Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

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Logo from the UK version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a television game show which offers very large cash prizes for correctly answering successive multiple-choice questions. The maximum cash prize (in the original United Kingdom version) is one million pounds.

When it first aired in the UK on 4 September 1998, it was a surprising twist on the genre. Only one contestant plays at a time (similar to some radio quizzes); and the emphasis is on suspense rather than speed. There is no time limit to answer questions, and contestants are given the question before they must decide whether to attempt an answer.

Ironically, given the large prizes that it offers, the show is named after a 1956 Cole Porter song which emphasized the desirability of love over material possessions: Who wants to be a millionaire? I don't. (...) And I don't 'cause all I want is you. The show was originally going to be called Cash Mountain.

The programme originated in the United Kingdom, where it is hosted by Chris Tarrant and was based on a format devised by David Briggs, who along with Steve Knight and Mike Whitehill devised a number of the promotional games for Chris Tarrant's breakfast show on Capital FM radio. The following description is of the British version of the show. For differences in other countries, see the end of the article.

Contents
1 Original British format

1.1 The Major Charles Ingram affair

2 United States version
3 Other foreign variants
4 Rule changes
5 Million winners
6 See also
7 External links

Original British format

At the beginning of each show, the host introduces a set of ten potential contestants, giving their names and where they are from. The potential contestants have to undergo a preliminary round, called "Fastest Finger First", where they are all asked to put four answers in a particular order. (In the very first series of the British version, "Fastest Finger First" required the contestants to answer one multiple choice question correctly as quickly as possible) The contestant who does this correctly and in the fastest time goes on to sit in the chair and play for a possible £1,000,000.

The contestant is asked increasingly difficult general knowledge questions by the host. To each question, they can choose from four multiple choice answers. Answering the first question correctly wins the contestant a small monetary prize, and the subsequent questions are played for increasingly large sums. If the contestant answers incorrectly they lose all the money they have won. However, the £1,000 and £32,000 prizes are guaranteed: if a player gets a question wrong above these levels then they drop down only to the previous guaranteed prize.

The sequence of prizes is as follows: £100, £200, £300, £500, £1,000, £2,000, £4,000, £8,000, £16,000, £32,000, £64,000, £125,000, £250,000, £500,000, £1,000,000.

The game ends after the contestant answers a question incorrectly or decides not to answer the question, or when they have answered all fifteen questions correctly, at which point they win the top prize of £1,000,000.

If at any point the contestant is unsure of the answer to a question, they can use one of their three "lifelines": they can "phone a friend" (being given 30 seconds to talk to their chosen friend, who must be taken from a list nominated by the contestant beforehand), "ask the audience" (getting a bar chart of the audience's answers), or go for a "50:50" (when the computer will "randomly" remove two incorrect answers and leave the right answer and one wrong answer). Each of these lifelines can be used only once.

Variants on the format have been tried, such as celebrities playing for charity and couples games (where both partners must agree on the answer). Tarrant's catchphrases on the show include "Is that your final answer?" and "but we don't want to give you that".

In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, Who Wants to be a Millionaire? was placed 23rd.

The Major Charles Ingram affair

In an episode of the British show recorded on September 10 2001, Major Charles Ingram won the £1,000,000 prize. During the recording it was noticed that a suspicious pattern of coughing could be heard. The Major's unusual behaviour in the "hot seat" also drew attention. When subsequently analysed it became apparent that another contestant, Tecwen Whittock, seated in "contestants row" was offering Major Ingram prompts in the form of coughs, indicating the correct answers. On many of the questions Major Ingram read aloud all of the four answers, until a cough was heard, before choosing his answer. In some cases he even dismissed an answer, read aloud the answers again, and picked an answer he had earlier dismissed.

Further investigation revealed that the Major's wife Diana (who had won £32,000 on a previous show, as had his brother-in-law) had organised the scam. A number of pagers had been purchased and telephone records revealed what appeared to be a practice session for another plan to cheat the system that was not subsequently carried out. The plan was for the Major to hide four pagers on his body that would vibrate when an accomplice called the pager indicating the correct answer. Following a trial at Southwark Crown Court lasting a month, Major Ingram, his wife Diana and Tecwen Whittock were convicted of "procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception" on 7 April 2003. Ingram and his wife were each given suspended 18-month prison sentences and fined £15,000, while Whittock received a 12-month suspended sentence and was fined £10,000. Together with legal costs, it is estimated that the Ingrams will have to pay £50,000 in total.

Despite the conviction, the Ingrams and Tecwen Whittock continue to deny that they colluded or acted dishonestly. They plan to appeal the court ruling. In an ITV1 documentary entitled "Millionaire: a Major Fraud" and presented by Martin Bashir, broadcast in Britain on 21 April. Coincidentally, or perhaps intentionally, the first advert in the first commercial break in the documentary, was one for cough medicine. Excerpts from the 2003 recording were broadcast with enhanced audio highlighting the coughs emanating from Tecwen Whittock. Immediately afterwards the full programme in its original format was broadcast on ITV2. The documentary included additional video recorded during the programme of Mrs Ingram sitting in the audience and apparently prompting the Major with her own coughing and making glances in the direction of Mr Whittock. The documentary also contained interviews with production staff and other contestants present at the recording of the original programme describing how they felt that something unusual had been happening. Major Ingram described the documentary as "one of the greatest TV editing con tricks in history". Celador Films, the sister company of the quiz show's producers Celador Productions, announced in September 2003 that they were planning to turn the affair into a film, and commissioned a screenplay from award-winning television dramatist Russell T. Davies. The status of this project as of April 2005 is, however, currently unclear.

On 24 July 2003 the British Army ordered Charles Ingram to resign his commission as a Major.

For an argument by James Plaskett in favour of the innocence of Ingram, his wife and Whittock, see this item. Plaskett´s essay led to journalist Bob Woffinden, who had a long time interest in miscarriages of justice, publishing a two page article in the 9 October 2004 edition of the British newspaper the Daily Mail entitled Is The Coughing Major Innocent?

United States version

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Logo from the USA version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire first aired in the United States in 1999 and was hosted by Regis Philbin. In 2002, the show was sent into syndication and changed hosts to Meredith Vieira. The syndicated version does not include the Fastest Finger competition; contestants are just brought out individually. Also, instead of the telephone competitions of ABC's versions, there are simple contestant auditions for the syndicated version, as in other game shows. Both versions omit the question mark from their official titles due to a superstition about question marks in film and TV productions.

The network version became explosively popular in 1999, and at its peak was airing in prime time four nights a week on ABC. The show was popular enough to find rival networks creating or reincarnating game shows of their own, and created a brief renaissance of sorts for United States based game shows as well as a flurry of American versions of UK originals such as The Weakest Link. ABC's using Who Wants to be a Millionaire in so many prime time slots left it with a deficit of unique programming when the show's popularity faded. ABC's overall Nielsen ratings suffered as a result of the show's decline in popularity. In February 2004, Regis Philbin returned for five episodes of Super Millionaire, which offered a $10,000,000 top prize; the series returned for eight additional episodes in May.

One of the reasons that Who Wants to be a Millionaire lost popularity in the United States was linked to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. After a hiatus that lasted several weeks following the attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon, ABC began airing only Celebrity Editions of the show, most likely in a bid to give America something "light" after the horror of 9/11. The Celebrity Editions featured various celebrities playing the show for charity. The problem was that in this version the audience was allowed to yell out the answers to each question up to and including the $32,000 level. The suspense of the show was eliminated with all contestants virtually guaranteed to walk away with at least $32,000, and it disappeared from ABC by December 2001.

The $10,000,000 prize offered by Super Millionaire is the largest prize on offer around the world, although unlike in the original programme the top prize is not paid in one lump sum but paid over 20 years. Because of the relative value of the British pound compared to other currencies, the British show offers the second largest prize money. In Germany there was a version where contestants could win 10 million Deutschmarks. After the introduction of the Euro, RTL made the prize €5 million (DM 9.75 million).

Two new lifelines were added in Super Millionaire: Three Wise Men and Double Dip. However, those could only be used those after a contestant reached the $100,000 mark. Three Wise Men consisted of the contestant asking a panel of experts a question. The panel would then have 30 seconds to come up with the answer. The panel was kept in darkness until the player made it up to $100,000 (If no player had made it up to that level within the hour show, the Three Wise Men would be revealed to the audience to see who they were). The Double Dip lifeline was a chance to guess at a question twice. Once a player chose to Double Dip, they could not back out of answering the question.

A version of this game named "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire - Play It!" is an attraction at the Disney-MGM Studios theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, and at Disney's California Adventure theme park at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California. The game is very similar to the television version. On each question, the audience, using a keypad attached to the back of the seat in front, chooses A, B, C, or D. When a contestant chooses to stop playing, the next contestant is picked from the audience member who answered the most questions correctly and most quickly. This version is not played for cash. For every question answered correctly, the contestant receives a pin, and after reaching the "safe havens", a baseball cap and T-shirt. The top prize is a vacation, which is frequently changed.

Other foreign variants

Although it originated in the United Kingdom, the format of show has subsequently been exported to many countries around the world. As of early 2003 the producers' website lists the following territories as having licensed the show: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, the Caribbean, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, the Middle East, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Poland. Portugal, Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia and Montenegro, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the Philippines, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, United States, Vatican City, Venezuela, and Vietnam.

Here are some details of the differences in some of those countries:-

Rule changes

In the 2004-2005 season of the programme, the format of the game will change. (Note that some of these changes only apply to certain versions) The 32,000 lock-in has been decreased to 25,000, as well as a new prize pattern of 50,000; 100,000 and then 250,000. This has been done to encourage contestants not to stop prematurely, which will hopefully increase the amount that contestants receive. Also, after reaching the 25,000 level, contestants are given a new lifeline, "Switch the Question" (also known as a Flip), something that first appeared in the UK programme in a number of celebrity editions, and again in it's 300th episode (which was broadcast live to mark that landmark). The idea seemed to have been taken from The People Versus, also produced by Celador (again, in the UK). It allows them to dismiss the current question and to play a new one. However, they will not have any lifelines used on the discarded question returned to them. This practice was discontinued in the UK version after said 300th episode. Finally, the "Ask the Audience" lifeline has been expanded. Instead of just the studio audience giving answers, users of the AOL Instant Messenger (sometimes referred to as IM) can participate too. If they have the name "MillionaireIM" in their buddy list, then they will receive an instant message if a contestant uses his or her "Ask the Audience" lifeline. The message will contain the question, and four possible answers, and they will send their answer back. This is the first time in history that the public has been able to interact with a game show while it is being taped. When the tape is shown, the results of the poll will first show the studio audience's response, then the IM users' response. This has been done as an effort to get everyone more involved with the program, and to interest the producers in the show once again.

Million winners

Here is the list of the winners of the jackpot prize for each version of the show:

United States (Primetime and Syndicated versions):

In addition, Robert Essig won $1,000,000 on Super Millionaire, but did not win the top prize of $10,000,000.

United Kingdom (Including Charles Ingram, and in chronological order)

See also

External links

See also: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, 100 Greatest British Television Programmes, 1998, 1999, 1 January, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004