However, during one December 2021 edition when Scott Mills was sitting in for Bruce, a contestant failed to answer a single question correctly and scored no points.
When Bruce was on holiday, PopMaster continued with stand-in presenters; these have included Alex Lester, Stuart Maconie, Michael Ball, Claudia Winkleman, Simon Mayo, Richard Allinson, Aled Jones, Zoe Ball, Fearne Cotton, Sara Cox, Trevor Nelson, Gary Davies, Jo Whiley, Scott Mills and DJ Spoony on Radio 2, and Mark Goodier and Richard Allinson on Greatest Hits Radio.
Despite never having been implicated, PopMaster was suspended for one day on 19 July 2007 in line with the BBC's blanket ban on television and radio competitions following several phone-in scandals.
[2] The following day, PopMaster returned without prizes or public entry, with the contestants consisting of celebrities and BBC staff.
A third "Eurovision Popmaster" was held live on 17 May 2013 from Malmö, Sweden, on the eve of the 2013 contest, with Bruce competing against Paddy O'Connell and John Kennedy O'Connor chairing the quiz.
On Bank Holiday Monday, 25 May 2020, Bruce hosted an "All-Day" tournament of the quiz, with celebrities playing against members of the public.
For this version, contestants could pick up the normal 39 points, with an extra five being awarded for successfully completing the Three-in-Ten round.
[9][10] On 28 May 2021, in the lead-up to the broadcast of a documentary about the quiz called One Year Out: The PopMaster Story, the first ever contestants from February 1998 returned to play a rematch.
Shortly after moving to Greatest Hits Radio, it was announced in April 2023 that a televised version of PopMaster, titled PopMaster TV, was commissioned by Channel 4 to air on their More4 channel.,[11] broadcasting a six-episode series from 26 June 2023, with the grand final on 3 July 2023, featuring winners from each of the daily episodes broadcast the week before.
[21] The game features text, image, sound and video questions, and scores are determined by how quickly the player answers correctly.
[22] PopMaster was parodied by comedian and BBC 6 Music presenter Jon Holmes on his weekend show in the game "Ken Bruce Master".
[citation needed] The format of PopMaster is similar to that of David Hamilton's Music Game which ran on his Radio 2 show in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s.
BBC Radio 2 replaced PopMaster with a new daily quiz called Ten to the Top launched at the start of Gary Davies's interim period covering the morning show and continuing with Vernon Kay as its permanent host.