MANZANO RENEWS 3 YEAR CONTRACT WITH ABSCBN AS 'MINUTE TO WIN IT' SECURES DOMINATION

Luis Manzano inks another 3 year contract with ABSCBN 

Sometimes, simple is better.

That’s pretty much been the core approach to “Minute to Win It”, the quirky American game show with the homemade challenges that has been yet another successful Filipino localization on ABS-CBN. Hosted by “Game Show King” Luis Manzano, the Philippine “Minute to Win It” was exceedingly popular on its 2013 premiere due to the prevalence of its Kapamilya celebrity contestants and their hilarious back-and-forth with each other and Host Luis even as they engaged in some pretty intense “easy-to-learn, hard-to-master” challenges to win upwards to a million pesos (though the early seasons got only to P500,000.

The show returned to the screen last month in July after a brief hiatus, and introduced the “Last Man Standing” format, wherein seven contestants (reduced to six from the second week onwards) competed in seven challenges without the old 1-minute time limit. Every player who completed each succeeding challenge last (or alternatively, got the lowest score) was eliminated one by one until two players remained who each got P 20,000. The survivors went head to head in three showdowns where the winner got P 50,000 and a chance to play the ultimate challenge for a million.

For the second week there came a rotating roster for a whole week with six players for a day with the extras sitting out and playing in subsequent days while others took a break. Week 2 had eight rotating players; week 3 had an astounding 14 rotating weekly contestants while week 4 toned it back to just nine.

The fourth week of “Minute to Win It” from August 8 to 12 maintained the strong showing of ratings ever since the show’s return, consistently better ratings over competing early primetime game show “Wowowin” on GMA7. From Tuesday to Thursday, Kantar Media ratings showed 21.3%, 19.7% and 19.2%.

The week’s pool of contestants included Geoff Eigenmann, Sunshine Garcia, Rommel Sabocor, Wacky Kiray, Ara Mina, Jay-R, Bea Santiago, JC de Vera and Cristine Reyes. Over the course of four days from Monday to Thursday, musician Jay-R, actress Ara Mina, Rommel Sabocor, and actor JC de Vera won the daily showdowns to take a shot at the ultimate challenges. On Friday August 12, they were set against the five daily winners from the previous week; and in the showdown portion, week 3’s Sinichi Jean Tonic beat out Sabocor to go on to the ultimate challenge. It’s expected that “Minute to Win It” and its blend of simplicity and great interaction will continue to win at the ratings.