Ryan Seacrest and Executive Producers discuss 'Million Second Quiz'

Tonight is the premiere of an unprecedented 10-night event, a live, continuous game show on NBC that stands to offer the largest prize in television history. The Million Second Quiz is a complex series, which is why the show's executive producers -- host Ryan Seacrest, show creator Stephen Lambert and show runner David A. Hurwitz -- took part in a conference call to detail the workings of the show, in addition to their reasons for bringing this series to life.

Credit: NBC

Lambert began the conference call by providing a detailed explanation of the show's concept, format and rules:

Stephen Lambert: "I’m sure you’ve all read about this already but the way the show works is that we have built a giant hourglass-shaped set in the center of Manhattan, and a thousand contestants will come to the structure and play the game over 11-1/2 days. And ... the idea of the game is very simple.

"We have something called the Money Chair. And players are competing to sit in the Money Chair -- because every second that they sit in the Money Chair they make $10 a second. And they stay in the Money Chair by beating one-by-one challenges in head-to-head quiz trivia battles that last various lengths of time -- but essentially 300 seconds, or 400 seconds, or 500 seconds depending on different stages of the game.

Credit: NBC

"If you lose a head to head battle you leave the Money Chair and you don’t take any money unless you’re one of the four people who have played in the Money Chair longer than anybody else -- in which case you live, eat, and sleep in a place called Winners Row.

But of course you can only stay there if you’re still one of the top four players. If somebody else has a longer period in the Money Chair, they displace you. If you’re one of the four people in Winners Row at the end of the million seconds in 11-1/2 days you convert all the money that you have been making by sitting in the Money Chair into hard cash.

"And then you compete in a grand finale where the four of you compete in a knockout competition. And whoever wins that gets, in addition to the cash that they were already guaranteed ... a top-up that will ensure that ... they’ve won the largest prize in game show history."

Ryan Seacrest on what drew him to the series:

Ryan Seacrest: "I think of the ambition that Stephen had in putting this together and the ambitious kind of show that this is. The scale of the show, the energy of the show, the fact that it’s a live event, all of those things went through my head when I was trying to figure out if this was something that I wanted to do. And frankly it’s really been the first big idea I’ve heard in almost a decade that I really wanted to get in front of and host in prime time. And so after he and [NBC's Executive Vice President of Alternative Programming] Paul Telegdy pitched me the idea I said, 'Let’s go for it.' Now that I’ve gotten here I’m not quite sure what I’ve gotten myself into."

On how nerves affect his approach to a project like this:

Ryan Seacrest: I think the nervous energy is key to being able to broadcast the excitement of the television show and be in a moment in these live broadcasts. The energy from a contestant or the energy from a contestant on Idol or a contestant on this show is really a character on the show. I mean that drives the story of what we’re trying to portray to the audience. So I do feel that energy. I try to thrive off of that energy. And hope to be able to deliver the best storytelling through that energy."

On why they chose to set the show in Manhattan:

Ryan Seacrest: "Well the original idea was to have it in Manhattan to capture the energy of the city and really showcase the energy while we were doing the quiz show. I don’t think that there has been a quiz show done live since 1960s. And certainly not one done in the middle of the city where you’ve got the environment the surroundings as part of the show.

"And so it should seem like a natural fit when you think of what this show is meant to deliver in terms of its pace. And, you know, the contestants dealing with elements that are in Manhattan every night."

Stephen Lambert: "We’re trying to turn a quiz into a giant sporting like event a live sporting event. That’s what brings people to watch world class television big sporting events. And the idea here is to have that same feel. And there’s nowhere other than Manhattan that has quite the intensity that we were looking for."

On how viewers can interact with the Million Second Quiz app and end up on the show:

Ryan Seacrest: "The fans can and have been downloading the MSQ app -- the Million Second Quiz app -- at record levels and playing record numbers of games together. Somewhere over 10 million games have been played. So, you know, just the sheer excitement and engagement is fantastic going into this show. But when the show is on the air, the contestants can play through their MSQ app and answer the exact same questions that I’m asking to the contestants on the stage and answer in real-time. And the better they do on the app the more likely they are for us to knock on their door and invite them to the primetime show."

Stephen Lambert: "Absolutely. And also players can come -- or people who would like to take part in the game -- can come down here to the MSQ compound and they will have the opportunity not just to play along with the primetime game but they’ll also have the opportunity to play along with the questions that are being asked in the other 23 hours. So this game never stops."

Ryan Seacrest: "It does go 24/7. And what Stephen said at the top of the call, we’ll cycle through 1000 or more contestants. That’s how and that’s why, even though we’re only on the air one hour per night, the game is played here at our compound 24/7."

Credit: NBC

On the kinds of questions that will be asked, and what, if any, categories there will be:

David A. Hurwitz: "One of the great things about this show and everything that Ryan and Stephen have explained to you is the questions are truly a character. Not only can anybody come down and play which is great. Not only will we be qualifying somebody every night live on TV, knocking on their door and flying them into the game to perform the very next night live in primetime, but the questions are characters.

"We have ... not labeled categories as a traditional game show would have, but types of questions. We’ve got questions that are just water cooler talk. An example would be at Walmart last year the top selling item was bananas, beer, diapers or toilet paper? And believe it or not it’s bananas. So there’s those ones that are interesting misses or just water cooler type things. There’s ones that you feel that you heard once and should know. There’s great trivia.

"But what is really exciting is that since we’re a day-and-date show, we are able to write questions about current events. So the other night somebody threw for seven touchdowns? The next night that might be a question in our show.

"So we’re taking questions from all over the place: from pop culture, from the almanac, from your fifth grade textbook, to, you know, just random surveys and stats that are very interesting, compelling, and fun. So the viewer will always be engaged, much like the app. If you’ve played the app, you feel like you know it. It keeps you engaged. You feel the freshness of the certain categories but that pretty much sums it up on the types of questions."

On how big of a time commitment this is for Seacrest, Lambert and Hurwitz:

Ryan Seacrest: "For those guys, I think it’s 24/7. I still have to work the first half of the day, my other commitment. So my day is split with the radio the first portion of the day. And the second portion of the day here at the MSQ compound. ... I mean, this being in primetime and live at 8:00 o’clock allowed me to have the runway to do it, because I have other commitments earlier in the day."

On how much they know about the contestants going in:

Ryan Seacrest: "You know, I was thinking about that. I mean, obviously with the Idol contestants I, you know, I meet them in a city in America and get a chance to say hello to their mom, and their dad, and their brothers and their sisters.

"And here there will be some that I won’t know until they step out on the stage and there will be others, for example, those who are in the top four in winners Row, that I plan to spend some time with certainly early in the day or late at night just to see what they’re up to.

"And we’ve never done this before. This is the first time this has truly ever been done. You know, it’s the brainchild of Stephen. And it’s never been on the air anywhere. So it is a little bit of a social experiment. And we think we know some outcomes. But to be honest, we don’t know a lot of the outcomes. But my intent is to get to know the ones that I can and talk to them about how they’re doing, and how they’re feeling about living in the pods that they’re living in."

Stephen Lambert: "And some of the people who get on to winners row may stay there for quite a long time, maybe all the way to the end. And they’ll become characters that Ryan will get to know."

Credit: NBC

On whether we'll get to know the particular back stories of some of the contestants, particularly the final four:

Ryan Seacrest: "Absolutely. You have to. You have to. I mean, that’s one of the reasons why you want to root for somebody, right? You’ve got to know where they’ve come from.

"And then these contestants that we pull out of their homes, essentially on one night and bring them into the next night, you’ll get to see where they’re coming from. And we will be able to tell those stories because I think that’s what people get attached to.

"I’ve never seen this quite - this kind of response at this scale that we’ve had for contestants to participate in a game show. I’ve just never seen it before. When you look at the applicants and the sheer number of people who have applied, who have showed up and who have played the app, it’s astonishing."

Credit: NBC

On how the show could potentially fill the primetime game show void and get people excited about game shows again:

David A. Hurwitz: "Well I think the little snowball effect that’s been going on since the app was launched and the awareness due to the great campaign that the whole company has put behind this show and of course having Ryan on the air chatting about it. ... And the gameplay is very compelling. It’s something that’s engaging to everybody. ... And the exciting thing is that the person who keeps winning is accumulating $10 a second. And we’ve never seen a mechanism like that. So we’ve taken a lot of traditional game and really amped it up and, along with the technology, brought it to the viewer.

"It’s a social media event as well. We’re encouraging the viewers to watch with their phones in their hands so they can play along with the game. They could post their scores and encourage their friends through social media. So it’s this huge convergence of everything that is entertainment and media today, wrapped around a sporting event-type game that’s very compelling and exciting.

"And, you know, we hope that it does encourage more primetime game. We’re sure that we’re going to encourage live play along with some of the things that we’re introducing into primetime."

Ryan Seacrest: "And what I just want to add to one of the things that interested me at the beginning, in terms of doing this show, was that we all know that it’s very crowded. It’s very cluttered in television. And to break through you’ve really got to have an 'all hands on deck' mentality. And I think NBC Universal is positioned in a way that they are unique to bring all of their different assets together to help make some noise and create awareness for a show like this."