The Mint (Australian game show)

The Mint
Genre	Live phone-in game show
Presented by	Rob Mills Natalie Garonzi Angela Johnson Nathaniel Buzolic
Country of origin	Australia
Original language	English
Production
Production location	GTV-9 in Richmond, Victoria
Running time	180 minutes Mondays - Thursdays 240 minutes Fridays and Saturdays (including commercials)
Original release
Network	Nine Network
Release	31 July 2007

The Mint is an Australian phone-in quiz show based on the British program of the same name, and broadcast on the Nine Network in the late night time slot (post-midnight).

From Nine's Richmond studios in Melbourne, the show replaced Quizmania and is produced entirely by the Nine Network, unlike Quizmania which was produced by Fremantle Media. Like Quizmania, the program gets its revenue from phone charges rather than advertisements.

Only contestants aged 18 or over are allowed to participate. Each entry costs a flat 55c to a premium-rate 1902 number – more from mobile telephones – even if you don't get through the two-stage selection process.

Program history

The Mint began on 31 July 2007 after the 2007 Big Brother series on Network Ten had ended, with its UpLate late-night show finished, a similar style phone-in quiz show.

Shown on GTV-9, TCN-9, QTQ-9, NTD-8 and NBN, The Mint is broadcast live which requires the hosts to welcome the Northern Territory audience due to its thirty minutes time zone difference to the Australian east coast. Regional affiliate WIN Television commenced broadcast of the programme on 1 October 2007.

Hosting

Hosts of The Mint are Australian Idol 2003 contestant Rob Mills, Cherie Hausler, Natalie Garonzi, Angela Johnson and Nathaniel Buzolic.

Despite there being five hosts, only two are present the show on any night; the remainder are said to be sleeping in "the Mansion", their name for the studio set. The host combination often consists of one male and one female, performing as a double act, but has also been known to consist of two females. While there are two hosts in an episode, hosts mainly appear on camera by themselves. The exceptions are during the start of the show, when a prize is won, and at the end of the show. Otherwise, the hosts present from different rooms within "the mansion".

Games

The namesake of "The Mint" comes from the large vault visible on set. The vault holds a jackpot which can be unlocked by correctly guessing a three digit combination. With a 1 in 1000 chance of guessing the code correctly, the prize money in the vault increases each Monday night. Only winners of on-screen games are eligible for a single guess at the combination.

In similar style to the British equivalent, cash prizes offered on The Mint are bigger than those previously offered on Quizmania, however prize winners are less often whereas Quizmania had more contestants more often winning prizes as low as $50.

Examples of on-screen games viewers can call-in to solve includes:

Code Red

This quiz, called "Code Red" by the hosts, was on the 2 August 2007 episode of The Mint. Viewers were told to find and call-in to tell the host "how many reds" are in the puzzle, with little else to explain how to solve it.

The prize money for this puzzle started at $1000, rising to $2000 within the first ten minutes then a high of $2500 within the next ten minutes, before reverting back to $1000 at 167 minutes into the show with 14 minutes left.

Despite the show lasting three hours with numerous contestants calling to offer guesses, no-one gave a correct answer and therefore no prize money was awarded at all for the entire night. At the end of the show they revealed the answer.

How many Fives?

Another game, called "How many Fives?", consisted of a square grid puzzle on the screen, with each grid square filled with a letter E, V, I, F or the number 5 in a seemingly random fashion. Viewers were told to count "how many fives" were in the puzzle, again with little else to explain how to solve it.

An obvious way for contestants to participate was to count instances of the word F-I-V-E in adjoining squares. Contestants could also have counted the 5 numerals.

Technical difficulties

On 16 August 2007 the show finished prematurely after the phone lines went down, requiring hosts Rob Mills and Natalie Garonzi to stall the contest and fill-in for 30 minutes. As they couldn't get the phone lines back up in time, the last 30 minutes of the show's schedule was replaced by a repeat of the Keynotes game show from 1992.

The phone system used for The Mint is run by Belong Group, formerly known as Legion Interactive, the same provider for most shows with a telephone call-in or SMS competition entry method, including Quizmania and Big Brother in Australia.

See also

• The Mint (UK)

External links

• The Mint
• The Mint - MySpace