What we learned behind the scenes of Celebrity Tipping Point NZ
Sunday, 31 May 2026
Stewart Sowman-Lund’s media column, The Sunday Report - dissecting talking points from NZ media, entertainment and pop culture - appears weekly on Sundays on thepost.co.nz and in the Sunday Star-Times.
On one end of a studio at TVNZ, three celebrities stand waiting.
On the other, a large arcade machine towers over them. At first, it seems like something must be wrong.
“Does it always sound like that?” asks comedian Chris Parker, one of three contestants on the first-ever episode of Celebrity Tipping Point NZ.
It’s moments before the theme music will start playing, and host Daniel Faitaua will start firing off quiz questions - but everyone seems distracted by the grating, grunting noise emanating from the machine.
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I expect to see a technician leap out ready to lubricate it with some CRC, but, it turns out, that’s just what the machine sounds like in the studio.
You may not realise it while watching at home, but the Tipping Point machine is constantly whirring and gurgling as it prepares to send tokens - surprisingly made of plastic, despite the satisfying clinking noise you hear on the telly - crashing down.
“She is mighty indeed,” says Faitaua, “this mechanical marvel with flashing lights and the sound effects … I was just blown away.”
It’s a Friday morning in April and the Sunday Star-Times has been invited behind the scenes for filming of Celebrity Tipping Point NZ. Sadly, scheduling constraints mean it’s strictly prohibited to press any buttons on the machine around which the gameshow is based, but sitting just off-camera it’s pleasing to see there’s no TV magic here - the machine really does work.
For the uninitiated, Tipping Point is an English game show that screens here on TVNZ - you’re probably most likely to stumble upon it while channel surfing on a sick day. It’s not quite The Chase in terms of prestige, but it’s similarly a fixture of our daytime telly schedule.
It’s a quiz show, but correct answers don’t directly build your bank balance; that lies at the mercy of the “machine”. With the push of an oversized button, the machine sends a token tumbling from above into one of four “drop zones”.
It’s then dramatically swept out into a sea of other counters. The more counters you push off the ledge, the more money you accumulate. Simple!
“I felt like I started to have this friendship with her,” Faitaua says of the machine. “Because it was me and her in the studio - the big star of the show is the machine.”
This is the first time we’ve had a local edition of Tipping Point and, at this stage, it’s just a one-off run with celebrity contestants. I humbly submit this as my application for any future civilian version.
Faitaua says he’s been stopped by people in the street asking when regular people will be able to appear on the show.
“I've taken it to the team, just saying, ‘Hey, if this goes well and we capture viewers, then I think it is time we open it up to the public’,” he tells me.
The machine, custom built in New Zealand and assembled on-site, may work automatically - but there are some other things you won’t see on TV. For starters, the game is paused after each round so the counters (160 in total, shipped from Spain) can be manually counted by a runner, who wears bespoke gloves when handling the tokens so as not to leave fingerprints on them.
Along with Parker, the first episode is a Christchurch special, with broadcasters Jason Gunn and Ali Pugh also on deck. Episode two will feature actors from Shortland Street.
Before filming starts, there’s an opportunity for a little on-set photo and I feel like a competition winner while holding up the all-important jackpot counter - knock this bad boy off the shelf and you’ll collect $10,000 for your chosen charity.
From the outside, a show like Tipping Point may seem like quite a straightforward production. It’s shot almost in real time, with very few stops compared to other TV shows.
But producer John McDonald says a 205-page “bible” was delivered containing all the show-specific terminology that needed to be used.
“I just got a phone call from Screen Time, who was the production company making the show, just before Christmas saying, would you be interested in doing the show? And I was like, sure, get me in, and then just jumped right into it,” he says.
“And then they sent me the bible.”
It includes terms like “rider”, for when one counter lands on top of another and has little or no chance of shoving other counters off the end. Then there’s an “ambient drop” when a counter falls from the machine out of regular gameplay and isn’t counted for the prize pot. Lateral? That’s when a counter moves another sideways instead of towards the edge of the shelf.
Faitaua, ever the expert, drops these nonsensical terms into the show like they are normal phrases.
“There's this real big logistical process that happens behind the scenes that no one really gets to know about,” he says. “[The bible] talks about having the stars come in - every person had to come in with three outfits, and of course, depending on how they work inside this dark lit studio, some of them were told ‘go get changed’.”
Faitaua says he was already a fan of the original version before the chance to host Tipping Point NZ came along. “I was that person who would just be yelling at the TV,” he says. “It was the kind of game show that just attracted all generations.”
What’s riding on Tipping Point NZ?
We used to be a serious country, with local game shows on all the time - Faitaua fondly recalls It’s In The Bag and Wheel of Fortune - but they’ve become few and far between in recent years, with the preference being for imported programmes often from the UK.
But are things changing? Tipping Point is the second local version of a popular English game show to debut in the last 12 months, after the Paul Henry-fronted The Chase NZ.
The difference here is that celebrities are involved, rather than civilians, though it’s likely a test case to see whether there is appetite for Tipping Point as a local format. Faitaua describes this iteration as the “blueprint” for any future versions.
While the show is running in primetime, there’s nothing to suggest a future series couldn’t air in the all-important 5pm slot just before the nightly news. That slot is typically reserved for The Chase, but it’s not uncommon to realise halfway through watching that you’ve already seen this episode six times - Tipping Point NZ could feasibly run in The Chase’s off-season.
It’s been a while since we had a sustained run of a local quiz show on the telly, with The Chase NZ - which was filmed in Australia - airing only four episodes.
In short, if Celebrity Tipping Point works, expect to see applications open soon for a full run with everyday Kiwis on set. Drop zone four, please Daniel.
Celebrity Tipping Point NZ premieres on Monday June 1 at 7pm on TVNZ 1 and TVNZ +.
In other news…
RNZ ratings slip
RNZ National’s ratings have slipped slightly in the latest listenership survey, falling from 500,300 at the end of last year to 492,900. It’s not a huge drop, but given it comes at the same time as its main competitor Newstalk ZB has continued to surge, it’s not great timing.
However, while some commentators have used this data to criticise the appointment of John Campbell as Morning Report co-host, that’s unfair. The impact of Campbell’s tenure in the role won’t truly be known until the next round of listening data.
ZB upholds complaint from MP
Newstalk ZB this week upheld a complaint from sitting National MP Joseph Mooney who was accused on live radio of leaking to the media against Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Mooney was one of five National MPs named by broadcaster Mike Hosking as being responsible for leaks - all denied it.
However, while Mooney has been told that the allegation should have been put to him before Hosking said it on-air, Newstalk ZB has stopped short of fully correcting the record. At the time of writing, its website still carries at least two articles that name Mooney and his colleagues as the alleged leakers.
One, an editorial by Wellington host Nick Mills reads, “If Mike Hosking is naming these names you can bet he's on the money, I'm prepared to lose my job on that.” The Star-Times asked whether that article would be removed in light of Mooney’s complaint being upheld, but NZME did not respond.