Countdown
Countdown is a letters and numbers game shown on Channel 4 in the UK.
Presented by Richard Whiteley, the show has been around since Channel 4 began in 1982 and is particularly popular with many elderly people and students. A television institution, the entire batch of recordings would take over two months to watch non-stop.
The show involves two players, who compete to return as champion the next day. This is unless they win eight shows, as at this point, they must retire.
A celebrity guest and lexicographer sit in what is known as dictionary corner. Their job is to check the words and to participate in the general banter of the show.
Carol Vorderman has the job of putting up the letters and numbers, and attempting to solve a numbers game if the contestants fall short.
The components of the game itself:
"The Letters Game" involves one contestant picking 9 letters by specifying "vowel" or "consonant" for each letter to be included in the selection. When this is complete, the aim is for both players to arrange the letters to create the longest word they can in 30 seconds.
Unless they get a nine letter word, if both players get legal words of equal length, both score points equal to the number of letters in the word. Nine letter words score 18 points.
If a contestant manages to beat their opponent at a letters game, they score points in the same way, but the beaten contestant scores nothing. Three of these rounds are played, with the person making the selection alternated for each.
Next comes "The Numbers Game", where a contestant starts by choosing six cards. Face down and available for selection are four cards containing big numbers (100, 75, 50 and 25) and 20 cards containing smaller numbers (two sets of 1 to 10). Players can pick any combination of these, e.g. two big numbers and four small numbers. They can also specify precise cards or the rows cards are to be picked from.
Both contestants are then shown the selected cards and the target between 101 and 999 is generated for the players to aim for. The idea then is to get as close to the target within 30 seconds using the selected numbers and the basic mathematical symbols of plus, minus, divide, multiply and brackets. No number can be used more than once.
If both contestants are within 10 and equally far away from the number, they both score points. A direct hit scores 10 points, within 5 scores 7 points and within 10 scores 5 points. Again, if a contestant beats their opponent, they are the only player to score.
After the break, the letters game is played a further three times, and this is followed by another numbers game. Then comes the climax of the show, "The Countdown Conundrum". This is a scrambled nine letter word that gives 10 points to the first player to buzz in with the correct answer within 30 seconds. If you buzz and get it wrong, you cannot try again.
In the event of a tie after all this is completed, further conundrums are set until someone takes the 10 points to win the game. The top eight players of a series based on number of wins followed by aggregate score compete for the title of countdown champion in a seeded knock-out contest at the end of each series.