WWTBAM Bored

Does anybody have a reasonable and justifiable estimate of how many auditioners there are each year for BAM?

slam wrote:Does anybody have a reasonable and justifiable estimate of how many auditioners there are each year for BAM?

I think they've mentioned the figure of 30,000. Seems about right.

I think they've mentioned the figure of 30,000.

I would have thought there were more people than that in NYC.

ulysses5019 wrote:

I think they've mentioned the figure of 30,000.

I would have thought there were more people than that in NYC.

Yeah, but the rest of them have been on the show already.

Yeah, 30K sounds right to me too.

My estimates:
Assumption of 120 auditioners each NYC session.
46 weeks' worth of tapings, 2 taping sessions per week of shows = 11,040.
Pre-taping auditions from April 28th through August 18th (assumed start of taping for this year): 16 weeks of NYC auditions, 6 audition sessions per week (M-Th evenings, Wed/Thu afternoons) = 11,520.
Ten road auditions @ 1000 per city = 10,000. The road auditions may substitute for NYC sessions. IIRC, there were two cities in a week.

Add another 4000-8000 for Chicago. Sometimes they get up to 8000-10000 at that audition.

geoffil wrote:Add another 4000-8000 for Chicago. Sometimes they get up to 8000-10000 at that audition.

I may have underestimated the road auditions, since I haven't been to one since 2001. How many people do they run through per test session with so many waiting for their shot?

gsabc wrote:Yeah, 30K sounds right to me too.

My estimates:
Assumption of 120 auditioners each NYC session.
46 weeks' worth of tapings, 2 taping sessions per week of shows = 11,040.
Pre-taping auditions from April 28th through August 18th (assumed start of taping for this year): 16 weeks of NYC auditions, 6 audition sessions per week (M-Th evenings, Wed/Thu afternoons) = 11,520.
Ten road auditions @ 1000 per city = 10,000. The road auditions may substitute for NYC sessions. IIRC, there were two cities in a week.

Thanks for the feedback. One number I'm curios about.

You assume 6 audition sessions per week, but during each session they fit in about 3 subsessions. And in each of those subsessions, I think there may be 100 people or so in my experience. Doesn't that lead to a lot more people?

slam wrote:

gsabc wrote:Yeah, 30K sounds right to me too.

My estimates:
Assumption of 120 auditioners each NYC session.
46 weeks' worth of tapings, 2 taping sessions per week of shows = 11,040.
Pre-taping auditions from April 28th through August 18th (assumed start of taping for this year): 16 weeks of NYC auditions, 6 audition sessions per week (M-Th evenings, Wed/Thu afternoons) = 11,520.
Ten road auditions @ 1000 per city = 10,000. The road auditions may substitute for NYC sessions. IIRC, there were two cities in a week.

Thanks for the feedback. One number I'm curios about.

You assume 6 audition sessions per week, but during each session they fit in about 3 subsessions. And in each of those subsessions, I think there may be 100 people or so in my experience. Doesn't that lead to a lot more people?

Did not know about the subsessions, having never attended the summer NYC auditions. That's why I stated my assumptions.

Assumption = estimate = best guess, whether an educated one or not. Remember, an estimate of the square root of 2 is 100. It's a lousy estimate, but it's still an estimate.

So what sort of calculation are you trying to make with this number, slam?

MarleysGh0st wrote:So what sort of calculation are you trying to make with this number, slam?

I'm trying to compare the difficulty of becoming a contestant on WWTBAM and Jeopardy!

I was talking to a friend of mine who has an in-person J! audition in a few weeks and mentioned that I had a WWTBAM audition next week. My intuition is that it's harder, from a numbers perspective, to get on WWTBAM than on J! I've done similar calculations for J! now that they've instituted the online test but had never gone through the exercise for WWTBAM.

One thing to remember is that J! has more contestants per year. They have approximately 200 non-tournament shows with 2 new challengers every show (well, almost every show), giving about 400 new regular contestants per year. WWTBAM is now running approximately 300 contestants per season. Another factor is that a higher percentage of test takers pass the WWTBAM test than the J! test. On the other hand, J! probably tests more people a year (estimates are 70,000 to 100,000).

gsabc wrote:Yeah, 30K sounds right to me too.

My estimates:
Assumption of 120 auditioners each NYC session.
46 weeks' worth of tapings, 2 taping sessions per week of shows = 11,040.
Pre-taping auditions from April 28th through August 18th (assumed start of taping for this year): 16 weeks of NYC auditions, 6 audition sessions per week (M-Th evenings, Wed/Thu afternoons) = 11,520.
Ten road auditions @ 1000 per city = 10,000. The road auditions may substitute for NYC sessions. IIRC, there were two cities in a week.

Although I agree that the 30k number is correct, you're wrong about the number of tapings.

There's been 175 shows per season (including the current one). Plus, they've mostly been on a 5 show per day taping schedule this year. So, there's approximately 35 tape dates to make one season's episodes. To make up for fewer tapings, I'd guess there's more audition days.

However, the 30 000 figure is irrelevant anyway. You have to pass the written test, the initial audition interview and now the video audition to be put into the pool. TPTB control the number of people that make it all the way through the process to a manageable number that allows them to select the 300 or so contestants making the final cut.

That number TPTB look at for final evaluation is pretty much fixed whether there's 30 000 or 300 000 auditioners. They only have so much time, personnel and inclination to fill the contestant spots.

15QuestionsAway wrote:

gsabc wrote:Yeah, 30K sounds right to me too.

My estimates:
Assumption of 120 auditioners each NYC session.
46 weeks' worth of tapings, 2 taping sessions per week of shows = 11,040.
Pre-taping auditions from April 28th through August 18th (assumed start of taping for this year): 16 weeks of NYC auditions, 6 audition sessions per week (M-Th evenings, Wed/Thu afternoons) = 11,520.
Ten road auditions @ 1000 per city = 10,000. The road auditions may substitute for NYC sessions. IIRC, there were two cities in a week.

Although I agree that the 30k number is correct, you're wrong about the number of tapings.

There's been 175 shows per season (including the current one). Plus, they've mostly been on a 5 show per day taping schedule this year. So, there's approximately 35 tape dates to make one season's episodes. To make up for fewer tapings, I'd guess there's more audition days.

However, the 30 000 figure is irrelevant anyway. You have to pass the written test, the initial audition interview and now the video audition to be put into the pool. TPTB control the number of people that make it all the way through the process to a manageable number that allows them to select the 300 or so contestants making the final cut.

That number TPTB look at for final evaluation is pretty much fixed whether there's 30 000 or 300 000 auditioners. They only have so much time, personnel and inclination to fill the contestant spots.

I agree with the 35 tape dates, but each tape date is broken up into 2 sessions. Two different audiences and two different audition groups. However, those groups are smaller than the audition only sessions since many people attend the tapings without auditioning.

I disagree about the 30,000 number (I'll have to think more about whether I agree with it - but it's likely the right order of magnitude) being irrelevant, however. I want to look at the ratio at how many people commence the audition process on the two shows to how many people actually appear on the show. I also want to look at the ratio of how many people pass the written test to actually appear on the show. There are a number of steps that are required to make that journey. For BAM, you have to pass the test, now pass the first audition, pass the taped audition and then finally get selected. For J!, you have to pass the online test (we'll ignore the Brain Bus for now), get randomly selected for an in-person audition, get into the "real" pool (which they never really tell you whether you make - unlike BAM), then get selected for the show.

I agree that the 30,000 number is irrelevant if you want to examine the ratio of the number of people who TPTB consider "finalists" to how many appear on the show. TPTB have a lot of control over the number of finalists.