About the "Fixed" Claims

Over the years, viewers have accused the show on social media for being biased to the Chaser, with reasons ranging from the easy questions that the Chaser gets, to the faster pace that Bradley reads to the Chaser as opposed to for the contestants, to the fact that the Chasers wear an earpiece that tells them what to answer. In fact, we see these claims on other versions as well, including the American and Australian versions. Some viewers went as far as to filing a complaint to ITV Studios or Ofcom to get them to investigate.

A 2018 research conducted by Research Without Barriers had found out that around 14% of the U.K. respondents said that The Chase is likely to be rigged. Although this may not seem that much when compared to other shows like X Factor and Britain's Got Talent (40% and 37% respectively), The Chase is the most likely quiz show to be rigged and is ranked 9th among all the U.K. TV shows that could be rigged according to the rankings by PlayOJO.

As a result of numerous 'fixed' claims on social media, the people behind the show, including the producers, the Chasers, and an independent adjudicator for the show came forth to defend their show. Mark "The Beast" Labbett even went as far as directly attacking those who claim that the show is rigged, stating in a Daily Star article that "They write a lot of rubbish and it's often from accounts without any back name attached." Although the crew behind The Chase tried their best to shut down this theory, viewers weren't convinced that the show is not rigged since the Chasers work for the show, and they are the most likely to defend it at any cost.

The most common reasons for why The Chase could be rigged is shown below, along with the responses to each claim by one of the Chasers or a spokesperson.

1. The Chaser's questions are easier than those for the contestants

This is the most popular claim for why viewers think the show could be rigged. A number of viewers had accused the show over the years for giving the Chaser an easier set of questions in the Final Chase, the reason being that they could answer the majority of the Chaser's questions and less of the contestants' questions. Although the contestants randomly choose one of the two question sets before the Final Chase, both of which were monitored by an independent adjudicator, viewers still weren't convinced that the question sets were balanced.

Conversely, viewers also accused the show for giving harder questions to contestants playing for the higher offer compared to those who played for the low or middle offers, since it is widely believed that ITV would be less likely to allow the contestants to win a large sum of money.

Here is one notable example. On 19 December 2017, Jenny "The Vixen" Ryan faced a team who had accumulated £100,000 in their respective head-to-head chases and had set a target of 24. Almost every viewer of The Chase had expected the team to win the cash because their performance on the show was outstanding and, seeing Jenny's previous Final Chases, she would certainly lose. However, Jenny surprised everyone by catching that target with 14 seconds left, preventing the team from winning that very large sum of money. This had marked one of the most impressive Final Chases in recent years. A large number of fans on Twitter weren't having any of it and accused the show for giving Jenny an easier set of questions. Since the money that the contestants banked was also an enormous amount, some viewers expected the show to be rigged since they believed that ITV does not like to pay big amounts.

Jenny defended the outcome of the show, posting in this tweet that the questions are indeed fair for both sets and the contestants get to pick from one of the two sets (as opposed to the Chaser picking one, which would result in more 'fixed' claims being made). This meant the fact that Jenny gets easier questions than the contestants could be attributed to the luck of the draw and not something done deliberately.

She also requested conspiracy theorists to "look up confirmation bias". Confirmation bias is where a person considers evidence that supports his/her beliefs and not evidence that counters them, and it is something that almost every person has. In this case, viewers tend to notice the easy questions for the Chaser more than the easy questions for the contestants and would base their theories on them rather than considering both sides of the equation.

A popular suggestion on how to fix this problem is to give both the contestants and the Chaser the same set of questions, as this will eliminate any discrepancies with question difficulty for both sides. As the contestants answer questions in the Final Chase, the Chaser remains in a soundproof booth backstage so that he/she does not cheat.

2. The host reads questions faster for the Chaser than for the contestants.

Also one of the most popular claims, viewers accuse the host of the show for deliberately reading the questions at a faster pace for the Chaser, or for saying the word "Correct" longer for the contestants than for the Chaser. This is usually seen in Final Chases where the Chaser wins by a split second and the team had banked a lot of money for the Final Chase.

One notable example of this claim popping up is an episode that aired on 5 May 2018. Maggie played the Final Chase alone for £50,000, and Anne caught her with only one second to spare. Viewers were surprised and angry about the outcome, posting on Twitter that Bradley was reading the questions faster to Anne than Maggie, and that Maggie deserved to win that £50,000.

In fact, One Question Shootout had recorded that based on all the Series 13 episodes, the Chaser answers about three more questions on average than the contestants. This seems significant enough to prove that The Chase could be rigged against the contestants, since these statistics show convincing evidence that Bradley is reading the questions faster for the Chaser, but OQS has stated that the reason why the Chaser answers more questions than the contestants is because he/she is likely very experienced in quizzing and, thus, are able to answer questions at such fast speeds.

3. The contestants have to use the buzzer and the Chaser doesn't.

Viewers who use this claim say that by forcing the team to use the buzzer to call out answers, they take up a chunk of time waiting for the voiceover to call out who buzzed in first. This usually results in lower targets than expected. By our calculations, the average time spent waiting for a name to be called out is about .5 seconds/question, so if a team sprints through 20 questions, they take up about 10-11 seconds in total waiting for the voiceover. On the other hand, the Chaser doesn't use the buzzer, allowing him/her to answer more questions than the contestants.

They also say by eliminating the buzzers for the contestants or adding a buzzer for the Chaser to push when answering questions, it makes the show fairer.

This suggestion, however, presents a new problem: the "wrong person" answers. By eliminating the buzzers for the contestants, they are more likely to shout out their answers over each other, which could mean a potentially greater number of "wrong person" answers and, thus, lower targets. Also, forcing the Chaser to use the buzzer wouldn't affect the outcome much since the Chasers, especially Mark, are very experienced with the buzzers. The show has stated that the contestants are allowed to answer over the voiceover, although they would typically wait for it to finish to avoid their answers being counted out.

But since the contestants are working together to win the cash, why should "wrong person" answers be counted out? That is one of the rules of the game; only the first answer from the contestant who buzzed in first is accepted. However, viewers occasionally saw the Chaser correcting himself/herself on some of the questions, which contradicted the rule that only the first answer is accepted if it weren't for the Chaser stopping midway through his/her initial answer. This is somewhat similar to a Jeopardy case, where the show was accused of sometimes accepting answers that were misspelled and sometimes not, which contradicted a rule that the show does not accept misspelled responses. The spokesperson for the show responded that if the Chaser finishes his/her answer, then it counts.

Bradley Walsh, the host of The Chase, refuted those claims, justifying the head start that the contestants earn before the Final Chase that balances this disadvantage out. Walsh takes an average of around 3.6 - 4 seconds to read out each question, so by adding the head start for the contestants, that saves them a plenty of time. The Chasers also have the extra risk of being pushed back by the contestants when he/she answers a question incorrectly, whilst the team just moves on to a different question almost immediately.

We have yet to calculate the number of questions that the contestants attempted to answer on the British version as opposed to the American version (where there is no announcer in the Final Chase), but we predict that the number of "wrong person answers" in the American version would be greater.

4. The Chasers have a hidden earpiece / know the answers beforehand / are paid actors.

This conspiracy theory is about the Chasers not being professional quizzers on the show, but paid actors. Some viewers don't believe that anyone could remember facts about everything, not even quizzers, and so would assume that the Chasers are given some sort of aid to swindle the contestants of their potential winnings. Claims that fall into this category range from the Chaser wearing a hidden earpiece to determine what to answer to the Chaser studying the questions to be asked in the Final Chase.

We would expect that in order to become a Chaser, that Chaser must succeed in other game shows such as winning £1 million on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? or be a champion on one of the other game shows like Mastermind (where Shaun Wallace was champion in 2004) to prove their skill. That is why in the viewers' eyes, top quizzers like Kevin Ashman or Pat Gibson are more qualified to be Chasers than the Chasers in the current lineup.

The truth is: The Chasers are indeed professional quizzers. They have more than ten years of quizzing experience under their belts and have appeared on multiple quiz shows. Anne Hegerty, for instance, has appeared on Mastermind, Fifteen to One, Are You an Egghead?, and Brain of Britain since the late 80s.

5. The clock is fixed.

On multiple episodes where the Chaser wins the Final Chase by the last second, viewers claim that the last second on the clock lingers for longer than expected.

For example, on 28 February 2018, a team of two had accumulated £60,000 and set a target of 20. The Chaser on this episode, Anne, caught the team with only a second to spare. However, the on-screen clock seems to linger at the last second for longer than it should've been. A massive outrage ensued on social media, with many saying that the contestants were robbed and that they deserve the money. According to Ofcom's Broadcast and On Demand Bulletin Issue number 350, The Chase has gathered 29 complaints on Ofcom due to this incident, although Ofcom decided not to pursue an investigation regarding any of these complaints.

Many say it was a deliberate attempt to rig the game for the Chaser, but some others say it was an editing error. Gerard Mackay, a quizzer, posted in this tweet that the reason why the last second seems to linger is because the original take had the wrong music that indicated a win for the contestants, and the show had to retake with the correct music. Thus, the problem has to do with post-production editing and not the game itself.

This situation is comparable to an episode that aired on 7 April 2016. On that episode, when Mark is trying to catch the contestants, the on-screen clock glitched near the end as it went from 11 , to 10, and then back to 11. Viewers say that this is definite proof that the Chaser gets more time in the Final Chase, although Mark confirmed that a graphical error took place.

6. There should be a consolation cash prize for anyone who lost in the Final Chase.

Viewers who suggested this rule say that this will remedy the pain of seeing almost every contestant make it through to the Final Chase, only to get caught in the end. This makes sense, though, because other game shows like Tipping Point and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? offer consolation cash prizes in the middle of the game whereas The Chase does not.

The problem is that the contestants already receive a consolation prize when they lose. In the UK version of The Chase, for instance, they receive a mug in the shape of the Chaser's heads. In The Chase Australia, they receive a photo shoot with the host and the Chaser as well as an opportunity to chat with the Chaser before leaving the studio.

In the Celebrity version of the show, some viewers criticized the format of the show because they believe that the Chaser is robbing the money that is supposedly going to charity despite the £1,000 consolation prize that the "caught" celebrities earn to their charities. However The Chase wouldn't exactly be a game if the celebrities earn the full amount regardless.

7. The Chasers decide for themselves whether they want to award money to the contestants.

Viewers who use this claim assume that the Chasers take complete control of the game, deciding if the contestants should win the money. If they do, then they would fake getting questions wrong to throw the game to the contestants.

This claim happens more on Shaun Wallace's final chases where he loses the Final Chase by a sizable margin (or any other Chaser in fact). Some viewers criticized the show because they thought the Chaser threw the game to the contestants, contradicting the original popular claim that the game is 'fixed' in favour of the Chaser.

It is a completely rubbish claim, though. No matter how well the contestants do in the Final Chase, it is mandatory for the Chasers to try their very best. If they don't, they would likely get sued by the network for fraud, and the show would ultimately be axed.

8. Question complaints

There are some questions that just don't age well. For example, one of the episodes featured a Pokemon GO question where according to the show, there are 151 Pokemon to catch in the app. Although that is true during the time of filming, there are over 250 Pokemon in Pokemon GO when the episode was aired. There are also other complaints regarding other questions, but that can mostly be attributed to the mishearing of the question, or the fact that there were alternative acceptable answers.

There was also a question about a pregnancy condition that sparked a massive uproar on Twitter and Facebook because it was offensive to people who had suffered from this condition, but that is not the main point of this article.

If these claims were proven true, or if Ofcom has concluded that The Chase is not being fair to the contestants, then The Chase's fate would be sealed way earlier than now. However, The Chase has been running for over ten years despite those 'fixed' claims, meaning that these claims did very little to achieve their main point: to get the show axed. In fact, Mark Labbett tweeted in May of 2017 that "Social media is great for people's immediate gut reactions but not for a more considered opinion."

If you still believe that the show is fixed, you can make a complaint to Ofcom here.

Sources:

• Brennan, Ian. "Mark Labbett blasts trolls who think 'The Chase' is fixed.' Buzz.ie, 16 Feb. 2020, https://www.buzz.ie/movies-tv/labbett-blasts-trolls-claim-fixed-355528. Accessed 23 Feb. 2020.

• Daly, Emma. “Bradley Walsh Rubbishes The Chase 'Fix' Claims.” Radio Times, Immediate Media Company Limited, 31 Aug. 2017, www.radiotimes.com/news/2016-04-27/bradley-walsh-rubbishes-the-chase-fix-claims/. Accessed 5 Oct. 2019.

• "The Chase - Frequently Asked Questions." Facebook, 4 Mar. 2013, https://en-gb.facebook.com/notes/the-chase/the-chase-frequently-asked-questions/521684201207911/. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.

• Yeates, Cydney. "The Chase unveils prizes for losers and honestly we're not sure about them." Metro, Associated Newspapers Limited, 21 Apr. 2019, https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/21/chase-unveils-prizes-losers-honestly-not-sure-9282477/. Accessed 6 Oct. 2019.