Magic Numbers was an ITV game show broadcast live across seven Saturday nights in 2010, presented by Stephen Mulhern. Similar to Talking Telephone Numbers, another Celador production, celebrity guests assisted contestants to win hopefully a six-figure sum.
Format[]
Mulhern is joined each week by some celebrity guests. In the first part of the show, these guests answered questions or undergo challenges to generate six numbers. The public then phoned a premium-rate number if their landline number contained two or more of these digits. These callers were entered into a prize draw, from which the winner would compete in the final round for up to £350,000.
In the final round, there are 10 briefcases: two of them are opened with cash amounts in, three have X symbols in. Stephen asks five quiz questions to the phone-in winner. Each correct answer put a five-figure prize into one of the five briefcases, a wrong one introduced another X. The briefcases were then brought into the studio by ten models, and the contestant was asked to select four, which contained their prize money.
Reception[]
The show did not perform well amongst viewers, who voted it the third worst show of the year in the UKGameShows.com Poll of the Year 2010, behind only Ant & Dec's Push the Button and notorious BBC flop 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow.
Trivia[]
- The highest winner on the show, Pamela Mullins, from Sheffield, won £290,000 on 7 August.
- The show didn't give any money away until the third episode.