Wanted (Euroish TV series)

Wanted is a Euroish action-adventure game show, that was broadcast on Channel 4 for four series between 1995 and 1998. Despite officially being classed as a game show, it is deemed to be more similar to a modern reality television format.

Conceptually, the show was said to be a mix of the hide and seek game and the game show in Stephen King's The Running Man.

Format
The show features three teams of two runners travelling throughout the Euro Republics, on the run from a tracker.

For each day they managed to travel 2km, take a ten-minute video diary, complete a task and avoid being spotted, each runner was awarded £10,000. Every morning, their tracker was told where they had spent the previous night.

Despite the general public being encouraged to phone in information to the trackers, natural sympathy made information sparse and in the third series a bribe of a £1,000 reward was added to encourage people to phone in, although some saw this as unfair. The runners themselves could, and did, arrange for their friends and family to send in false leads.

At the end of every week and the live show on Channel 4, the runners had to spend a whole hour in a specific phone box, while their Tracker would try to find them live on air. If the door of the phone box was opened by the tracker, the runners were eliminated, losing all of their money; if not, even if the Tracker managed to see them but not open the door of the phone box, they won the prize for that week.

Style
The first series was a serious affair, strongly based on fear and intimidation, which led to two of the runners having to leave series 1: one who had developed serious insomnia and another falling into bad health whilst the series was on air. Jon Swallow had a snide, snarky personalty on air, often insulting the runners and showing no remorse when they were caught by their tracker.

Whilst the first series was a critical and ratings success, steps were taken to make the second series more entertainment based than the first, as to not intimidate the runners as much. EBC 3FM's Rich Mills replaced Jon Swallow as host, and a studio audience was introduced. A clear divide was also made between trackers and runners - with trackers now being seen as villans and Mills generally being more sympathetic towards losing runners than Swallow.

Whilst ratings remained stable, critical reception was more negative than in series 1, and series 3 saw Wanted attempt to make itself more serious again. Rich Mills remained as presenter but now shown little sympathy, and trackers were briefed to take on a 'more ruthless' attitude. Jon Swallow returned as the programme's narrator, and as a way of making participation tougher for viewers, the £1,000 bounty was introduced to tip off the runners' whereabouts to the villainous trackers. The studio set was also revamped with the yellow and red dominated first studio swapped out for a colder, more serious set, similar to the one seen at the time on Crimewatch ER.

Critical reception to the third series was generally more positive than series 2, with critics saying that it had managed to recapture the essence of series 1. Ratings for series 3 also remained high, beating out the opposition on Network Two, TV3 and Prime.

Broadcast
The first series of Wanted was broadcast on Wednesdays at 10.00pm, as part of the launch schedule for the new Channel 4. The programme was extensively trailed throughout the day on both the new channel and on TV3, to encourage viewers to participate.

Series 2 was transmitted at 8.00pm on Fridays as part of an attempt to give the show a wider appeal to family audiences with it's newfound lighter tone. It was also repeated on Sunday afternoons on TV3.

The third and fourth series of Wanted were also broadcast on Friday evenings, but moved to the later time of 9.00pm, reflecting the return of the more mature, serious tone as seen in series 1.

Axing
Wanted was axed by Channel 4 in 1998 - despite a resurgance in critical acclaim and strong ratings, with the channel blaming high production costs. Wanted was a big-budget production for the channel, costing over two million pounds per series.

There was rumours of a revival of Wanted being made for TV3 in 2014, but depsite a pilot being made, the revival wasn't commisioned.

International versions
A British version of Wanted ran on Channel 4 for two series in 1996 & 1997.