A
contestant is someone who takes part in a
competitionCompetition is a contest between individuals, groups, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or a location of resources. It arises whenever two and only two strive for a goal which cannot be shared. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For...
, usually a
professionalA professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...
competition or a
game showA game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
on
televisionTelevision is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
. The participants competing against each other have to go through rounds. The winners may have to compete in later stages or rounds until there is just one winner.
Game show contestants
Game show contestants are usually members of the
general publicGeneral Public were a band formed by The Beat vocalists, Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger, and which included former members of Dexy's Midnight Runners, The Specials and The Clash...
who are selected via some sort of qualification system, such as a
general knowledgeGeneral knowledge has been defined by differential psychologists as referring to 'culturally valued knowledge communicated by a range of non-specialist media' General knowledge therefore encompasses a wide range of knowledge domains...
or IQ test (an example of this is
Jeopardy!Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
, in which contestants must pass a 50-question test.) who then appear on the televised show. Game show careers are usually short lived, perhaps lasting only one day. A very small minority go on to achieve national fame, such as
Joyce BrothersJoyce Brothers is an American psychologist, television personality and advice columnist, publishing a daily syndicated newspaper column since 1960.-Personal life:...
and
Ken Jennings Kenneth Wayne "Ken" Jennings III is an American game show contestant and author. Jennings is noted for holding the record for the longest winning streak on the U.S. syndicated game show Jeopardy! and as being the all-time leading money winner on American game shows...
in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
Charles IngramCharles Ingram is a former British Army major who made headlines worldwide after he was accused of cheating in the game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in 2001. He was convicted of deception, although he maintains that he did not cheat...
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Some game shows deliberately target
celebrityA celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
contestants, such as
Match GameMatch Game is an American television game show in which contestants attempted to match celebrities' answers to fill-in-the-blank questions...
and
Blankety BlankBlankety Blank is a British comedy game show based on the 1977–1978 Australian game show Blankety Blanks ....
.
There are links between game show contestants and other games and hobbies, such as
ScrabbleScrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Official reference works provide a list...
players who take part in word-based game shows like
CountdownCountdown is a British game show involving word and number puzzles. It is produced by ITV Studios and broadcast on Channel 4. It is presented by Jeff Stelling, assisted by Rachel Riley, with regular lexicographer Susie Dent. It was the first programme to be aired on Channel 4, and over sixty-five...
and
BrainTeaserBrainTeaser was a British game show, first broadcast in 2002, produced by Endemol UK subsidiary Cheetah Productions.BrainTeaser was live, with phone-in viewer puzzles being announced and played during the show in addition to the studio game...
. put mary on the show
Reality TV contestants
Reality TV contestants are also selected from the general public, but again celebrity versions do exist. Shows like
Big BrotherBig Brother is a television show in which a group of people live together in a large house, isolated from the outside world but continuously watched by television cameras. Each series lasts for around three months, and there are usually fewer than 15 participants. The housemates try to win a cash...
select contestants from the general public by examining video logs that the contestants send in to the show. A small number, perhaps 10 or 15, are selected to live in a confined house separated from the outside world.
In general, reality TV contestants are set some task to do or achieve in a selected place, such as an isolated house or desert island, and are filmed for long periods of the day. In the case of Big Brother, up to 24 hours a day.