Overview

Magic Numbers was a British television show in which celebrity contestants answer questions to generate a sequence of 6 numbers. Members of the public then call a Premium-rate telephone number if their home or mobile phone numbers contains two or more of these digits. Callers are entered into a prize draw to win the chance of competing for a prize of up to £350,000. The show was created by CPL Productions and Paul Brassey and commissioned by John Kaye Cooper at ITV. The show is very similar to a previous ITV game show, Talking Telephone Numbers, the key difference being that viewers of Magic Numbers can call in if two of the numbers match their phone number, rather than five as on the previous show. This was a technique employed by ITV to generate more calls, and hence higher revenues from the show. Magic Numbers was hosted by Stephen Mulhern when it aired for one series of seven episodes in 2010.