Are you excited about NEW Who Wants to be a Millionaire next week? Me neither, but at least it gives Chris Tarrant another chance to talk up a show which is always entertaining.
We’ve known about this for a while (mainly thanks to Travis P’s tireless research). So we’re getting new graphics and music, no more Fastest Finger, Switch the Question after £50k and a clock for the first seven questions – 15 secs. for one and two, 30 secs. for questions three through seven, unlimited time for the mega money. Phone a Friends will be backstage.
This “will guarantee buckets more emotion, more drama and a tension that will grip viewers at home”.
“The changes just made to the show take it to a new level of emotion and excitement that even I, in my 12 years of hosting the show, have not seen.”
*Does knowing look.*
Already the reaction to these upcoming changes on the DS forums is very mixed.
Is it possible that they could be like the changes to FB – they’ll either end up bringing the show to a close, or they’ll prove successful?
The problem is I don’t think anyone who wasn’t watching before is going to start watching now really, changes or not.
Don’t get me wrong, if you want to know exactly why telly is what it is today then Millionaire is the Big Bang, but what does it have to offer these days really? The question writing on episodes I’ve seen more recently is uninspiring and it’s not like anyone makes it to the second milestone anyway, and you’d have to assume even less so with the clock.
The clock will kill off the dithering (“I’m pretty sure it’s hamster but…”) and the appalling tactics of some players (“I’m sure it’s Jedward but I’ll ask the audience just to check”).
It needs a long rest and no more celebrity episodes.
I thought the graphics and music package they had in the States when they bought the clock in was really very strong indeed, and hopefully that’s a leaf they’ve taken over here. But I can’t see myself watching beyond the first episode really.
I agree that the US presentation is the best I’ve seen in terms of music and graphics. I just hope they can puff a bit of life into the old thing.
Was flipping through the channels tonight and saw an ad for an American version of Masterchef, debuting tomorrow. I don’t know if it’s the same as the UK version, but it’s apparently starring Ramsey and right after Hell’s Kitchen. So there you go.
Its Based on the Australian Version of Masterchef which borrows the invention test and other challenges/tasks from the Uk version but that’s about it.
In the Australian version which is on SIX nights a week, [for over 60 minutes on most nights] the contestants are put in rival teams like The Apprentice. The losing team then has to vote one of their teammates off the show.
Also the contestants live with each other on a big farmhouse.
Let’s just say its a lot different from Lloyd Grossmans original
In the meantime, the guy who used clips from various quizzes on Youtube to make his own quiz has done a version of the Supermatch Game based around Google Autocomplete.
Googlematch Game Googlematch Game Googlematch Game… *boom boom boom* Googlematch Game!
http://www.monkeon.co.uk/googlematch/
Also in other news – CBS have decided to show the Big Brother finale after the Survivor: Nicaragua season premier on September 15th. I’ll be writing that date in my diary.
http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/cbs-air-big-brother-finale-after-survivor-nicaragua-premiere-11369.php
It’s clearly visible that ITV are not impressed with the new format and want to burn the shows off in the 8pm Tuesday graveyard slot in early August. I heard from somewhere that shows was meant to air around November and December but that is no longer the case. Expect the first show next Tuesday to get above 3 million and no more.
At least the producers are changing the format sparingly, unlike the US version who will make the fourth format change within two years in September.
How is 8pm graveyard? It’s hardly 11pm is it? I’m a big fan of who wants to be a millionaire, it’s the only decent gameshow on ITV1 and it’s still enjoyable 12 years on from its first episode. I think the format changes will work because I watched the American version last year and thought it was brilliantly paced. Give it a go everyone! Millionaire can’t be anyworse than Push the Button or Magic Numbers, can it!
I call it a graveyard as nobody watches ITV on a Tuesday, let alone the 8pm slot. Apart from 2007/2008 when Champions League was on a Tuesday, I cannot recall any regular weekly programme (excluding IAC and BGT) getting above 5 million viewers in that slot.
If ITV really cared about the all new format then it would’ve been better rolling it out at 7pm on Sunday nights later in the year.
Also Millionaire will have a lead in of only 2.5m-3m in that Tuesday slot.
Survivor news- The tribes will be split at first by age, which hasn’t been done yet. One tribe will be 40 and older, the other will be 30 and younger.
and that 2 hr finale for USBB probably means they’ll be doing what they did last year- the final 3 will start the finale, they’ll do the last part of the final HOH, the final eviction, then live jury questioning and the final vote and reveal.
[quote]Survivor news- The tribes will be split at first by age, which hasn’t been done yet. One tribe will be 40 and older, the other will be 30 and younger. [/quote]
Exile Island was split into Older Men, Older Women, Younger Men and Younger Women, though that only lasted for one episode.
It should be made clear, and I’m sure it’s evident, that America didn’t change Millionaire to get more excitement or even because they thought it would be a giant ratings boost. They changed it because studio time is incredibly expensive, especially in New York. I was flat out told they added the clock to save money and the large production budget.
I still have no clue what the new American format will be.
Mitchell and Webb did yet another gameshow parody this week, this time the gag is at the expense of… Well, pretty much every quiz which draws out the asking and answering of simple questions.
The episode of WWTBAM? with Mark Labbett as a contestant is being repeated on Challenge at the moment – it’s just started – and it would seem logical to expect to see it on plus one in, ooh, about 58 minutes. Can’t remember how he does…
Am I dreaming or is the new Millionaire format a set 2 contestants per show?
If so, The Colour Of Money take two!
I’m sure they will be more than two contestants per show and will have rollovers. They recorded all ten episodes within five days (two shows per day) so the extra contestants will be there. Not everybody can reach £50,000 and if there are two contestants who decide to leave around £10,000 then the show would be totally crap and be like the 2005 Valentines celebrity specials* all over again.
*The two Valentines celebrity specials in 2005 featured four couples that were totally thick the editors had to drag the show out and include more chat.
Personally, I feel they are missing a big trick with this tweak to the format which would make it more exciting – surely with the time limit it now lends itself better to going LIVE?
One option would’ve been to just give them, say, a 40 minute time bank for all questions, and once the ‘buzzer’ goes, they go away with the amount they are on unless they have locked in! Bit cruel finish, but most likely they’d have 25 minutes for the last 5 questions, so they’d have a decision over valuing thinking time over potentially going to the end, proper jeopardy – and it would be LIVE! which would make it much more of an event naturally.
Actually, you’d only need to give them 30 minutes really, since they’d still have 27 minutes left for the last 5 questions, which would work out perfectly!
The Digital Spy interview with Chris Tarrant suggests that contestants running out of time leave with nothing. It will, at least, be interesting to discover whether the penalty for timing out will always be complete forfeiture, or whether it’s just falling back to the last safe level (so zero for Q 1-2, £1k for Q 3-7). I also presume there is a big “take the money” button to disambiguate situations in which someone is part-way through the “I’ll take the money” “Final answer?” “Yes, final answer, though taking the money isn’t exactly an answer to a question, it’s more of a decision” routine.
I suspect with a clock they’d need to go for buttons rather than spoken for answers anyway…