Watching Telly: What is Wrong With Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Worldwide hit quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? is currently airing three The People Play specials, where members of the public enter the hotseat to win £1 million. Outside these shows they broadcast various one off celebrity specials throughout the year. This is all because a decision made by ITV in January 2011 to axe the regular show altogether and have celebrity specials. The reason is down to low ratings. Since then the once great show has produced a downward trend in terms of how the show is produced and losing faith in the viewers. The final proper series featuring members of the public was shown in the late summer of 2010 at the infamous death timeslot of 8pm on Tuesday evenings. Back then it managed a respectable 3.3m-3.5m viewers. Now the latest so called specials are failing to reach ITV's top 30 shows. I will be looking at what is wrong with the current state of the show. I will be looking at both versions. Firstly, the recent The People Play specials.

Poor and lazy question writing.

A question was brought up on the first special.

The problem I find that the answer to the question is incorrect. O'Fortuna is used as the opening preview to the show. It is also used when the judges walk on the set for the live shows. The actual theme tune is a generic one.


It seems over the last couple of shows, Victory Television are using the first two questions as total gimmies. For example, this is worth £500.













Compared to the proper series of the clock when 2waytraffic were producing it. At least the options had you think what the answer would be. For example, these questions are both worth £1,000.

It seems the £500/£1,000 questions in these People Play specials are actually worth £100/£200. I reckon Victory Television are afraid for anyone to go away with nothing and use lifelines early on.

Whilst on the topic of lazy questions. You would've thought the writers would think of a fourth answer rather than using Ryder Cup. There is a Super Cup in football.







Poor question difficulty setting and lack of general knowledge topics.

On the first show there were two questions (out of four) worth £500 asking about medical conditions. On the second show there were three questions (out of five) worth £1,000 asking about football. With the wealth of general knowledge available and quiz is infinite. You would've thought the question setters would use different topics to ask the contestants at the £500 and £1,000 levels. I know in the Celador and 2waytraffic days they always had a vast range of topics. Also back then they had levels of difficulty to set certain questions. Meaning a question worth £32,000 (£50,000) could also be used at the £16,000 (£20,000) level. Given the production is now in the hands of Sony. I have no idea if they use the same concept now. At least they could mix the question values up and think of something different each time a contestant plays.

If you look at this question, worth £1,000.

It could've been worth at least £10,000 or £20,000 if the options were replaced by footballers instead of people called Lionel. Celador/2waytraffic definitely would place this higher up the money tree.




Poor selection of contestants.

Most people in the television world know the producers and researchers look at a certain calibre of people to appear on their game shows. For example, 12Yard always look for the entertaining type of contestants with a good back story but never pick anybody who are exceptionally good with general knowledge as it will a) make the show boring and b) probably make the BBC go bust if contestants constantly wins £100,000. Might explain why only two people have won the maximum prize fund from 140 shows. When they selected the contestants for The People Play specials in 2012, they had the selection spot on. Although the contestants were entertaining and had interesting backgrounds. Some knew how to play the format and got far up the money. Okay, no where near the million but contestants were winning £20,000 and above. The following contestants played and won the following last year.

Show Appeared	Contestant Name	Final Winnings	Number Of Questions Seen
1	Tahir Ali	£20,000	7
1	Caroline Polledri	£10,000	6
1/2	Dawn Harkins	£75,000	9
2	Russell Brown	£20,000	7
2	Donna Hearnden	£50,000	8
2/3	Denise Allsop	£50,000	8
3	Tommy Gibbons	£20,000	7
3	Monica Utting	£20,000	7

Eight contestants played in 2012 and won £265,000 between them. Producing an average of £33,125 per contestant. Compared to the specials in 2013 (N.B. only covers the first two shows as the third has yet to air).

Show Appeared	Contestant Name	Final Winnings	Number Of Questions Seen
1	Simone Lazaruz	£10,000	6
1	Mark Silverwood	£10,000	6
1	Pat Simpson	£1,000	7
1/2	Stuart Hurran	£1,000	4
2	Dionne Askew	£20,000	7
2	Martin Fisher	£1,000	4
2	Hayley Brown	£1,000	6
2/3	Oli Haley

Seven contestants have played and won £44,000 between them. Producing an average of £6,285 per contestant. As you can see, compared to 2012, it's a massive decline in total winnings and average.

Does anybody recognise Simone on the first special last week?

This is because she was on this in 2006

She refused £15,500 from The Banker and ended up winning £1. She could've swapped the box. Thanks to one of the Deal or No Deal oracles, Andrew Smith for pointing this out.









It seems this is a tactic implied by the producers to choose certain contestants for the show to minimise payouts, especially large ones. Which is a shame as it destroys the whole purpose of the format. When 2waytraffic used auditioned contestants mixed with people phoning in they chose people who had a good sense of general knowledge with quite a few winning £150,000.

Poor gameplay tactics by the contestants.

Given the show will be fifteen years old this September. You would've thought the contestants on these specials know how to play the lifelines properly. If you're stuck on a early question then it be would best to use Ask the Audience first. As it would almost guarantee a correct answer. Out of the seven who played on the specials so far, only four used their Ask the Audience lifeline first. Three contestants didn't. The first used Phone a Friend but  gave the right answer. Whilst the other two used both 50-50 and Phone a Friend but answered incorrectly, falling back to £1,000. I am sure the audience would certainly know the answer to both questions.

A question on the first show Simon used Ask the Audience followed by 50-50.

If you look at the Ask the Audience percentages with 50-50 being used the answer is screaming at you. Simone decided to walk with £10,000. The audience was right. It is not often 4% of the audience is correct. Also 250 ml would be something you buy in a bottle and not from a beer pump or milk bottle.




Another one where Mark used 50-50 and then uses Phone a Friend.

Why would the answer be skiing and swimming in a professional sport? Unless you want to freeze your ass off.









As stated before. This tactic is working well for the producers to produce low payouts. You can say in the contestants defence, it's nothing compared to sitting at home and the clock is ticking. Which is true but if you compose yourself and think for a few seconds (thirty seconds is a long time) then you can get the answer right.

Questions with numerical answers.

This has been a bug bear for me when the show asks for a numerical answer. In defence, anybody who reads a book of facts or lists will know the answer. Back then the numerical questions would be few and far between. On the first show last week they used not one but two. Luckily, the second show didn't use any.

The home viewer competition.

Whilst these specials are airing at the moment. Viewers at home can make a £1.54 telephone call to enter a draw to win three things. £50,000, a Mercedes C-Class saloon and a five star holiday to Antigua with a butler included. The value of this prize is over £90,000. Given what happens next Tuesday, someone could win more than anybody on the show in terms of cash and prizes by making one telephone call. In a nutshell this is a insult to the contestants who have appeared on the show by going through the audition process.

The People Play specials are no longer "special".

When The People Play specials were broadcast last year. All three shows were shown live at 9pm for three consecutive nights. These were indeed special as it was like the old days when the show was aired every night for two weeks. With the shows being live, anything could happen and it did with Ask the Audience failing to register the audience answers. This time we get the first show airing live with the following two shows being recorded the next day. If Victory Television wants to make these shows special. Why have the first show airing live and the other two recorded? It makes no sense, unless someone needs the George Lucas stage at Elstree Studios. Don't forget Chris Tarrant no longer has a busy radio schedule these days. Semi retired now.

Zero promotion with thanks to ITV.

The People Play specials had little promotion from ITV last year but the viewers knew these shows was airing. This year there is nothing. Not a single promotion on the ITV channels. When the first show aired in direct competition with The Apprentice last week. There was zero posts on Digital Spy with people on twitter confessing they didn't know the show was on. If you don't promote a show you know that a) nobody will be watching and b) the broadcast doesn't care how the show performs. This was proven as the ratings for the first show produced 2.028 million (including +1). An all time low for the once great show. It lost out to The Apprentice and the spin off show You're Fired as well as 5pm shows Pointless and The Chase. Once again this week, no adverts from ITV and it produced 2.23m

It begs the question whether ITV and Victory Television can afford the larger payouts any more. Given the next game show downwards with a massive prize is £250,000 on Deal or No Deal and The Cube.

Pissing off Android users.

It was announced last year the show would be using a playalong app. However, it was dropped due to technical problems. It was introduced for the People Play shows this year. However, it is only available on the Apple app store. Unless you got an updated iPod Touch (I haven't) or iPhone. The only way you can play it is on your PC or laptop. The point is IOS is no longer the dominate force. Android is the market share leader with 60% of all mobile phone users.

Now onto the celebrity specials.

Recycling celebrities.

2waytraffic is partly to blame for this. When they revived the show with the 12 question money tree, they selected a number of celebrities who have played the 15 question money tree. When Sony (Victory Television) took over they continued scrapping the barrel and reusing celebrities who have played before. Every time a new celebrity special is aired. You can guarantee someone playing along on these specials has played Who Wants to be a Millionaire? before. For example

New Year Specials
Duncan Bannatyne, Jon Culshaw and Michael Ball

Christmas Special
Des O'Connor and Lee Mack

Lee Mack has appeared on two celebrity specials in 2012!

With Stacey Solomon in January 2012

With Des O'Connor in December 2012






It shows that either Mack's second appearance was a last minute replacement for someone or the celebrity bookers cannot think of anybody else to pair with O'Connor.

Pantomime Special
Tim Vine

School's Out
Sir Steve Redgrave and Dermot Murnaghan

You get the idea. Eamonn Holmes holds the record by appearing on the show three times. He is also the only player to have played all three formats (15 questions, 12 questions and 12 question clock format).

It is a smack of desperation to the celebrity bookers at Victory Television who cannot book anybody who hasn't appeared on the show before. It does amaze me they have yet to book Jimmy Carr. Given he has done Million Pound Drop, Deal or No Deal and The Chase but not Celebrity Millionaire. That said, it would be the final nail in the coffin if they decide to book Rylan Clark on a future celebrity special.

Wrong title.

The celebrity specials should be called Celebrity Who Wants to be a Half Millionaire? On the basis the celebrities cannot win £1 million for their charities. This is because half of the total money earned by the celebrities is placed in a prize fund for a home viewer to win.

No longer "live".

When these celebrity specials were produced, the intention were to be broadcast the specials live on ITV. It seems now the live bit has been quietly dropped, with most shows being recorded in advance and used as fillers. In 2011 five out of six celebrity specials were shown live. In 2012 only two out of eight specials were shown live. As of 2013, no celebrity special has been broadcast live. I know broadcasting live is not as cheap to recording a show weeks in advance. However, as they only record so many in a year, it asks the question if they should. As these celebrity specials are just regular celebrity specials these days.

That klaxon!

The majority of viewers hate about this. It seems the celebrity specials no longer allow rollover games. When the klaxon is blasted, the pair in the chair have to leave whatever they've won so far and can no longer continue up the money tree. This is a massive pain, especially to any pair who reaches £50,000 or above with lifelines intact. The classic example is from the Christmas special in 2012. Although Lee Mack and Des O'Connor appeared on the show before. The producers allowed them to play their game first and ended up winning £150,000. It was also decided hat boyband JLS would play last. Turns out they were an entertaining pair, amazed most people with their general knowledge, reached £50,000 and  was awarded with the Switch lifeline. Then the klaxon went, so theyhad to walk away with £25,000 for their nominated charities as time had ran out. What is infuriating that the following morning the show was recording two New Year specials. Common sense would say to rollover the JLS game to the New Year specials and carried on with the £75,000 question. However, it wasn't the case. The obvious excuse is down to the viewer competition. Had they carried onto the next show, it would mess up the mathematics. Simply, if it wasn't for their precious viewer competition  we could've seen JLS progress higher up he money tree.

Tarrant blatantly delaying the show.

Another major hate by the viewers. Originally the show was fast paced and was even just as fast with the clock series in 2010. However, it seems now Victory Television is doing all their can to minimise payouts. Their key to this is the host Chris Tarrant. With the celebrity specials, he would chat more to the celebrities between questions and even use celebrity photos of their youth to pass time. It was much worse in 2011 when a VT feature was used about audience members talking about their special mothers. Another VT used in the School's Out special featuring children from a primary school. The delays is also applied to The People Play specials where Tarrant would talk more with the contestant and have special messages for the contestants from loved ones.

Given the celebrity specials and now The People Play specials failing to register in ITV's top 30 weekly shows, as well as the viewers getting fed up with the current state the show is in. Is it time for ITV do use the axe on the great worldwide hit? This is where the problem comes in. David J. Bodycombe explained to me on twitter last night it would produce two ramifications.

The first leads to ITV's ownership with the rights. If they decide to axe it, this would open the door to other broadcasters to buy the rights. Similar to Channel 5 buying Big Brother from Channel 4 in 2010. That said, if another channel buys the Millionaire rights, can they afford producing it? BBC definitely cannot due to their licence fee restrictions. Channel 5 isn't one to air quiz shows these days. Same applies Sky1, they no longer air any quiz shows in 2013. That would leave to Channel 4, Who are having problems with their programmes at the moment with decline ratings for most shows, especially with their daytime output. If the likes of Channel 4 or 5 does pick up the rights, The only way I can see it is to demote the show to daytime and reduce the top prize to €250,000. Something the Portuguese version has done in 2008. If it is the case and keeping the clock and 12 question money tree, it would be something like this.

12 - £250,000
11 - £100,000
10 - £50,000
9 - £30,000
8 - £20,000
7 - £10,000
6 - £5,000
5 - £2,000 
4 - £1,000
3 - £500
2 - £250
1 - £100

The second ramification relates to the international versions. Once they find out the original UK version is being axed, other counties might follow by dropping their version. Therefore, Sony losing money for some countries no longer producing local versions. I suspect this won't be the case for three countries who are airing successful versions of Millionaire. The Americans are having a decent run with their Super Mix variation on the original format. Whilst Australia is finding success with the Hot Seat variation. Constantly beating rival, Deal or No Deal at 5.30pm every weekday. Germany will probably remain unaffected. As their version is still going strong. They are one of the few countries who still use the original 15 question money and the original musical score by Keith and Matthew Strachan. The only difference they offer the contestants a fourth lifeline, Ask the Audience Member but it would cost the contestant the second safe-haven, Meaning if they answer any question after question 5 wrong. They would fall back to €500. The German version has been airing since 1999 and is aired two days a week for nine months of the year. They have produced over 1,100 episodes. It amazes me how over 1,100 shows in primetime are still entertaining the German audience.

Given the ramifications David has outlined, what is the solution  In my opinion, the only option is to give the show a 2-3 year then come back with a bang, If ITV decide to rest it, will it affect the rights to the show as well as the international versions?