c4countdown

How exactly did the production team manage to round up 80-90% of all past series champions, runners-up and other top players for the original Supreme Championship (Series 33) and have them all accept their invitations? I thought the proportion who came to 30BC was impressive, and that still only included a minority of former finalists.

As far as I know, there weren't any HUGE incentives for winning Supreme -- I don't think the winner got anything near as valuable as a set of ODEs. Did more of them just live very close to Leeds/wherever the show was taped back then, making it easier for them to get to the studios?

The kudos was enough incentive, it was an epic series.

From what I think Damian has said, they got late notice for the 30th Birthday thing, so they just advertised it in a couple of places online - like here and Scrabble. That's why all the contestants from more than a few years ago were Scrabblers. It was a shame but that's my understanding. With the supremes, I imagine they had longer to contact people, although it's still surprising they got so many, with people potentially moving house etc. in the meantime. Also I wonder if nowadays there are greater restrictions on keeping people's data for long periods of time.

At about 4:05 in this clip, Whiteley appears to be telling us that they're about to invite applications from all and sundry for the first time. I'm sure I remember reading (on GevinCountdown perhaps?) that up to this point it had all been done through the Scrabble scene. Can someone confirm?

If that's right, when organising the supreme championship it would've been easy to reach everyone qualified for the event, and not hard to imagine that nearly all of them would've wanted to to take part.

Clive Brooker wrote:At about 4:05 in this clip, Whiteley appears to be telling us that they're about to invite applications from all and sundry for the first time. I'm sure I remember reading (on GevinCountdown perhaps?) that up to this point it had all been done through the Scrabble scene. Can someone confirm?

Not entirely true - I myself wasn't a Scrabbler until well after my Countdown experience, and that predated the Supreme Championship by a couple of years.

My recollection is that while Countdown was running only for 6 months out of every 12, it was no bother to fill all the seats with people who'd written to the show unsolicited (probably plus specific appeals to Scrabblers, in fairness). Series 33 was where the show moved to showing year-round though, and I think one of the impetuses for holding the Supreme Championship was that the Scrabble well was running dry just as the need for new challengers doubled - so that gave them an easy stopgap season before, for the first time, putting out a general on-air appeal for applicants.

If that's right, when organising the supreme championship it would've been easy to reach everyone qualified for the event, and not hard to imagine that nearly all of them would've wanted to to take part.

I recognise a good number of SC contestants as being Scrabblers of the day, certainly not all of them though. Possibly not even a majority.

Nick Deller wrote:

Clive Brooker wrote:At about 4:05 in this clip, Whiteley appears to be telling us that they're about to invite applications from all and sundry for the first time. I'm sure I remember reading (on GevinCountdown perhaps?) that up to this point it had all been done through the Scrabble scene. Can someone confirm?

Not entirely true - I myself wasn't a Scrabbler until well after my Countdown experience, and that predated the Supreme Championship by a couple of years.

My recollection is that while Countdown was running only for 6 months out of every 12, it was no bother to fill all the seats with people who'd written to the show unsolicited (probably plus specific appeals to Scrabblers, in fairness). Series 33 was where the show moved to showing year-round though, and I think one of the impetuses for holding the Supreme Championship was that the Scrabble well was running dry just as the need for new challengers doubled - so that gave them an easy stopgap season before, for the first time, putting out a general on-air appeal for applicants.

If that's right, when organising the supreme championship it would've been easy to reach everyone qualified for the event, and not hard to imagine that nearly all of them would've wanted to to take part.

I recognise a good number of SC contestants as being Scrabblers of the day, certainly not all of them though. Possibly not even a majority.

Nobody from Series 3 took part in the SC and 2 members of production team didn't put themselves forward, but Damian Eadie did.

Jojo Apollo wrote:The kudos was enough incentive, it was an epic series.

Great series I certainly agree with that Harvey Freeman was brilliant as was Allan Saldhana, but started watching Countdown when I was on Maternity Leave at that time.