What do you get when you purchase a penny pusher, increase it in size, and put into a studio set? You get this very popular ITV Game Show produced by Zodiak Media/Banijay's RDF Television division, and hosted by breakfast TV personality Ben Shephard.
When it first premiered in 2012, Tipping Point was a summer filler programme when The Chase was on it's usual summer break, and you'd think it would just end up how it did. Well, you'd be wrong! The show has been running for over nine years and is still going strong!
The concept is simple enough: Four contestants answer general knowledge questions, and whatever they get right they get awarded counters that go in the giant machine, and must win the most money to head into the next round, or otherwise you're eliminated. Within the second season, they introduced star counters where you win spot prizes, and sometime later they introduced double-counters
Then, the same thing happens (while including a head to head round) until there's one left. Then, they'd put the jackpot counter in, and see if they can reach it to the bottom to win that sweet £10,000! It's worth it, too!
Now, onto other stuff. Ben Shephard is fine as a host, he used to be a bit bland and one-dimensional, but he's gotten better at it now. He's a bit of a hugger, so when you win the £10,000, watch out! His popular Ben Hugs are not escapable! The set is quite dark and simplistic, and it's not overloaded with LED lights and nightclub-looking sets.
Lastly, are the flaws. There are way too many ad breaks, and overall the rounds are way too short for this reason otherwise, couldn't you just make the rounds longer and the ad breaks longer! Secondly, the show is quite one-dimensional, so it gets predicable and boring quickly. Lastly, some contestants are quite dumb, with some acting like that on purpose, but that's to be expected in game shows all the time.
Overall, Tipping Point is a pretty good game show. It's not as entertaining as some others, but it's still decent otherwise.
