Bert's Family Feud

Bert's Family Feud
Company type	Television program
Industry	Television entertainment
Founded	February 13, 2006; 20 years ago
Defunct	June 1, 2007
Fate	Cancelled
Headquarters	Melbourne, Australia
Products	Television game show
Parent	Grundy Television and FremantleMedia

Bert's Family Feud represented an Australian adaptation of the American game show Family Feud, produced collaboratively by Grundy Television and FremantleMedia, and broadcast on the Nine Network. The program was hosted by Bert Newton and featured celebrity participants alongside their family members, capitalizing on Newton's popularity to draw in viewers.

This series was designed to regain viewership lost to the Seven Network's Seven News and Today Tonight, which had benefited from the high ratings of Deal or No Deal in the 5:30 pm lead-in slot. Before its debut in February 2006, there was discussion about postponing the launch in favor of airing reruns of Friends as a strategy to improve ratings during that time period.

Debuting on 13 February 2006, Bert's Family Feud ran for 274 episodes before its cancellation in 2007. The final recording took place on 23 May 2007 at the GTV studios in Melbourne, with the last episode airing on 1 June 2007. The Castricum family secured $85,000 in the concluding episode. Despite underwhelming ratings, compilations of previous episodes continued to be broadcast on Mondays to fulfill contractual advertising obligations. The Family Feud concept was eventually revived in 2014 by Channel 10, hosted by Grant Denyer.

Gameplay

In each match, the initial two questions carried standard point values, while the third question offered double points. Differing from earlier versions, when a family stole points, they were awarded credit for the "stealing" response. If neither team reached 200 points following the third question, a sudden-death showdown took place featuring the top two answers, each worth triple points. On one occasion, two sudden-death rounds were necessary because no family achieved 200 points after the first face-off. Beginning on 3 April 2006, a $500 bonus was concealed behind one answer in any of the first three rounds. All families leaving the show received a $1,000 gift voucher.

Major/bonus round

A single member of the winning family had 20 seconds to respond to five questions. Each top answer contributed to increasing the jackpot, which started at $5,000 and escalated as follows: $10,000 for one top answer, $15,000 for two, $25,000 for three, $50,000 for four, and $100,000 if all five top answers were correctly identified by that player. Subsequently, a second player answered the same set of five questions within 25 seconds without repeating any answers given by the first player. Should their combined score exceed 200 points, the family claimed the jackpot prize. Contestants could participate for up to five consecutive nights.

Friday Night All-Stars

Between 28 July and 1 September 2006, teams composed of athletes from the Australian Football League and National Rugby League competed for charitable causes. Each team began with $5,000 and engaged in a game called Bullseye. Players competed head-to-head to name the most popular answer; correctly identifying top answers added $500 to their team's total. Later players tackled questions with increasing values ($1,000, $1,500, $2,000). The scoring system evolved throughout the series but generally included rounds with single and triple point values. The team with the highest score after four rounds was declared the winner. In the jackpot segment, naming one top answer raised the Bullseye bank to $15,000; identifying two top answers increased it to $20,000 according to the established payout structure.

Female models

This edition was distinct in featuring two female models—Mandy Ritchie and Kathryn Trapani, known collectively as Mandy & Kandy—likely drawing inspiration from Mexican adaptations of Family Feud such as 100 Mexicanos Dijeron and ¿Qué dice la gente?.

Approximately four years prior to Steve Harvey taking on hosting duties in 2010, this iteration sparked controversy due to provocative responses to questions like "Name a gift that is hard to return." The episode aired on 30 June 2006 included references to sexual content and a vibrator when a contestant said, "Look, this is a pretty filthy answer but it's all I can think of and there are some dirty people out there in the audience so I'm going to go with vibrator." On 27 June of the same year, another participant responded with "sex" to the prompt "Name an activity that is enjoyed in nudist colonies." On 4 September 2007, the Australian Communications and Media Authority determined that these sexual allusions were mild enough for a G (general) rating but criticized the network for its slow response to viewer complaints. As a result, new protocols were introduced to enhance the handling of such feedback.

Merchandise

In 2006, Crown & Andrews launched a board game tied to the show, Imagination Entertainment released a DVD-based game, and BlueSkyFrog developed a mobile game adaptation.

Cast

Bert Newton – host
Paul Khoury – announcer (2006)
Simon Diaz – announcer (2007)
Mandy Ritchie – co-hostess ("Mandy")
Kathryn Trapani – co-hostess ("Kandy")

New Zealand broadcasting

The program debuted on TV2 on Monday, 8 January 2007.

External links