ITV has commissioned The Golden Elevators, a new high-stakes quiz show hosted by Richard Osman, and the network is pitching it as a fast, primetime contest built around a simple choice: A or B. Ten contestants will battle across two elevators to reach the penthouse and a huge cash jackpot, with the prize shared by every player who gets there.
Osman said he signed up the moment the game was shown to him. “I’m absolutely thrilled to be hosting The Golden Elevators,” he said. “It’s so simple, but it takes such skill to win — I’ve never seen a quiz show quite like it.” He added: “I really can’t wait for ITV viewers to see The Golden Elevators. Or, as I call it, The Golden Lifts.”
The commission was announced on May 12, 2026, and ITV said the series will air on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player. The format is created and distributed by Talpa Studios and produced with Studio Lambert, placing it in the same broad family of high-pressure game shows that rely on speed, strategy and nerve rather than trivia alone.
That is also the point ITV is selling. Katie Rawcliffe said the channel was excited to bring The Golden Elevators, hosted by what she called the exceptional King of gameshows Richmond Osman, to its schedule. She described it as fast-paced, full of twists and turns, and with play-along appeal suited to primetime. Tim Harcourt went further, saying the game of questions and answers is fused with some of the most devilish gameplay ever.
The mechanics are simple enough to explain in a sentence, but the pressure comes from what sits behind them. Contestants are not just answering questions; they are trying to keep moving upward, and the jackpot only lands for those who make it all the way to the penthouse. Shared prizes usually sharpen the competition because every wrong step changes the size of the reward for the players still in contention.
Jasper Hoogendoorn said the ambitions for the format have been sky-high from the start. He said the show has already been in advanced discussions with multiple territories and that ITV is the first territory outside the Netherlands to join the journey. That makes the British commission more than a domestic scheduling decision: it is an early test of whether the format can travel before it has even launched.
The series comes from a production and creative line-up that includes Tom Blakeson, Tim Harcourt, Toni Ireland, Stephen Lovelock, Stephen Lambert, John de Mol and Hoogendoorn as executive producers. For ITV, the draw is obvious. Osman has become one of the most recognisable faces in British quiz television, and the network is leaning on that familiarity to sell a format that depends on being easy to grasp but hard to master.
The question now is not whether The Golden Elevators makes sense on paper. It does. The real test is whether a game this stripped back can keep viewers hooked once the lifts start moving and the money starts to matter.
