Weaver's Week 2009-07-05

Over the years, Takeaway has lost sight of its unique selling point, and started producing formula television. The various viewer competitions to win prizes don't make particularly good television; does anyone really care for musical chairs played between bit-part players in soap operas? The win-an-ad-break game, in particular, was weak enough to be discarded after one series, but that was what got the show past the commissioners. Even the new ideas, such as the recent Escape From Takeaway Prison, swiftly became formulaic. Ant Versus Dec is innovative enough, but even that's beginning to run out of ideas. Only the opening salvo, where something strange happens to a member of the public, retains our interest.

Other elements of Takeaway are present and correct, not least the cross-promotion to other shows on the same channel. While ITV can only offer a diet of soap, soap, soup, and soap, the BBC can remind us of its wide variety of shows. That's why a small doll appears with the business brains on Dragons' Den, on the sofa with Breakfast, and with the top yacht racers of Blue Peter. This is a lead into a game in the Television Centre Car Park, in which Stuart Hall will commentate as workmates knock over giant replicas of the doll. Stuart's reprising his role of commentating while collapsing with laughter from It's a Knockout many years ago.

Hidden camera stunts are always popular, and we reckon that Totally Saturday's one idea would have the nod of approval from Game for a Laugh's Jeremy Beadle. Very simply, Norton assails passers-by to go into his shop, and invites them to sit in a bath and sing a song. The song they must sing is that well-known tribute to the British summer, "Frosty the snowman", and the bath is cold, with ice cubes on top. It's not particularly much to be getting on with, and the idea does pale after the first running, but the concept is there. Of course, had they run this stunt during this hot and humid and horrible week, they could have charged for admission, and probably doubled the show's entire budget.

Just as Takeaway got off to a slow start, so we don't expect Totally Saturday to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. The fishwrap critics have slammed the show, saying that it's a pale imitation of Takeaway. These days, even Takeaway is a faded imitation of itself. Unfortunately, the negative press attention seems to have got to the production team: later episodes have run for a shorter time (dropping from an hour to 45 minutes) and the hidden camera element has quietly been dropped.

Read our lips: the show is worth sticking with. Have some faith. That said, we're less sure that there's room for both this show and the recent John Barrowman vehicle Tonight's the Night. The two formats could usefully merge, taking some of the glitter from Barrowman's programme, some of the snark from Norton's, and quietly letting some of the filler disappear into the ether.

To find out, we took the audio from the specialist subject and general knowledge rounds of the winner, Nancy Dickmann, and the runner-up, Ian Bayley. We then analysed the files to determine how long the host took to say each question, how many syllables it contained, how long the contestant took to respond, and the time taken to deem the answer correct or incorrect.

In the specialist subject round, Ian Bayley answered fifteen questions, fourteen of them correctly. The questions averaged 38.5 syllables, and John Humphrys asked them in an average of 6.46 seconds, for an average of 5.96 syllables per second. The contender took an average of 0.91 seconds to recall and present his answer, which averaged four syllables. John then took 0.55 seconds to confirm the correct answers.

The champion, Nancy Dickmann, answered seventeen questions in her two minutes, and all but one was correct. Her questions had an average of 35.75 syllables, and John asked them in an average of 5.83 seconds. That's an average of 6.13 syllables per second. Nancy Dickmann's answers were slightly shorter – 3.76 syllables, delivered in 0.81 seconds – but John gave confirmation of correct answers in 0.38 seconds.

But Mastermind isn't just about its specialist round. There's a general knowledge round as well, and an opportunity to redress any inconsistencies. Here, the difference is perhaps more marked. Both contestants received questions of the same average length: 29.24 syllables for Ian Bayley, 29.31 syllables for Nancy Dickmann. The host was markedly quicker asking questions to Nancy Dickmann, 5.08 seconds compared to Ian Bayley's 5.28 seconds.

There's no tremendous difference in the responses – 2.6 syllables per correct answer for Ian Bayley, 2.66 for his opponent – and a less marked difference in the host's acknowledgement of correct answers. Nancy Dickmann still had the rub of that green, 0.44 seconds compared with 0.51 for Ian Bayley.

A clear difference arose in the times each contestant took to answer their questions: Ian Bayley averaged 1.17 seconds to formulate and deliver each answer, Nancy Dickmann took 0.84 seconds. In particular, only three questions caused Nancy Dickmann to think about the question for more than a second; Ian Bayley had nine such questions.

Can we explain this discrepancy as an unconscious effect? Almost certainly: in the main speech while sitting in the chair before the general knowledge round, Nancy Dickmann spoke at 6.2 syllables per second, Ian Bayley at 5.6 syllables per second. This subconscious cue may have encouraged John Humphrys to speak slightly faster to Nancy Dickmann. It's clear that the host got into a better rhythm when asking questions of Nancy Dickmann, the gaps between the end of her answers and the start of his confirmations were much smaller

Furthermore, it's almost impossible for someone to deliberately vary his speech patterns by these small amounts. Differences of 0.07 seconds to make a response, or eight syllables per minute when reading off cards, only show up when we've deliberately set out to look for them. In normal conversation, they're not detectable. If someone were trying to speak more slowly than normal, they would make much larger alterations in their speech patterns.

Listening intently to the questions also revealed just how John Humphrys approaches the questions: without regard to punctuation. Commas may be included in the posers when they're written, but the host bulldozes through them without so much as a change of intonation or emphasis. He does tend to slow down during questions that include lists of short words. The data set is small – only 67 questions – and doesn't show any clear correlation between length of question and its speed.

Is there a conclusion to be drawn from this exercise? We were sparked into this exercise by Nancy Dickmann's first two general knowledge questions, which were asked at 6.95 and 7.38 syllables per second. These were entirely atypical of her round. About the only conclusion we can draw is that it may be better to say the first thing that comes into one's head than to consciously think. Of questions where these excellent contenders took more than 1.5 seconds to respond, less than half were answered correctly.