- published: 26 Jan 2009
- views: 108887
PopMaster is a popular music quiz on the Ken Bruce Show on BBC Radio 2. It usually takes place at around 10:30 a.m. on weekday mornings.
Two contestants play against each other for the chance to win a DAB digital radio. Each contestant is given ten questions based on popular music from the 1950s right through to the present day. All the questions are worth 3 points excepting the three "bonus questions" (questions 3, 6 and 9) on a topic chosen (from two choices) by the contestant. These bonus questions involve listening to a snippet of music, and if answered correctly are worth 6 points. There is therefore a maximum total of 39 points on offer.
The winning contestant then goes on to play "3 in 10". In this part, they have ten seconds to name three UK Singles Chart hits for a particular artist or group named by Ken Bruce. If they successfully manage this, they win the DAB digital radio; if they fail, they won an MP3 player. As of early 2015, the prize for failing '3 in 10' has been changed to a Bluetooth speaker. However, if a contestant scores 39 points in the main round, they win the Digital Radio anyway, and the other contestant would play "3 in 10" instead. Should both contestants score the same number of points (and the score is less than the maximum), a tie-break is used to decide which will play "3 in 10". The losing contestant wins a Radio 2 "One Year Out" T-shirt. The T-shirt is so designed because when answering "Name the Year" type questions, contestants are very often one year out, causing Ken to exclaim "One year out!". Previously, the losing contestant would receive a consolation prize of a Radio 2 CD wallet.