Game show `Deal' goes daily with big money, Mandel

[Paul]

LOS ANGELES - Howie Mandel, the models, the banker and the briefcases all will be in place when the syndicated version of "Deal or No Deal" premieres in September — along with cash for viewers as well as contestants.

Players on the new show won't have a shot at the top $1 million payoff that's possible on NBC's series, but the half-hour show airing each weekday will offer a still-hefty $500,000, the show's producer told The Associated Press Monday.

The TV audience will have their own chance to win as well as watch with a $10,000 weekly prize up for grabs via a companion Web site or a call-in number, series producer Endemol USA said.

Mandel will continue to host the hourlong NBC show, which is entering its fourth season next month and has proven a hit. "Deal or No Deal" was NBC's most-watched entertainment program of the 2007-08 TV season, averaging more than 11 million viewers per broadcast.

"My wife could not be more thrilled to have me out of the house and at work Monday through Friday," Mandel joked in a statement released by Endemol.

Based on a series that debuted in Holland in 2002 and became an international success, "Deal or No Deal" is about luck and playing the odds.

Contestants are faced with briefcases, each case with a hidden value ranging from a penny to the top prize. There are 22 cases on the syndicated show, versus 26 on the network version, and the new show's models won't have custody of the cases.

As the game progresses and briefcases cases are eliminated, a contestant weighs the chance of snaring a big prize against lesser but still tempting offers made by the show's "bank," represented by an anonymous, silhouetted figure.

The show, from NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution and Endemol USA, debuts Sept. 8.