in a quiz question. I wouldn't say EFF isn't common.

[Elliott Mellor]

I think the EFF/ESS/ELL thing is more a case of scrabblers and Countdowners being pedantic about alternative answers as opposed to any of them really fitting the "commonly used word" criterion. I agree with Gevin that "common" is a bit vague to use in a question, but I don't think anyone would really say that you could place EFF in the "common word" category. I don't really like pronunciation questions in general because, as pointed out, they're open to regional variations (I remember a 1% question which was all the words ended with the homophone of a number, when they most definitely did not in my accent - ATE and EIGHT are not homophones to me.)

[Callum Todd]

Regional accents probably changed the answer for that one too. For example I would consider OUR and HEN to be valid answers in my dialect but not in Queen's (King's?) English

[Adam Gillard]

Regional accents probably changed the answer for that one too. For example I would consider OUR and HEN to be valid answers in my dialect but not in Queen's (King's?) English

Hem and Hex alongside Hen in that case

[Callum Todd]

Regional accents probably changed the answer for that one too. For example I would consider OUR and HEN to be valid answers in my dialect but not in Queen's (King's?) English

Hem and Hex alongside Hen in that case

Yep. Maybe OAR in Irish accent?

[Martin Hurst]

Anyone else find the ending unsatisfactory when we have the scenario where everyone remaining gets eliminated on the same question? Seems a bit of a cop out that all those eliminated on that question just get flung to the 1% question and have the ability to collect the money, or play for the full prize pot.

I'd like to see one of two potential processes:
1) Those who lasted the longest get to play the 1% question, but on a halved prize fund, with no option to cash out (and no entry to the "1% Club" (if that is even seriously a thing))
2) All 100 get put back in the game, and get to attempt to answer the 1% question, with everyone who gets it correct getting an equal share of the full prize fund (which is similar to what they used to do on the kindred 1990s show Whittle if the winner got the final question wrong)

[Elliott Mellor]

Anyone else find the ending unsatisfactory when we have the scenario where everyone remaining gets eliminated on the same question? Seems a bit of a cop out that all those eliminated on that question just get flung to the 1% question and have the ability to collect the money, or play for the full prize pot.

I'd like to see one of two potential processes:
1) Those who lasted the longest get to play the 1% question, but on a halved prize fund, with no option to cash out (and no entry to the "1% Club" (if that is even seriously a thing))
2) All 100 get put back in the game, and get to attempt to answer the 1% question, with everyone who gets it correct getting an equal share of the full prize fund (which is similar to what they used to do on the kindred 1990s show Whittle if the winner got the final question wrong)

Yeah I think it's a cop-out as well and have considered what might be a better alternative approach. I like your first suggestion here especially (I don't think it'd be fair for someone who was eliminated on the 90% question to be given the same crack at winning the prize fund as someone who battled their way through and got eliminated on a difficult 5% question - I think there should be some reward for being the furthest in the show).

I think if they implemented option 2 then you'd get a lot more people cashing out with their £1000, reasoning that they still had a chance of winning a share of the jackpot if nobody got through to the 1% question, and they were unlikely to make it through themselves.

[Philip A]

Anyone else find the ending unsatisfactory when we have the scenario where everyone remaining gets eliminated on the same question? Seems a bit of a cop out that all those eliminated on that question just get flung to the 1% question and have the ability to collect the money, or play for the full prize pot.

I'd like to see one of two potential processes:
1) Those who lasted the longest get to play the 1% question, but on a halved prize fund, with no option to cash out (and no entry to the "1% Club" (if that is even seriously a thing))
2) All 100 get put back in the game, and get to attempt to answer the 1% question, with everyone who gets it correct getting an equal share of the full prize fund (which is similar to what they used to do on the kindred 1990s show Whittle if the winner got the final question wrong)

Agree re halved prize fund. The rest, absolutely not.

Those who do equal best and get the same question wrong simply win an equal share of £5,000 instead of £10,000, and can and should be able to still decide whether to take it or risk it all for a share of half the prize fund (£50,000 or less).

Anyone knocked out in previous questions before that point should never be brought back. Otherwise players would deliberately get a question wrong to try and walk away with a bit of money on the 1% question, and it wouldn’t be a good game.

I guess you can’t make things too complicated for TV, even when quashing flaws. At least you don’t win all the money if there’s more than one winner so the money element works out reasonably well overall FWIW.

[Elliott Mellor]

Anyone knocked out in previous questions before that point should never be brought back. Otherwise players would deliberately get a question wrong to try and walk away with a bit of money on the 1% question, and it wouldn’t be a good game.

Not sure I understand this. What benefit is there to deliberately getting a question wrong? There is no benefit to doing anything other than remaining in the game for as long as you can. If no one gets to the 1% question and it's then open to everyone, then whether you was eliminated early or late doesn't matter. You might as well try and stay in and get to the 1% question and have a crack at a much larger prize.

[Philip A]

Anyone knocked out in previous questions before that point should never be brought back. Otherwise players would deliberately get a question wrong to try and walk away with a bit of money on the 1% question, and it wouldn’t be a good game.

Not sure I understand this. What benefit is there to deliberately getting a question wrong? There is no benefit to doing anything other than remaining in the game for as long as you can. If no one gets to the 1% question and it's then open to everyone, then whether you was eliminated early or late doesn't matter. You might as well try and stay in and get to the 1% question and have a crack at a much larger prize.

Look at it this way: if the rules were that all 100 players were brought back into the game, that would be an enormous flaw. Everyone might as well all get 90% wrong and go straight through to 1%. Therefore, Martin’s 1st suggestion is better. The format as it is incentives right answers.

Some formats in the past have done this (Whittle and !mpossible). But only putting the best player(s) forward is preferable, in my view.

[Elliott Mellor]

Anyone knocked out in previous questions before that point should never be brought back. Otherwise players would deliberately get a question wrong to try and walk away with a bit of money on the 1% question, and it wouldn’t be a good game.

Not sure I understand this. What benefit is there to deliberately getting a question wrong? There is no benefit to doing anything other than remaining in the game for as long as you can. If no one gets to the 1% question and it's then open to everyone, then whether you was eliminated early or late doesn't matter. You might as well try and stay in and get to the 1% question and have a crack at a much larger prize.

Look at it this way: if the rules were that all 100 players were brought back into the game, that would be an enormous flaw. Everyone might as well all get 90% wrong and go straight through to 1%. Therefore, Martin’s 1st suggestion is better. The format as it is incentives right answers.

Some formats in the past have done this (Whittle and !mpossible). But only putting the best player(s) forward is preferable, in my view.

Er...no they wouldn't? It's absolutely unquestionably better from an individual perspective to go as far as you can. Either you make it all the way and get a crack at a much larger amount, or you don't in which case you've got the fallback anyway. There is literally no situation where it is better for a person to tank early on.

I do think it's a daft idea bringing everyone back, but your argument here is completely illogical.

[Philip A]

After record ratings, they’ve just renewed 2 more series and we’re only 2 episodes in this current one.

[Philip A]

Better questions this week. I stupidly failed 25%. I got 1% right, though.

[Marc Meakin]

Better questions this week. I stupidly failed 25%. I got 1% right, though.

One percent was surprisingly easy.
The one with the hand digits did me (I think it was early on maybe 70%) I didn't spot the 1st 2 were seperated boxes)

[JackHurst]

Saw this for the first time yesterday. Can imagine many Countdowners having a go especially if they need 100 players per episode!


Anybody else find Lee Mack unbearably facetious?

[Gavin Chipper]

I've still not watched this. Is it like 1 vs 100 (which I've also not watched)?

[Fiona T]

facetious

That was the answer to the 1% question in one of the early episodes

[Philip A]

Saw this for the first time yesterday. Can imagine many Countdowners having a go especially if they need 100 players per episode!


Anybody else find Lee Mack unbearably facetious?

Quite a few Countdowners already have played. I don’t find Lee facetious at all. I find him a natural. Without him this wouldn’t be a ratings winner as it is now. Each to their own, I guess. I seriously would like to see him host Bullseye.

This current series has been inundated with applicants so quickly, they had to close the applications early; shows the strength of the format.

[Philip A]

I've still not watched this. Is it like 1 vs 100 (which I've also not watched)?

This should help: http://www.ukgameshows.com/ukgs/The_1%25_Club It has a live play-along app as well.

[Gavin Chipper]

Cool, thanks.

[Marc Meakin]

Saturdays 1% question
Spoilers below







Would a half been acceptable given the sequence before?
Also each sequence is 22 greater than the one below

[Elliott Mellor]

Saturdays 1% question
Spoilers below


Would a half been acceptable given the sequence before?
Also each sequence is 22 greater than the one below

Why would a half be an acceptable answer?

[Marc Meakin]

Saturdays 1% question
Spoilers below


Would a half been acceptable given the sequence before?
Also each sequence is 22 greater than the one below

Why would a half be an acceptable answer?

2 x a half is 1 so sequentially it would work

[Elliott Mellor]

Saturdays 1% question
Spoilers below


Would a half been acceptable given the sequence before?
Also each sequence is 22 greater than the one below

Why would a half be an acceptable answer?

2 x a half is 1 so sequentially it would work

I understand that 2 x 0.5 = 1, I just don't know how you think that 1 logically follows the sequence 98, 76, 54, 32. I suppose it does make the sequence 987654321, but the implication is that each answer is a 2 digit number, and it's also clearly decreasing by 22 each time.

[Marc Meakin]

I can't remember how the question was worded.
Even though each answer decreases by 22
Lee said 10 was the answer because it was the numerals in descending order.

[Marc Meakin]

I've noticed the questions are becoming much more solvable but there is more emphasis in being against the clock whereby a lot of question require counting quickly

[Philip A]

The questions for 23rd of March were good. I think the questions tend to be better and worse in different episodes over the series, in terms on ambiguity. The 45% question about the clockface had a second correct answer if you account 24-hour format, but that doesn’t make it any less unfair.

[Elliott Mellor]

A bit disappointed by the ambiguity of some of the questions of late. On yesterday's there were two questions which I think were especially poor.

- Making every month 30 days long does not mean you'd have fewer days in a year. A year would still have the same number of days; you'd just have more months in a year.

- "If you had the same number of toes on your right foot as your left hand" - you don't have any toes on your left hand, so this should have been interpreted as 0. Wouldn't have been too hard for them to word the sentence properly here and use "if you had the same number of toes on your right foot as fingers on your left hand".

[Philip A]

A bit disappointed by the ambiguity of some of the questions of late. On yesterday's there were two questions which I think were especially poor.

- Making every month 30 days long does not mean you'd have fewer days in a year. A year would still have the same number of days; you'd just have more months in a year.

- "If you had the same number of toes on your right foot as your left hand" - you don't have any toes on your left hand, so this should have been interpreted as 0. Wouldn't have been too hard for them to word the sentence properly here and use "if you had the same number of toes on your right foot as fingers on your left hand".

I thought the calendar question was fine, but yes, Twitter was raging at the fingers and toes question for exactly the same reason. Very poor. I gather contestants argue their cases during the recordings.

[Elliott Mellor]

A bit disappointed by the ambiguity of some of the questions of late. On yesterday's there were two questions which I think were especially poor.

- Making every month 30 days long does not mean you'd have fewer days in a year. A year would still have the same number of days; you'd just have more months in a year.

- "If you had the same number of toes on your right foot as your left hand" - you don't have any toes on your left hand, so this should have been interpreted as 0. Wouldn't have been too hard for them to word the sentence properly here and use "if you had the same number of toes on your right foot as fingers on your left hand".

I thought the calendar question was fine, but yes, Twitter was raging at the fingers and toes question for exactly the same reason. Very poor. I gather contestants argue their cases during the recordings.

A year is the time it takes the earth to complete one revolution of the sun. That's 365.25 days regardless of how many days you shove in each month. A year is not defined scientifically as "12 months".

There shouldn't be ambiguous questions making it in to the final question deck that gets used. You should have one clear right answer, with no room for discussion. If you allow contestants to "argue their case" for alternative answers, then where do you draw the line as to what is acceptable and what isn't? It also makes for a poor viewer experience to be told the answer is different to what they got, even though they have a very valid solution.

It's a bit disappointing that a show with such a huge prize fund apparently can't be bothered to at least quality check the questions they use.

[Philip A]

A bit disappointed by the ambiguity of some of the questions of late. On yesterday's there were two questions which I think were especially poor.

- Making every month 30 days long does not mean you'd have fewer days in a year. A year would still have the same number of days; you'd just have more months in a year.

- "If you had the same number of toes on your right foot as your left hand" - you don't have any toes on your left hand, so this should have been interpreted as 0. Wouldn't have been too hard for them to word the sentence properly here and use "if you had the same number of toes on your right foot as fingers on your left hand".

I thought the calendar question was fine, but yes, Twitter was raging at the fingers and toes question for exactly the same reason. Very poor. I gather contestants argue their cases during the recordings.

A year is the time it takes the earth to complete one revolution of the sun. That's 365.25 days regardless of how many days you shove in each month. A year is not defined scientifically as "12 months".

There shouldn't be ambiguous questions making it in to the final question deck that gets used. You should have one clear right answer, with no room for discussion. If you allow contestants to "argue their case" for alternative answers, then where do you draw the line as to what is acceptable and what isn't? It also makes for a poor viewer experience to be told the answer is different to what they got, even though they have a very valid solution.

It's a bit disappointing that a show with such a huge prize fund apparently can't be bothered to at least quality check the questions they use.

Accoring to a Digital Spy Forum:

“The independent adjudicator had to be called in on this one cos someone gave an answer about this. Their answer was accepted.” https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussio ... thread/p75

So, unfortunately, anyone who put either 17 or 25 ended up going through. That’s what happened.

As you say, very poor and surely bare minimum when setting up quizzes is to verify each question and check no ambiguous or wrong questions slip through the net. 17 is the correct answer.

It’s unacceptable, frankly, and as you say is frustrating for the viewers. I don’t think any other quiz show has had such a high rate or wrong/ambiguous questions.

[Marc Meakin]

I think Only Connect has a few ambiguous answers but it isn't so costly as 1% club

[Marc Meakin]

I noticed there were far more questions related to numbers and counting in Saturdays (27th April) episode.
The 1% question wa a doozy.
Had to pause and work it out and 2 minutes later logic (not my strong suite ) kicked in

[Philip A]

No 1% Club on 11th of May because of Eurovision. ITV will show Bond instead.