Carrie Bickmore has confessed she copped an off-air warning from her radio bosses after her antics on her national drive show almost ended up proving very costly yesterday.
Bickmore and her co-host Tommy Little were playing their long-running listener contest ‘The Time Game’ on their Hit Network drive show Carrie and Tommy yesterday, when she decided to raise the stakes.
The on-air game – which has a listener try and guess when a stopwatch reaches exactly 5.00 seconds – has never actually been won in the three years that the duo have been inviting listeners to play.
The cash prize rose by $100 each time the game remained unbeaten, and by yesterday’s show, it had risen to a whopping $10,000. That’s when Bickmore decided to raise the stakes, adding another $20,000 to the prize money before listener Nick was invited to play.
“Because our show starts at three, I’m timesing it by three: Thirty grand on the line today,” Bickmore announced. “I just think it’s what people want.”
Little seemed stunned at this sudden leap in the prize money on offer, asking his co-host: “Have you been hitting the bottle early?” and noting that their boss was “shaking her head.”
“I’m not looking at her. If I’m not looking at her, it won’t be a problem,” Bickmore said.
Minutes later, with the game still yet to be played, Bickmore revealed that her announcement had sent the show’s bosses into a frenzy.
“There’s been a few meetings that’s been happening off-air in the last 10 minutes with bosses going, ‘You can’t just go saying things on-air that we can’t fulfil.’ I will fulfil it. If they can’t, I will.”
And then it was Nick’s turn to play the game that nobody had won in three long years – and wouldn’t you know it? He called stop just as the stopwatch hit five seconds exactly.
“Oh Nick, I didn’t run this past the bosses at all … I just went rogue and said $30,000 and now I’ve … oh my god, oh my god,” Bickmore said.
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“I’m so excited by this, but I’m slightly terrified, because I’m not sure if it’s my money or the company’s money that you’re about to take.”
And we weren’t quite sure either – so news.com.au today contacted the Hit Network, who revealed that despite Bickmore’s initial worries, the radio show will cover the full $30,000 prize money.
Bickmore’s expensive on-air moment comes after a big few months for the much-loved star, who departed as host of Ten’s The Project in December last year after 11 years on the desk. Last month came some sad personal news, as Bickmore and her longtime partner Chris Walker announced they had split up.
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