Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is an international television game show franchise of British origin, created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight. In its format, currently owned and licensed by Sony Pictures Television, contestants tackle a series of multiple-choice questions to win large cash prizes in a format that twists on many game show genre conventions – only one contestant plays at a time. Similar to radio quizzes, contestants are given the question before deciding whether to answer and have no time limit to answer questions. The cash prize increases as they tackle questions that become increasingly difficult, with the maximum offered in most variants of the format being an aspirational value in the respective local currency, such as £1 million in the British version, €1 million in most European versions, $1 million in the American version and 75 million in the Indian version.
The original British version debuted on 4 September 1998 on the ITV network, hosted by Chris Tarrant, and ran until 11 February 2014. A revived series of seven episodes to commemorate its 20th anniversary aired in May 2018, hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, and ITV renewed the show for several more series.
Since its debut, international variants of the show have been aired in around 100 countries, making it the best-selling TV format in television history, and is credited by some as paving the way for the boom in the popularity of reality television.

History

The format of the show was created by David Briggs, Mike Whitehill and Steven Knight, who had earlier created a number of the promotional games for Tarrant's morning show on Capital FM radio, such as the bong game. Tentatively known as Cash Mountain, the show took its finalised title from a song written by Cole Porter for the 1956 film High Society, starring Frank Sinatra and Celeste Holm. Since the original version launched, several individuals have claimed that they originated the format and that Celador had breached their copyright. While many pursued litigation, they were all unsuccessful, and each claim was later settled out-of-court on an agreement/settlement.
In March 2006, original producer Celador announced that it was seeking to sell the worldwide rights to Millionaire, together with the rest of its British programme library, as the first phase of a sell-off of the company's format and production divisions. British television producer Paul Smith first had the idea to franchise the UK programme internationally. He developed a series of standards for international variants that ensured they mirrored the British original closely. For example, all hosts were required to appear on-screen wearing Armani suits, as Tarrant did in the UK; producers were forbidden from hiring local composers to create original music, instead using the same music cues used by the British version; and the lighting system and set design were to adhere faithfully to the way they were presented on the British version. Some of Smith's rules have been slightly relaxed over the years as the franchise's development has progressed.
Dutch company 2waytraffic ultimately acquired Millionaire and all of Celador's other programmes. Two years later, Sony Pictures Entertainment purchased 2waytraffic for £137.5 million. Sony Pictures Television currently owns and licences the show's format.

Gameplay

Rules

A group of contestants on each episode play a preliminary round called "Fastest Finger First". All are given a question by the host and four answers which must be placed within a particular order; in the first season of the original version and the first four seasons of the Australian version, contestants have to answer a multiple-choice question. If any contestants are visually impaired, the host reads the question and four choices all at once, then repeats the choices after the music for the round begins. After time's up, the computer and the host will reveal the correct order. The contestant who answers correctly in the fastest time goes on to play the main game. In the event that no one gets the question right, another question is given; if two or more contestants answer correctly and with the same time, they are given a tie-breaker to determine who will make a start into the game. This round is only used when a new contestant is being chosen to play the main round, and can be played more than once in an episode among those remaining within the group seeking to play the main game. In celebrity editions, the round is not used; celebrities automatically take part in the main game.
Once a contestant enters the main game, they are asked increasingly difficult general knowledge questions by the host. Each features four possible answers, to which the contestant must give the correct answer. Doing so wins them a certain amount of money, with tackling more difficult questions increasing their prize fund. During their game, the player has a set of lifelines that they may use only once to help them with a question, as well as two "safety nets" – if a contestant gets a question wrong, but had reached a designated cash value during their game, they will leave with that amount as their prize. While the first few questions are generally easy, subsequent ones might prompt the host to ask if the answer they gave is their "final answer" – if it is, then it is locked in and cannot be changed. If a contestant feels unsure about an answer and does not wish to play on, they can walk away with the money they have won, to which the host will ask them to confirm this as their final decision; in such cases, the host will usually ask them to state what answer they would have gone for, and reveal if it would have been correct or incorrect.

Original format

During the British original, between 1998 and 2007, the show's format focused on fifteen questions. The payout structure was as follows :

Question number	Question value
1	£100
2	£200
3	£300
4	£500
5	£1,000
6	£2,000
7	£4,000
8	£8,000
9	£16,000
10	£32,000
11	£64,000
12	£125,000
13	£250,000
14	£500,000
15	£1,000,000

Between 2007 and 2014, the number of questions was reduced to twelve; the overall change in format was later incorporated into a number of international markets over a period of four years, including the Arab world, Bulgaria, the Netherlands, France, Poland, Spain, and Turkey. The payout structure, as a whole, was subsequently changed as a result, with the second safety net relocated to £50,000 at question 7 :

Question number	Question value
1	£500
2	£1,000
3	£2,000
4	£5,000
5	£10,000
6	£20,000
7	£50,000
8	£75,000
9	£150,000
10	£250,000
11	£500,000
12	£1,000,000

The game show's revival for British television in 2018 reverted to the original arrangement used before 2007, but with one notable difference, in that the second safety net was made adjustable – once a contestant reached £1,000, the host asked them, before giving the next question, if they wished to set the next cash prize amount as the second safety net, with this allowing them to set up as high as £500,000 in their game as a result.

American format

The American version premiered on ABC in August 1999 as part of a two-week daily special event hosted by Regis Philbin. After this and a second two-week event aired in November 1999, ABC commissioned a regular series that launched in January 2000 and ran until June 2002. The syndication of the game show was conceived and debuted in September 2002. The only difference between it and the British version was episode length – 45 minutes, as opposed to the 60-minute length of the original version. The change meant that the preliminary round of the show Fastest Finger was eliminated, and contestants had to pass a more conventional game-show qualification test. After passing the qualification test and being chosen, when the show began, the host invited contestants to the studio. Exceptions to this arrangement, in which it was used under the name "Fastest Finger" included: primetime special editions of the programme; the 2004 series that was dubbed Super Millionaire, in which the final prize was increased to $10,000,000; and for the 10th-anniversary special of the American edition, which ran during August 2009 for eleven episodes. The decision to remove this round later occurred in other international versions, including the British original, and several versions likes Russia, Holland and Costa Rica before its reinstatement in the renewed series.

Clock format

In 2008, the American version changed its format so that contestants were required to answer questions within a set time limit. The limit varied depending on the difficulty of the question:

Question number	Time limit
1–5	15 seconds
6–10	30 seconds
11–14	45 seconds
15	45 seconds

The clock started immediately after a question was given and the four possible answers appeared. The clock paused when a lifeline was used. If the clock ran out with no answer locked in, the contestant walked away with any prize money won up to that point, unless the "Double Dip" lifeline had been used, in which case a failure to give a second answer was treated the same as a wrong answer. This format change was later adopted into other international versions with several minor change– the British original, for example, adopted this change for episodes from 3 August 2010 to 2014. The Indian version followed on 11 October 2010. Egypt version followed on 20 July 2012 to May 15, 2013, Turkey version followed on 2 August 2011, Israel version followed on 2020 - 2021.