The Price Is Right is an American television game show. A 1972 revival by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman of their 1956–1965 show of the same name, the new version adds many distinctive gameplay elements. Contestants compete in a variety of games to determine the prices of products or prizes which they may win. These contestants are selected from the studio audience and are called onstage to compete by the announcer using the show's catchphrase of "come on down!"
The program premiered September 4, 1972, on CBS. Bob Barker was the series's longest-running host from its debut until his retirement in June 2007, when Drew Carey took over. Johnny Olson was the show's original announcer, holding this role until just before his death in 1985. He was replaced by Rod Roddy, who remained with the show until just before his own death in late 2003. Rich Fields took over as announcer in 2004 and was replaced with George Gray in 2011. The show has featured numerous models as prize presenters, most notably Anitra Ford, Janice Pennington, Dian Parkinson, Holly Hallstrom, and Kathleen Bradley.
The Price Is Right has aired over 10,000 episodes since its debut. It is the longest-running game show in the United States and is one of the longest-running network series in United States television history. The 53rd season premiered on September 23, 2024, with both a daytime and primetime episode, and its 10,000th episode aired on February 26, 2025.
On March 2, 2022, it was announced that The Price Is Right would be inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Host Drew Carey and executive producer Evelyn Warfel accepted the award at The Achievement in Broadcasting Awards on the NAB Show main stage in Las Vegas on April 24, 2022.
Beginning with season 54, which premiered in September 2025, The Price Is Right became the longest running game show in the world, surpassing the Chilean variety show Sábado Gigante, which aired 53 seasons from 1962 until 2015. Season 55 starting airing on Monday September 21, 2026 on CBS; the 20th year with Carey as the host.
Gameplay The gameplay of the show consists of four distinct competition elements, in which preliminary contestants (nine in most episodes) are eventually narrowed to two finalists who compete in the game's final element, the "Showcases". All elements of the show are based around identifying the prices of products.
One Bid At the start of the show, four contestants are called from the audience by the announcer to take a spot in the front row behind bidding lecterns. This area is known as "Contestants' Row" or "Bidders' Row".Schwartz, Ryan and Wostbrock, pp. 178–179. After calling each selected contestant's name, the announcer shouts "Come on down!", the show's catch phrase.
The four contestants in Contestants' Row compete in a bidding round, sometimes referred to as "One Bid", to determine which contestant will play the next pricing game. A prize is shown and each contestant gives a single bid for the item in whole dollars, as the price is rounded to the nearest dollar. In the first One Bid game of each episode, bidding begins with the contestant on the viewer's left (usually, the first contestant who came down to the Contestant's Row) and proceeds right. A contestant may not duplicate another's bid. The contestant whose bid is closest to the actual retail price of the prize without going over wins that prize, and gets to play the subsequent pricing game. If all four contestants' bids are higher than the actual retail price, all bids are erased, and the contestants are instructed to bid a second time without exceeding the lowest bid of the previous round. Bidding the exact price awards a $500 cash bonus.
After each of the first five pricing games, another contestant is called to "come on down" to fill the spot of the contestant who played the previous pricing game. Subsequent One Bid rounds begin with the newest contestant and wrap around. Contestants who fail to win a One Bid round and do not make it onstage to play a pricing game receive consolation prizes, often sponsored by companies revealed by the announcer near the end of the show.
A 1996 study from Stanford University analyzed the bidding behavior of contestants, noting that they rarely attempted to optimize their bidding strategies but that accuracy tended to improve the longer they stayed in Contestants' Row. A 2019 study from Harvard University noted that the accuracy of the average bid fell substantially over the course of the show's run, from 8% lower than the actual retail price at the series start in 1972 to over 20% by 2010, before stabilizing throughout the 2010s. The study concluded that accuracy correlated with inflation and hypothesized that periods of high inflation make people more attentive to prices, while also surmising that increasing e-commerce has made people less attentive to prices overall.
Pricing games
The winner of the One Bid joins the host onstage for the opportunity to win additional prizes or cash by playing a pricing game. After the pricing game ends, a new contestant is selected for Contestants' Row and the process is repeated.
Six pricing games are played on each hour-long episode. Pricing game formats vary widely, ranging from simple dilemma games in which a contestant chooses one of two options to win, to complex games of chance or skill in which guessing prices increases the odds of winning. On a typical hour-long episode, two games are played for a car, one game is played for a cash prize, and the other three games offer expensive household merchandise or trips. Usually, at least one of the six games involves the pricing of grocery items, while another usually involves smaller prizes that can be used to win a larger prize package. On selected Friday episodes were all prizes are cash prizes, all games involve grocery items or smaller prizes.
Originally, five pricing games were in the rotation. Since then, more games have been created and added to the rotation. Some pricing games were eventually discontinued, while others have been a mainstay since the show's debut in 1972. As of 2017, the rotation is among 77 games.
Showcase Showdown
The game also features two Showcase Showdown rounds, held after all six pricing games have been played (a procedural change starting early in Season 51 tapings; prior to 2021, they were held after the third and sixth pricing games, and on broadcast, it is always broadcast after the third game for the first and sixth game for the second). The three contestants who played each pricing game in each half compete to spin a vertical wheel, known as "the Big Wheel", to determine who will proceed to the show's final round known as the Showcase. The contestants play in the order of the value of their winnings per half (including the One Bid), with the contestant who has won the most spinning last.
The wheel contains 20 sections showing values from 5¢ to $1.00, in increments of five cents. Upon spinning, the contestant may choose to accept the value of the first spin, or take a second spin and accept the combined value of the two. The wheel must make at least one complete revolution, and spins which fail to do so are not counted. After the first contestant has finished spinning, the second and third must beat or tie the value of the first contestant's spin; failure to do so in two spins, or having two spins whose combined value is greater than $1.00, eliminates a contestant from the Showcase Showdown. If the first two players spin over $1.00, then the third player wins by default and has only one spin. Contestants who are unable to spin the wheel on their own are allowed to have another person spin on their behalf. Contestants who achieve an exact score of $1.00 in one or two spins are awarded a cash bonus and a chance to spin the wheel again, known as a "bonus spin". During a "bonus spin", a cash bonus of $25,000 is given if the wheel lands on the $1.00 space again, and $10,000 if it lands on the 5¢ or 15¢ spaces. Ties are broken by an additional spin from each tied contestant. The two highest-scoring contestants of the Showcase Showdown rounds proceed to the final round, known as the Showcase.
For Season 55, Wednesday episodes are designated as "Wild Wheel Wednesdays," where a $1.00 spin is worth $10,000. During a bonus spin, the bonuses are $25,000 for the 5¢ or 15¢ spaces, $100,000 for the $1.00 space, a car for the 55¢ space (for the show's 55th season, a tribute to Dream Car Weeks when a car prize replaced the bonus for the $1.00 on the bonus spin), and a randomly selected prize for 20¢ (for Drew Carey's 20th season).
Showcase At the end of the episode, the two Showcase Showdown winners advance to the Showcase. A package of prizes, referred to as a "showcase", is presented by the announcer and models. Occasionally, prizes may have a common theme, or serve as plot devices within a comedic skit acted out by the announcer and models. The higher-scoring contestant may choose to bid on the showcase, or pass it to their opponent, who must then make a bid. Afterward, a second "showcase" is presented to the other contestant, who must then make a bid. After a commercial break, the host reveals the value of each showcase, with the winner being determined by whoever bid closer without going over the value. Should both contestants' bids be over-valued, neither contestant wins a showcase. A contestant who is within a range ($100 from 1974-1998; $250 since 1998) of the value without over-bidding wins both prize packages, known as a "double showcase win". Should the two players tie, both players win.their packages.
The 2017 documentary Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much tells the story of the one contestant who bid the exact price of a showcase, which occurred on an episode taped in September 2008.
Personnel
Hosts
Bob Barker began hosting The Price Is Right on September 4, 1972, and completed a 35-year tenure on June 15, 2007. Barker was hired as host while still hosting the stunt comedy show Truth or Consequences. His retirement coincided with his 50th year as a television host. His final show aired on June 15, 2007, and was repeated in primetime, leading into the network's coverage of the 34th Daytime Emmy Awards. In addition to hosting, Barker became executive producer of the show in March 1988 when Frank Wayne died and continued as such until his retirement, gaining significant creative control over the series between 2000 and his 2007 retirement. He was also responsible for creating several of the show's pricing games, as well as launching The Price Is Right $1,000,000 Spectacular primetime spin-off. Reruns of Barker's final season were aired throughout the summer from the Monday after his final show (June 18, 2007) until the Friday before Drew Carey's debut as host (October 12, 2007), when the season 35 finale was re-aired. During his time as host, Barker missed only one taping of four episodes. Dennis James, then hosting the syndicated nighttime version of the show, filled in for him on these shows in December 1974. In 1981, shortly after the death of his wife Dorothy Jo, Barker became an animal rights advocate and vegetarian, and began signing off each episode with "Help control the pet population, have your pets spayed or neutered." After Barker's retirement, Carey continued the tradition with the same sign-off.