Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
is an international television game show franchise of British origin, created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight.
Tentatively known as Cash Mountain,[3] the show took its finalised title from a song written by Cole Porter for the 1956 film High Society, starring Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm.
[5][6][7] In March 2006, original producer Celador announced that it was seeking to sell the worldwide rights to Millionaire, together with the rest of its British programme library, as the first phase of a sell-off of the company's format and production divisions.
The payout structure, as a whole, was subsequently changed as a result, with the second safety net relocated to £50,000 at question 7 (questions at guaranteed levels are highlighted with a bolded text):[11] The game show's revival for British television in 2018 reverted to the original arrangement used before 2007, but with one notable difference, in that the second safety net was made adjustable – once a contestant reached £1,000, the host asked them, before giving the next question, if they wished to set the next cash prize amount as the second safety net, with this allowing them to set up as high as £500,000 in their game as a result.
The American version premiered on ABC in August 1999 as part of a two-week daily special event hosted by Regis Philbin.
After this and a second two-week event aired in November 1999, ABC commissioned a regular series that launched in January 2000 and ran until June 2002.
As such, the difficulty of the question in this round was not tied to the value associated to it, and a contestant did not know what amount they won unless they provided a correct answer or chose to walk away.
The Taiwanese version did not have any safety nets or any option to quit; the contestant's winnings won up until they were incorrect on any question was cut by half.
In 2017, as part of new modification to the format, the game incorporated the use of the Fastest Finger First round, with the winner able to select a lifeline, out of three that the show provided.
The standard lifelines used in the original format of the game show include: In the US, "Ask the Audience" and "Phone a Friend" had corporate sponsorship at different periods.
From 2004 to 2006, AOL sponsored "Ask the Audience" and allowed users of Instant Messenger to participate in the lifeline by adding the screen name MillionaireIM to their contact list.
As soon as the contestant begins to play, producers alert the friends and ask them to keep their phone lines free and wait for three rings before answering.
[22] During recordings of the current British version, security personnel from the production office stay with contestants' friends at their homes to ensure integrity.
The revival received mostly positive reviews from critics and fans, and, as well as high viewing figures, led to ITV renewing the show for another series with Clarkson returning as host.
Hosted by Regis Philbin,[56] it proved to be a ratings success, becoming the highest-rated television show during the 1999–2000 season, with its average audience figures reaching approximately 29 million viewers.
[62] On 17 May 2019, the American version was cancelled after a total of 17 seasons and 20 years encompassing both primetime and first-run syndication; the final episode of the series was broadcast on 31 May.
[63] However, ABC reversed the cancellation of the programme on 8 January 2020, announcing plans for a twenty-first season, consisting of nine episodes, to be presented by Jimmy Kimmel starting 8 April.
Other notable versions created in other countries, include the following: The musical score most commonly associated with the franchise was composed by father-and-son duo Keith and Matthew Strachan.
[93] On Game Show Network (GSN)'s Gameshow Hall of Fame special, the narrator described the Strachan tracks as "mimicking the sound of a beating heart", and stated that as the contestant works their way up the money ladder, the music is "perfectly in tune with their ever-increasing pulse".
Media scholar Dr. Robert Thompson, a professor at Syracuse University, stated that the show's lighting system made the contestant feel as though they were outside a prison while an escape was in progress.
[3] When the US Millionaire introduced its "shuffle format", the Hot Seats and corresponding monitors were replaced with a single podium and as a result, the contestant and host stand throughout the game and are also able to walk around the stage.
In September 2012, the redesigned set was improved with a modernised look and feel, in order to take into account the show's transition to high-definition broadcasting, which had just come about the previous year.
Regularly on tier-three questions (and sometimes on tier-two), a dramatic pause occurs between the contestant's statement of their final answer and the host's acknowledgement of whether or not it is correct.
[3] In September 2001, British Army Major Charles Ingram apparently won the top prize in the UK Millionaire, but his flip-flopping on each of the final two questions raised suspicion of cheating.
When the footage was reviewed, staff made a connection between Fastest Finger contestant Tecwen Whittock's coughing and Ingram's answers.
[108] Three board game adaptations of the UK Millionaire were released by Upstarts in 1998, and a junior edition recommended for younger players was introduced in 2001.
[114] Six different DVD games based on the UK Millionaire, featuring Tarrant's likeness and voice, were released by Zoo Digital Publishing[115] and Universal Studios Home Entertainment between 2002 and 2008.
Such a spin-off aired in North Macedonia, Nepal, Albania, Kosovo, Spain, Sweden, Greece, Japan, Thailand, Turkey and Egypt.
[134] 50–50 was a television game show which offers large cash prizes for correctly answering a series of randomised multiple-choice questions of varying difficulty with two options.
and was created by Intellygents, 2waytraffic, Endemol and RTI (Reti Televisive Italiane) company of Mediaset, moreover, was exported and aired in many countries around the world.
