The Big Music Quiz: Ratings Hit Or Just Comical Garbage?

If you thought a lineup of B-grade celebrities on a quiz show, off tune singing and spontaneous dancing wouldn’t be worthy of a prime time television slot, then think again. The Big Music Quiz debuted last Sunday on Channel Seven and surprisingly took home a ratings win, securing a metro audience of 1.12 million.

The Big Music Quiz on Sunday with guest celebrities Rebel Wilson, Bindi Irwin and Ada Nicodemou. Source: news.com.au
The Big Music Quiz on Sunday with guest celebrities Rebel Wilson, Bindi Irwin and Ada Nicodemou.
Source: news.com.au

The Big Music Quiz has been heavily advertised over the past couple months on Channel Seven and made its debut last week, taking over long time ratings hog The Block and Channel Ten’s Australian Survivor. Although the viewership has dropped off for this week with The Block regaining top spot for that time slot, critics on Twitter continue to hate on the show with one user tweeting that The Big Music Quiz “makes me want to die“.

Others have called for a return of ABC’s cult music quiz show Spicks and Specks, saying that The Big Music Quiz brings nothing to the table other than off pitched B-grades and staged dancing. “The Big Music Quiz is like Spicks and Specks. But without the charm. Or the wit. Or anything endearing. At all,” Nick Noel wrote. 

We all love music trivia- local pubs hold 80s, 90s and oldies trivia nights all the time. So, what has got all the critics loving  to hate The Big Music Quiz? Each week, eight ‘celebrities’ (I use that term lightly), ranging from actors and comedians to athletes and musicians who are trying their luck to return to the spotlight, battle it out in two groups in a game of generic pop music trivia. So far, we’ve seen the likes of Rebel Wilson, Bindi Irwin, Giaan Rooney and Ella Hooper face off on the show, with Rebel even making headlines this week for the wrong reasons, making a controversial Michael Jackson joke whilst on this week’s show.

With host Darren McMullen repeatedly score updating every twenty seconds, the teams test their popular music knowledge with hints including musical cues. The losing team in the end has to dance at the end of the episode as punishment.

But what’s the point of that being punishment when there’s an awkward dance breaking out literally after every question. If you win, you dance. If you lose, you dance. This is entertainment not even a two year old will find funny, and most two year olds will laugh at the puppets on the DOLMIO pasta sauce ads.

So, against all the critics, why is this fail of a show rating so well?

There are quite a number of reasons this show seems to continue to beat the likes of Australian Survivor; it’s non challenging and fun for the whole family to be involved, and there is no need to be tuned in all the time to know what’s going on. It’s lazy, light entertainment which costs a lot less than sending a bunch of bogans to an deserted island or knocking down a bunch of houses for the second (or third) season this year.

And the show doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere, with a number of celebrities signing up to return to the show because they loved it so much. So, it looks like families will still be punishing their children by making them sit and watch this comical garbage.