The Mirror reporting that Who Wants to be a Millionaire? has finally been put out of its misery. Chris Tarrant is leaving the show after the remaining contracted specials.
Millionaire is probably THE most important TV format of the last twenty years and there is not a single show on television these days which doesn’t try and ape the presentation style or real life human drama element. But like any addiction the viewers required bigger and bigger hits, but there was nowhere left to go once Judith Keppel won the million, and by that point reality TV was in the beginnings of its boom and people the drama of people making idiots of themselves became more appealing than people answering increasingly difficult quiz questions.
In its final years it sort of just bumped along with celebrity specials and the occasional civilian episodes the internet cried out for but few actually bothered watching. And bloody hell, the guys from JLS were *robbed*.
Happily for Chris Tarrant who averages about one properly successful format for every fifty he fronts, he’s probably about due another one. It’s been suggested he’s a regular panellist on upcoming ITV quiz Show Me The Telly, a title that is roughly as appealing as Cook Me The Money but you never know.
Who Wants to be a Millionare? defined a time, but it’s of its time, and may be the last show we ever see that will pull 15m ratings on a regular basis in the UK.
A shame as I really loved Millionaire when it started, but hardly unexpected; Think the writing was on the wall really when the Live civilian episodes this year were rating under 2 million.
Also, the show had become impossible. I don’t think we’ve even seen a £500k question since before they switched to the 12 question tree. Seeing everybody call it a day at £10k got a bit boring.
I do think a big win at some stage might have re-injected some interest, but they didn’t seem to want to let that even come close to happening.
Yup, last £250k win on Millionaire was in the 15-question era in 2007.
There have been five £250k wins since then on DoND. Which airs in daytime.
Well, I can’t say I’m surprised it’s going either. Ever since they made it so that it was mainly about celebrities playing and relegating civilians to one-off specials here and there, I saw that as the final nail in its coffin.
I did really enjoy watching Millionaire since it started, I enjoyed playing along with it to try and answer the questions, I have a crapton of merchandise from the show (2 boxed games, 4 quiz books, an electronic tabletop game, the PS1 games, the PS2 game, several DVD games and even bought the music ALBUM!) and I hold it in high regard as one of the best quizzes of recent times. It was just a shame that they went down the road that they did and ended up losing a lot of viewers. I think we all knew that it had had its day, didn’t we?
RIP Who Wants To Be A Millionaire 1998-2013
Funnily enough, I remember we talked about this on Episode 5 of the Fifty50 podcast, the one where Lewis, myself and Caroline analysed my Breakaway game. She talked about how Tarrant seemed to be ‘phoning it in’ when doing the show, that it was just a paycheque to him.
The divorce must be paid off then!
Great show at it’s peak, killed off ultimately partly by obsession with celebrity, but mainly by tweaks to the brilliant original format not doing the shows any favours.
Still think the Hotseat format could work either in daytime or as primetime filler, but sadly 30 minute game shows seem to be a thing of the past on ITV at least.
I know a Christmas special is planned but I don’t think anything else for 2014.
It’s not often you see a simple format being sold to over 100 countries/territories.
Although the show was a massive hit for ITV and more importantly Celador. There were many flaws in the show rules that the minority caught on. When 2waytraffic fixed them, it was too little too late. I always saw it down ITV’s greed as it was a nifty way to generate revenue for the channel.
It could’ve carried on for another two years if they adapted occasional “live” specials but when they quietly dropped the “live” aspect it was the beginning of the end. I used to watch every single episode. I even watched an episode when I had a powercut in March 2000, watching via a pocket TV. Fast forward to the recent shows, I’ve hardly bothered. Even with the last civilian specials, my mother (also a fan of the show), gave up as it was simply crap.
Given the American’s Super Mix and Australia’s Hot Seat formats are viable in their own way. If ITV decide to revive the show then I suspect it will be Hot Seat. Given the format’s cheap payouts and it can expand to an hour. I think the Italian version of Hot Seat had 15 questions stretched to 70 minutes, including adverts.
I’m interested to hear David Bodycombe’s thoughts as it was discussed via twitter some time ago (also mentioned on my blog post in May, http://travispenery.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/watching-telly-what-is-wrong-with-who.html), it could see the end of the other foreign versions.
Two final notes.
Yes, JLS were robbed. Credit to Victory Television not using common sense.
When was the last time Eamonn Holmes presented a quiz show?
Multiple answers possible:
-HIGNFY (2010, albeit a guest stint)
-The Friday Show (2009, UKGS lists this as a quiz show despite its over-reliance on entertainment)
-SUDO-Q (2005-2007)
Just did a quick research, might have made a mistake of two.
I was to quick on the buzzers: Eamonn’s most recent stint was on NMTB.
Well, this was at least the right decision. If it were allowed to limp along any more, there’d be no hope for it.
This way, it can go away for 2-3 years and then come back as a filler for The Chase’s off season, with a new host. The Super Mix format in the States has done well, maybe that would be worth a shot here? Probably has more chance of succeeding than yet another ‘ladder’.
Whether this will affect the foreign versions is anyone’s guess. It will certainly prompt broadcasters to think about it, and I would think there would be some impact – particularly in the smaller territories.
RIP WWTBAM indeed. the Italian hotseat edition had 15 questions preceeded by a preliminary question for the right to waste 15 minutes… I mean to swap seats with another player
Are you free on Friday next week? Think you can outrun a horde of zombies? Can get to east London? Read on!
2.8 Hours Later is a four-mile walk around bits of a city. Groups of explorers set out, and are directed from location to location by actors. Unfortunately, there’s been an outbreak of the undead, and the route passes through clusters of ’em, grasping and clutching and lurching like ITV2 viewers who couldn’t operate a remote control and reached “Only Connect”.
So the good walk is spoiled by sprints to outpace zombies, culminating in a frenetic run-for-it at the end. 2.8 works as a piece of immersive theatre, and a game of tig. It gets into the places the public don’t normally see, like the underbelly of a shopping centre. It lets people do things they wouldn’t normally, like call the police names. And it pokes gentle fun at the “would you survive the apocalypse” endtimes, because everyone gathers for a pint in the bar afterwards.
Winners get to gloat about surviving the end of civilisation as we know it, and the assurance that they can run faster than me. Losers get make up and then scare the bejesus out of hen parties on the way home.
This is a ticketed event, and tickets sold out in July. Following an injury to my companion, I have a spare ticket available, and I’d like to share it with someone in the game show fandom.
Here’s why: I’m going out to record the sounds of the event and create an audio documentary piece, hopefully good enough for publication. So I will give priority to anyone who will agree to join me and be recorded while answering the question “what just happened?”
Practicalities – the start is 7 pm on 1 November, and it is an all-evening event: don’t expect to be finished before 10. This year’s event is in east London, around Stratford and Canning Town. Face value of the ticket is £40, price is entirely negotiable.
Email the special address twopointweaver@rediffmail.com if you’re interested. I’ll contact all applicants by early next week.
Thanks to Brig for letting me use his hospitality.