Deal or No Deal reboot suffers blow as eye-watering jackpot SLASHED by ITV to save costs

THE cost-of-living crisis now seems to have hit the reboot of gameshow Deal or No Deal with the jackpot on the show getting slashed from £250,000 to £100,000.

That’s a drop of 60 per cent on the prize money which everyone tried to bag when the programme launched on Channel 4 in 2005 with Noel Edmonds as host.

If the producers had kept up with inflation the new version on ITV1, set to air later this year with Stephen Mulhern now in charge, would actually have seen the top payout increase by over 60 per cent.

A TV insider said: “It’s a strange sign of the times, but times are tough for ITV just as it is for all other companies across the country, and £100,000 is still a lot of money these days.

“Plus, Deal or no Deal was never about the winnings, it was always about the game and the camaraderie between the contestants, with some happy to walks away with nothing….or just 1p in some cases.”

The cult programme ran for 11 years on C4 and the show was duplicated around the world, including in the US where none other than Meghan Markle featured.

The British version provided another chapter to Noel’s telly career, not to mention some surprising cameos from the likes of Olly Murs and Naughty Boy before they were famous.

The concept was simple: a contestant picks one of 22 boxes, each containing a sum starting at 1p and going up the jackpot. They tried to win as much as possible by gambling on having a higher amount in their chosen box or making “the banker” offer cash to buy their box off them.

But every round they have to open more of the other 21 boxes and every time it indicates what some is inside the contestant’s box.

On the upcoming reboot we now know what will be in there – a heck of a lot less than there used to be.

ITV declined to comment.