Contestant

A contestant is someone who takes part in a competition, usually a professional competition or a game show on television. The participants competing against each other have to go through rounds. The winners may have to compete in later stages or rounds until there is just one winner.

Game show contestants

Game show contestants are usually members of the general public who are selected via some sort of qualification system, such as a general knowledge or IQ test (an example of this is Jeopardy!, in which contestants must pass a 50-question test.) who then appear on the televised show. Game show careers are usually short lived, perhaps lasting only one day. A very small minority go on to achieve national fame, such as Joyce Brothers and Ken Jennings in the United States and Charles Ingram in the United Kingdom .

Some game shows deliberately target celebrity contestants, such as Match Game and Blankety Blank.

There are links between game show contestants and other games and hobbies, such as Scrabble players who take part in word-based game shows like Countdown and BrainTeaser.