SF-Studio

"SF-Studio" is a Finnish quiz show hosted by Simo Frangén. It replaced Frangén's earlier show "Maailman ympäri" in 2004.

Like "Maailman ympäri", "SF-Studio" is a themed show. This time the theme is news. The questions concern people and events in recent news, and a short parody of a news report (with completely nonsensical contents) appears between each round.

Also like "Maailman ympäri", "SF-Studio" has four contestants, two of which are men and two women, and two are celebrities and two ordinary people.

"SF-Studio" has one main prize, a holiday trip. Where the trip is located depends on the choices in the fourth and final round. There are five different options, starting from a cheap trip inside Finland, and getting progressively more expensive and further away, with the best option being a trip to some famous sunny beach holiday resort near the Equator.

Smaller prizes are recently published Finnish books, all autographed by some Finnish celebrity who has nothing whatsoever to do with either the book or its author.

Rules

"SF-Studio" consists of four rounds. After each round, one contestant is dropped out.

Round one

The object of round one is to guess the name of a person who has lately been mentioned in the news.

There is a preset number of persons to guess, and Frangén begins each of the questions by giving clues about the person's identity, starting difficult and getting easier along the way. This continues until one of the contestants gives a signal, at which point he/she has to answer.

Getting the answer right moves the contestant to round two. Getting the answer wrong forces the contestant to pass during the next question.

This continues until only one contestant is left.

Round two

Round two is a game with a "dare" element. There are six categories, whose names vary according to recent news.

The contestants have markers with two states: "I know" and "I don't know". One of the contestants is selected to pick a category, and Frangén asks a question about it. He/she has to turn his/her marker to "I know". The other two can pick "I know" or "I don't know" according to how they feel.

One of the contestants with their markers set to "I know" is randomly selected to answer. If the answer is right, he/she gets a point, but if it's wrong, he/she loses a point. Contestants with their markers set to "I know" but who don't get to answer get a point regardless of the actual answer.

After all categories are used, the contestant with the fewest points is dropped out.

Round three

Round three is also played with six categories selected from recent news.

One of the two remaining contestants is selected to answer. After Frangén has asked the question, the contestant can either choose to answer or transfer the question.

A right answer earns the contestant one point and the next question is also asked from the same contestant. A wrong answer drops the contestant back to 0 points, and the other contestant becomes the one to answer.

If the contestant instead decides to transfer the question, the other contestant has to answer it instead. The same rules as above apply, except that a transferred question cannot be retransferred.

After all categories are used, the contestant with fewer points is dropped out.

Round four

Round four has five questions taken from recent news, all of which are multiple-choice questions with three choices. This round also has a "dare" element.

The contestant views the questions but does not answer them yet. He/she predicts how many he/she will get right. This will determine what prize he/she will get: If the contestant meets his/her prediction, he/she will get a prize whose value depends how many questions he/she said he/she will get right, not on how many he/she actually got right. If the contestant does not meet the prediction, he/she will get nothing at all.

The contestant then answers all the questions. He/she is given a chance to change one of the answers, if he/she wants to.

Then all answers are revealed. If enough answers were right, the contestant gets a prize defined as above.

Lottery game

"SF-Studio" includes a lottery game called "Simon sää", in co-operation with Veikkaus. The name means "Simo's weather" and the draw takes the form of a fictitious weather forecast, with the weather of ten Finnish cities or towns (including one Lappish town that is actually named Simo) randomly selected from four different options.

This lottery game was not as popular as Maailman ympäri and has been stopped.