Time Is Money

The show where they give you lots of money and your task is to save it.

Five contestants play each show. After a very brisk introduction, the game begins with £1000 in everyone's pot, and an initial question on the buzzers. Buzz in and give a correct answer, and your pot will be frozen.

Then the category continues, and whoever hasn't got a question right starts to lose cash from their pot. Sara continues asking questions, and as soon as someone buzzes in with a right answer, their pot freezes. Buzz in with a wrong answer and it'll cost you £50. When your pot is frozen and you buzz in correctly, the drain rate speeds up and other players lose money faster; but buzz in with an error, and your pot starts to drain and you need to give another right answer to stop it.

Each category of questions ends when everyone's pot is frozen, or immediately after ten questions. The round also stops as soon as someone's pot hits zero, because that means they're out of the game. Sara gives a few words of consolation, and the eliminated player strides regretfully past the line of podia - less a Walk of Shame and more a Stride of Sadness.

Rinse and repeat for the next two rounds, which begin with £1250 and £1500 respectively. Round four starts with £1750 in both players' pots. A right answer stops your drain and starts your opponent, a wrong answer starts yours and stops the other. Two or more right answers in a row will speed up your opponent's drain. Questions are in categories, a new one after every five questions.

Our finalist has won in four rounds. And they've saved some money in each of four rounds; each round's savings is put into its own timer. Five questions allow the finalist to top up each timer by £100, but an incorrect answer will freeze the most valuable timer. The finalist nominates the first timer they want to freeze on a correct answer - surely the one with least cash. If any of the timers runs out of money, the game is lost and the contestant leaves with nothing.

And then the drain begins. A right answer will freeze the nominated timer, and allow the finalist to name their next timer. But a wrong answer will unfreeze the previously-frozen timer, and the finalist will have to get one right before nominating that timer again. The drain rate increases every 30 seconds.

Time Is Money was commissioned in the daytime schedule, and the first series went out at 3pm. A first episode was shown at 6pm on New Year's Day, a tactic ITV had adopted with Lingo, Jeopardy!, and Pictionary in the previous years.