The Price Is Right is an American television game show. A 1972 revival by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman of their 1956–1965 show of the same name, the new version adds many distinctive gameplay elements. Contestants compete in a variety of games to determine the prices of products or prizes which they may win. These contestants are selected from the studio audience and are called onstage to compete by the announcer using the show's catchphrase of "come on down!"
The program premiered September 4, 1972, on CBS. Bob Barker was the series's longest-running host from its debut until his retirement in June 2007, when Drew Carey took over. Johnny Olson was the show's original announcer, holding this role until just before his death in 1985. He was replaced by Rod Roddy, who remained with the show until just before his own death in late 2003. Rich Fields took over as announcer in 2004 and was replaced with George Gray in 2011. The show has featured numerous models as prize presenters, most notably Anitra Ford, Janice Pennington, Dian Parkinson, Holly Hallstrom, and Kathleen Bradley.
The Price Is Right has aired over 10,000 episodes since its debut. It is the longest-running game show in the United States and is one of the longest-running network series in United States television history. The 53rd season premiered on September 23, 2024, with both a daytime and primetime episode, and its 10,000th episode aired on February 26, 2025.
On March 2, 2022, it was announced that The Price Is Right would be inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Host Drew Carey and executive producer Evelyn Warfel accepted the award at The Achievement in Broadcasting Awards on the NAB Show main stage in Las Vegas on April 24, 2022.
Beginning with season 54, which premiered in September 2025, The Price Is Right became the longest running game show in the world, surpassing the Chilean variety show Sábado Gigante, which aired 53 seasons from 1962 until 2015.
The gameplay of the show consists of four distinct competition elements, in which preliminary contestants (nine in most episodes) are eventually narrowed to two finalists who compete in the game's final element, the "Showcases". All elements of the show are based around identifying the prices of products.
At the start of the show, four contestants are called from the audience by the announcer to take a spot in the front row behind bidding lecterns. This area is known as "Contestants' Row" or "Bidders' Row". After calling each selected contestant's name, the announcer shouts "Come on down!", the show's catch phrase.
The four contestants in Contestants' Row compete in a bidding round, sometimes referred to as "One Bid", to determine which contestant will play the next pricing game. A prize is shown and each contestant gives a single bid for the item in whole dollars, as the price is rounded to the nearest dollar. In the first One Bid game of each episode, bidding begins with the contestant on the viewer's left (usually, the first contestant who came down to the Contestant's Row) and proceeds right. A contestant may not duplicate another's bid. The contestant whose bid is closest to the actual retail price of the prize without going over wins that prize, and gets to play the subsequent pricing game. If all four contestants' bids are higher than the actual retail price, all bids are erased, and the contestants are instructed to bid a second time without exceeding the lowest bid of the previous round. Bidding the exact price awards a $500 cash bonus.
After each of the first five pricing games, another contestant is called to "come on down" to fill the spot of the contestant who played the previous pricing game. Subsequent One Bid rounds begin with the newest contestant and wrap around. Contestants who fail to win a One Bid round and do not make it onstage to play a pricing game receive consolation prizes, often sponsored by companies revealed by the announcer near the end of the show.
A 1996 study from Stanford University analyzed the bidding behavior of contestants, noting that they rarely attempted to optimize their bidding strategies but that accuracy tended to improve the longer they stayed in Contestants' Row. A 2019 study from Harvard University noted that the accuracy of the average bid fell substantially over the course of the show's run, from 8% lower than the actual retail price at the series start in 1972 to over 20% by 2010, before stabilizing throughout the 2010s. The study concluded that accuracy correlated with inflation and hypothesized that periods of high inflation make people more attentive to prices, while also surmising that increasing e-commerce has made people less attentive to prices overall.
The winner of the One Bid joins the host onstage for the opportunity to win additional prizes or cash by playing a pricing game. After the pricing game ends, a new contestant is selected for Contestants' Row and the process is repeated.
Six pricing games are played on each hour-long episode. Pricing game formats vary widely, ranging from simple dilemma games in which a contestant chooses one of two options to win, to complex games of chance or skill in which guessing prices increases the odds of winning. On a typical hour-long episode, two games are played for a car, one game is played for a cash prize, and the other three games offer expensive household merchandise or trips. Usually, at least one of the six games involves the pricing of grocery items, while another usually involves smaller prizes that can be used to win a larger prize package. On selected Friday episodes were all prizes are cash prizes, all games involve grocery items or smaller prizes.
Originally, five pricing games were in the rotation. Since then, more games have been created and added to the rotation. Some pricing games were eventually discontinued, while others have been a mainstay since the show's debut in 1972. As of 2017, the rotation is among 77 games.
The game also features two Showcase Showdown rounds, held after all six pricing games have been played (a procedural change starting early in Season 51 tapings; prior to 2021, they were held after the third and sixth pricing games; on broadcast, the first round is broadcast out of order after the third game is played, and the second round after the sixth game was played). The three contestants who played each pricing game in each half compete to spin a vertical wheel, known as "the Big Wheel", to determine who will proceed to the show's final round known as the Showcase. The contestants play in the order of the value of their winnings per half (including the One Bid), with the contestant who has won the most spinning last.
The wheel contains 20 sections showing values from 5¢ to $1.00, in increments of five cents. Upon spinning, the contestant may choose to accept the value of the first spin, or take a second spin and accept the combined value of the two. The wheel must make at least one complete revolution, and spins which fail to do so are not counted. After the first contestant has finished spinning, the second and third must beat or tie the value of the first contestant's spin; failure to do so in two spins, or having two spins whose combined value is greater than $1.00, eliminates a contestant from the Showcase Showdown. If the first two players spin over $1.00, then the third player wins by default and has only one spin. Contestants who are unable to spin the wheel on their own are allowed to have another person spin on their behalf. Contestants who achieve an exact score of $1.00 in one or two spins are awarded a cash bonus and a chance to spin the wheel again, known as a "bonus spin". During a "bonus spin", a cash bonus of $25,000 is given if the wheel lands on the $1.00 space again, and $10,000 if it lands on the 5¢ or 15¢ spaces. Ties are broken by an additional spin from each tied contestant. The two highest-scoring contestants of the Showcase Showdown rounds proceed to the final round, known as the Showcase.