Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (British game show)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a British television quiz show and the original version of the international franchise based on the format. It was created by David Briggs, Steven Knight and Mike Whitehill for the ITV network. The format has contestants answering multiple-choice general knowledge questions, winning a cash prize for each correct answer, with the prize increasing as the questions become increasingly difficult. With an incorrect answer the contestant leaves with whatever prize is guaranteed by the last safety net they passed, unless they opt to walk away before answering with the money they have so far acquired. Contestants are granted a limited number of "lifelines" to help answer questions.
The series originally aired from 4 September 1998 to 11 February 2014 and was presented by Chris Tarrant, airing a total of 592 episodes across 30 series. The original format was tweaked in later years, including changing the number of questions asked, altering the payout structure, incorporating a time limit, and increasing the number of lifelines. ITV commemorated the 20th anniversary of the programme with a special series of episodes in 2018, produced by Stellify Media and hosted by Jeremy Clarkson. This proved a success with viewers and led to a revival of the programme, with new series commissioned by the broadcaster. Two spin-offs have subsequently been aired, Fastest Finger First, which ran for one series in 2022 and a British version of Millionaire Hot Seat which began in 2026.
The programme has seen a number of contestants achieve the jackpot, but has also been involved in controversies, including an attempt by a contestant to defraud the show of its top prize. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? became a significant show in British popular culture, ranking 23rd in a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute. Its success led to the formation of an international franchise, with other versions featuring the same general format with variations in gameplay and lifelines.
History
Creation
The creation of the game show was led by David Briggs, assisted by Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight, who had helped him before with creating a number of promotional games for Chris Tarrant's morning show on Capital FM radio. The basic premise for the show was a twist on the conventional game-show genre of the time: the programme would have just one contestant answering questions; they would be allowed to pull out at any time, even after they had seen the question and the possible answers; and they had three opportunities to receive special forms of assistance.During the design phase, the show was given the working title of "Cash Mountain", before ITV director of programmes David Liddiment decided upon using the name of the song written by Cole Porter for the 1956 musical film High Society, as the show's finalised title. After presenting their idea to ITV, the broadcaster gave the green light for production to begin on a series.
The set designed for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was conceived by British production designer Andy Walmsley, who focused the design towards making contestants feel uncomfortable, creating an atmosphere of tension similar to a movie thriller. The design was in stark contrast to the design of sets made for more typical game shows, which are designed to make contestants feel more at ease. Walmsley's design features a central stage made primarily with Plexiglas, with a huge dish underneath covered in mirror paper, onto which two slightly modified, -high Pietranera Arco All chairs were chosen for use by both the contestant and the host, each having an LG computer monitor directly facing each that would be used to display questions and other pertinent information. The rest of the set featured seating spaced out around the main stage in a circle, with breaks in them to allow movement of people on and off the set. The lighting rig used for the set was designed so as to allow not only the lights to switch from illuminating the entire set, to focusing on the host and contestant on the main stage when a game was underway, but to include special lighting effects when the contestant reached higher cash prize amounts. His overall conception would eventually prove to be a success, becoming one of the most reproduced scenic designs in television history.
The music provided for the show was composed by father-and-son duo Keith and Matthew Strachan. The Strachans' composition for the game show helped with Briggs' tense game design, by providing the necessary drama and tension. Unlike other game show musical scores, the music provided for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was designed to be played throughout the entire episode of the show. The Strachans' main theme for the game show was inspired by the "Mars" movement of Gustav Holst's The Planets. For the main game of the show, the pair designed the music to feature three variations, with the second and third compositions focused on emphasising the increased tension of the game – as a contestant made progress to higher cash amounts, the pitch of the music was increased by a semitone for each subsequent question. On Game Show Network'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".
Original series (1998–2014)
With the show created, ITV assigned Chris Tarrant as its host, and set its premiere to 4 September 1998. The programme was assigned a timeslot of one hour, to provide room for three commercial breaks, with episodes produced by UK production company Celador. Originally, the show was broadcast on successive evenings for around ten days, before the network modified its broadcast schedule in autumn 2000 to air it within a primetime slot on Saturday evenings, with occasional broadcasts on Tuesday evenings.Potential contestants needed to enter by calling a premium rate phone number and answering one or more questions in the style of the show. The money raised from the phone calls was used towards show prizes.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? proved a ratings hit, pulling in average viewing figures of up to 19 million during its broadcast in 1999, though such figures often occurred when the programme was allocated to a half-hour timeslot. By September 2000, viewing figures had dropped to 11.1 million viewers, and by 2003 to an average of around 8 million viewers. Audiences continued to drop, and from 2005 to 2011 the show usually attracted between 3 and 4 million viewers.
At one point in September 1999, an episode had 60% of the TV share and caused the BBC a historic low in ratings. Over the course of his time presenting the game show, Tarrant developed a number of notable catchphrases, including "Audience, all on your keypads please. A, B, C or D. All vote now!", said when the 'Ask the Audience' lifeline is used; "Is that your final answer?", often said to confirm the contestant's answer choice and "But we don't want to give you that", when displaying the contestant's current winning cheque, to urge them on to win more money.
Since its launch, several individuals made claims over the origins of the format or elements of it, with each accusing Celador of breaching their copyrights. In three cases, the matters could not be proven by the claimants – in 2002, Mike Bull, a Southampton-based journalist, was given an out-of-court settlement when he claimed the authorship of lifelines was his work, though with a confidentiality clause attached; in 2003, Sydney resident John J. Leonard made claims in that the show's format was based on one he had made of a similar nature, but without the concept of lifelines; in 2004, Alan Melville was given an out-of-court settlement after he claimed that the opening phrase "Who wants to be a millionaire?" had been taken from a document he sent to Granada Television, concerning his idea for a game show based on the lottery.
One of the most significant claims Celador received against them was from John Bachini. In 2002, he started legal proceedings against the production company, ITV, and five individuals who had claimed they had created Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, stating that the idea from the show was taken from several elements he had created – a board game format he conceived in 1981; a two-page TV format, known as Millionaire, made in 1987; and the telephone mechanics for a TV concept he created in 1989, BT Lottery. In his claim, Bachini stated that he submitted documents for his TV concepts to Paul Smith, from a sister company of Celador's, in March 1995 and again in January 1996, and to Claudia Rosencrantz of ITV, also in January 1996, accusing both of using roughly 90% of the format for Millionaire in the pilot for the game show, including the use of twenty questions, lifelines and safety nets, although the lifelines were conceived under different names – Bachini claimed that he never coined the phrase "phone-a-friend" that Briggs designed in his format. In response to this claim, Celador made a counter-claim that the franchise originated from the basic format idea conceived by Briggs. The defendants in the claim took Bachini to a summary hearing but lost their right to have his claim dismissed. Although Bachini won the right to go to trial, he was unable to attend the hearing due to serious illness. Celador eventually settled the matter with him out-of-court.
In March 2006, Celador began procedures to sell the format of the show and all UK episodes, as part of their first step towards the sale of their formats divisions. The purchase of both assets was made by Dutch company 2waytraffic, which were then passed on to Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2008 when it acquired 2waytraffic. As the original series progressed, variations of the format were created, and screened as special episodes, including celebrity editions, games featuring couples as contestants, and episodes themed around special events such as Mother's Day.
The Christmas celebrity special in December 2010, which was broadcast live, drew its biggest audience since 2006. To capitalise on this, and breathe new life into the show, only celebrity contestants appeared on the show from April 2011, in special live editions that coincided with holidays, events and other notable moments, such as the end of a school term. Half of the total money won in these shows went into a 'prize pot' for a viewer competition, one viewer was called live at the end of the show and asked a question to win the money. From 2012–13, special episodes entitled "The People Play" were broadcast for three consecutive nights between 9 and 11 July 2012. They featured contestants from the general public with viewers at home playing along. The special was used three more times in 2013, airing across three successive weeks on Tuesday nights.
On 22 October 2013, Tarrant announced that, after fifteen years of hosting the programme, he would be leaving Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, which consequently led ITV to axe the programme once his contract was finished; no more specials would be filmed after this announcement, leaving only those made before it to be aired as the final episodes. After the final celebrity editions, Tarrant hosted a clip show entitled "Chris' Final Answer", which aired on 11 February 2014 and ended the original series.