[Neil Jones]

One thing noteable now is how it's almost always cash prizes. Wheel of Fortune, Family Fortunes and Tipping Point still have spot prizes but that's about it. You'd think there would be opportunities to rely more on sponsor prizes rather than just paying out cash as the daytime phone comps tend to do.

It's ironic really because back in the day when you won prizes like a toaster or a video recorder it was pretty much brandless in the description, though they were never mentioned when they were blatantly on screen. These days that sort of thing is ripe for the likes of "a Beko washing machine and dryer courtesy of ao.com" or similar. But of course back then you couldn't do that.

Cash prizes on Wheel of Fortune came later in the original run. Originally it was just a car on offer, as there was naff all else, as whatever you racked up on the wheel just decided to went to play for the car - you might have racked up 20k points but you weren't going to get £20k like you did in the original format and the later reboot...

Bullseye made a big deal from 1993 when they were able to start giving away what they called Bully's Treasure Chest, which was £5k in cash. Previously it was usually a speedboat or a car or a holiday or occasionally some furniture (and that one time two macho men won a fashion spree for some reason) - all to the rough same value of £5k or so so ultimately it didn't make any difference (topped up of course with what you won first time round).