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The Great New Zealand Spelling Bee

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Sundays at 8.30pm

This programme is now off-air

Some of New Zealand's best-known faces compete in this week's spelling bee, in an attempt to become the eventual spelling champion and win a cash prize for their chosen charity.

About the Show

In The Great New Zealand Spelling Bee, some of the country's brightest and most talented local stars face the daunting challenge of stepping up to the spelling plate in front of the nation, in a new, fun-filled entertainment series.

Mark Leishman hosts this competition designed to test not only the contestants' nerves and mental ability, but often their sense of humour as well.  They will need to keep their wits about them as they try to spell their way to win each week's cash charity prize and the chance at a spot in the series final.

Contestants are drawn from the fields of music, sport, politics, TV, the media, acting and general entertainment.  Some of the faces appearing in the show include Jason Gunn, Kevin Milne, Robert Rakete, Leigh Hart, Frankie Stevens, Georgina Beyer, Peter Elliott, Jo Cotton, Jon Gadsby, Rosita Vai, Willy de Wit, Gary McCormack, Jordan Luck, Pam Corkery and Simon Barnett.

Each episode starts with nine players, in three teams of three. Each team is assigned a team captain. 

During Rounds One and Two, players individually spell words to gain points for their team.  At the end of Round Two, the team with the lowest score is eliminated.   In the first two rounds, teams who are stumped have the chance to call on 12-year-old Samir Pate (pictured), an American spelling champion, to help them.

Samir has attended the finals of the US National Spelling Bee four times in a row, and has appeared on the US, UK and Australian version of the Spelling Bee television programme.  In the overseas versions, he has misspelt words only twice.

At the start of Round Three, the remaining two teams will have their scores reset to zero.  Once again players spell words to gain points for their team.  At the end of Round Four, the lowest scoring team will be eliminated.

At the start of Round Five, the remaining team disband to play as individuals.  By the end of this round, one player will be eliminated, leaving two finalists.  In the final round, the two finalists spell up to five words each to decide the episode winner.  The champion will receive a cash donation of $10,000 for his/her selected charity and go through to the series final.  The overall series winner will win $50,000 for their chosen charity.

"This show will prove just how good a nation of spellers we really are (or not!)," says host Mark Leishman. "All our courageous celebrities will be faced with the daunting task of spelling without any aid, such as pen and paper to assist them.  This is much harder to do than you would think, especially in the current age of spell-check, which has become so commonplace in our everyday lives."

Viewers at home have a chance to test themselves against their favourite celebrity. All words must be spelt using UK/NZ spellings.  American spellings will not be accepted, and so will be counted as incorrect.  All words have had their spelling verified as correct in the New Zealand Oxford Dictionary. 

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