The Price Is Right

Since 1972, the current version of The Price Is Right uses the same structure:

• One Bid, where four players attempt to bid on an initial prize, being as close as possible without going over; the player closest to the price gets the opportunity to play a pricing game. The first four players are called from the studio audience at the start of the show in Contestant's Row to play One Bid, and after each pricing game, a new player is called to fill the slot.
• Pricing games, where the contestant plays for a range of prizes, frequently money or automobiles, with most games based on the player's knowledge of the retail price of these items.
• The Showcase, where the two top players of the day are shown two showcases, collections of several prizes. The player with the highest winnings to that point gets the option of either bidding on the first showcase, or passing that to the other player who must bid on it; the second showcase is then bid on by the remaining player. The player who bids closer to the retail price of their own showcase without going over wins the showcase; it is possible to win both showcases by being very close to the actual price without going over, while if both players overbid, neither showcase is won.

When the new format debuted as The New Price Is Right, shows were thirty minutes in length: three pricing games were played and the two contestants with the highest winnings entered the Showcase. By June 1973, the show was renamed back to The Price is Right.

The show was expanded into an hour-long format on November 3, 1975, allowing six pricing games to be played per episode. A new feature, the Showcase Showdown, was added to select which players would play in the Showcase. It is played after the first three players have completed their pricing games to select one player from this set, and again after the last three. In the Showdown, each player is given two chances to spin a wheel which displays every monetary amount from 5¢ to $1.00 in 5¢ increments. The player may either stop after the first spin or take the second one, with the values from both spins being added together in the latter case to determine their score. The player who comes the closest to $1.00 without going over, either on the first spin alone or the sum of both, advances to the Showcase. A score of exactly $1.00 awards a cash bonus and gives the player a chance to win larger amounts in a bonus spin.

The series debuted September 4, 1972, in two forms: a daily version on CBS with Bob Barker as host, and a weekly version, eventually dubbed "the nighttime Price Is Right," hosted by Dennis James and airing in first-run syndication. Barker took over the nighttime version in 1977 (which remained a half-hour in length throughout its existence) and hosted both until the nighttime version was discontinued in 1980. The syndicated nighttime version returned five years later, with Tom Kennedy as host and running five days a week. This version ran for one season.

Barker hosted the program from its debut until June 15, 2007. During his 35 years as host, Barker won numerous awards and honors including Daytime Emmys and a Lifetime Achievement Award. Directors of the show included Marc Breslow, Paul Alter, and Bart Eskander, with Eskander receiving a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Direction of a Game Show. Producer Roger Dobkowitz won a Daytime Emmy for his work on the show, which included the development of many of the show's games that are still being played today.

After a search for a successor, Drew Carey took the helm of the show, with production resuming in August 2007, and his first episode airing on October 15. It is believed to be the longest-running game show on television (the Spanish-language variety show Sábado Gigante ended on September 19, 2015).[5][6] It is also the longest running game show airing episodes five days-per-week in the world. The Price Is Right is one of two game show franchises (along with To Tell the Truth) to be seen nationally in either first-run network or syndication airings in the U.S. in every decade from the 1950s onward. CBS has occasionally aired extra episodes of the show for short periods between the cancellation of one daytime program and the premiere of its successor. On occasion since 1986, special episodes have aired during prime time hours, most notably to fill in gaps between the Survivor series, and during the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike.

On September 22, 2008, Terry Kneiss made game show history by bidding the exact amount of his $23,743 showcase. Taping of the show immediately stopped, with Carey and show staffers concerned that cheating was taking place. It was later learned that—by constantly watching the show, noticing the frequency of certain products showing up on the show, and using statistical analysis—Ted Slauson, an audience member and long-time superfan of the show, had legitimately determined the exact prices of the items in the showcase. Slauson shared this knowledge with Terry's wife Linda, who was sitting beside him in the audience, and the information was signaled to Terry up on stage. Kneiss was awarded the prizes, and the show subsequently discontinued featuring certain products.[7][8]

On April Fools' Day in 2014, Craig Ferguson and Carey switched hosting duties, with Carey hosting The Late Late Show and Ferguson taking over the hosting duties on The Price Is Right. The episode also featured Shadoe Stevens as announcer. Barker appeared on the April Fools' Day episode in 2015, hosting the first item up for bids and the first pricing game, with Carey hosting the remainder of the episode.[9][10]

Since December 1, 2020, Pluto TV airs 1980s-era episodes from the Bob Barker period on their streaming channel "The Price is Right: The Barker Era".[11]

Prime time episodes have been ordered by CBS on occasion since 1986. The first, The Price Is Right Special, was a six-week summer series which aired on CBS in 1986, hosted by Barker. In 2002, the show celebrated its 30th year with a Las Vegas special.

Later in 2002, the show began its current line of primetime episodes (known as #xxxSP in show codes). Six special episodes titled The Price Is Right Salutes aired in primetime, saluting the branches of the United States armed forces, and for the police and firefighters of America in the wake of the September 11 attacks became the first in the canon. The Price Is Right $1,000,000 Spectacular (#007SP-#033SP) was a series of primetime specials airing from 2003 until 2008 featuring chances at winning $1,000,000, as well as more expensive prizes than on the daytime counterpart.

Two daytime episodes aired in primetime. Episode #4035K (June 15, 2007, season finale and Bob Barker's final episode) was rebroadcast in primetime after airing that morning, leading to the Daytime Emmy Awards. Episode #4512K, the show's military special, originally intended for November 11, 2008, became the first daytime episode scheduled to originally air in prime time when it was moved to November 14.

The Celebrity Week format in daytime where a celebrity plays along with contestants was adopted for the next series of prime time episodes, which are part of the same series as the 2002 Salutes and 2003–08 $1,000,000 Spectaculars (since #034SP). These shows used former participants on the network's three prime time reality game shows (Survivor, The Amazing Race and Big Brother) who joined contestants as teams. The three-night special aired May 23–25, 2016.[12] Another series of specials, #037SP (with cast members from SEAL Team mainly David Boreanaz, Max Thieriot, Neil Brown Jr., A.J. Buckley, Toni Trucks, Justin Melnick and Dita the Dog) and #038SP (featuring Seth Rogen), aired during the 2019–20 television season and three more episodes have been ordered by CBS to air during the season, #039SP-#041SP. Episodes starting with #037SP are designated as The Price Is Right at Night, with colour changes to the show's logo (blue and green instead of red and orange) to represent an evening motif instead of the bright colours for daytime.

The civilian-celebrity format beginning with 037SP offers a charitable donation the celebrity's charity equivalent to the total cash and prizes won, similar to the format used in daytime.

On January 12, 2020, CBS announced that three more specials will air in Spring 2020.[13]

Endless Games, which in the past has produced board games based on several other game shows, including The Newlywed Game and Million Dollar Password, distributes home versions of The Price Is Right, featuring the voice of Rich Fields, including a DVD edition and a Quick Picks travel-size edition. Ubisoft also released a video game version of the show for the PC, Nintendo DS, and Wii console on September 9, 2008. An updated version of the game (The Price Is Right: 2010 Edition) was released on September 22, 2009. Both versions feature the voice of Rich Fields, who was the show's announcer at the time of the release of the video games in question.

In September 2010, Ludia released the official Facebook version of The Price Is Right game. The game had two million monthly active users only two months after the launch.[14]

In October 2011, Ludia (now owned by RTL Group) released The Price Is Right Decades, a video game featuring production elements from various decades of the show, for the Wii, mobile devices, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 to celebrate their 40 years on the CBS network.