Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

I thought they were already doing that towards the end of Tarrant's run. I thought I'd heard that the phone-a-friend(s) were brought to the studio and kept round the back. Maybe I misunderstood something.

That's only for the current series, Series 8. Previously "the double counter" (as opposed to the "x2 disk") had no effect if it fell with the jackpot counter.

The Chase occasionally ends up with a £25k+ jackpot on offer, whether it gets won is another matter. It's also split two/three/four ways so the payout per person rarely approaches five figures.

Yes, in the People Play specials of 2012-13 the friends were backstage and appeared on screen.

Or at least was until they doubled it in length to try and compete with The Chase. I do like the format though and it has the money ladder tweaked in such a way to keep the payouts relatively low.

Challenge TV were showing it but I actually wasn't a fan of it. Not keen on the switching of contestants of if they get a question wrong or want to pass on it.

Here's all the Aussie intros - that first logo really is hideous.

Ghastly first logo, improved in the second, but feel our intro with the black and white filter on the people was better. Also, wasn't expecting the intro to morph into Catchphase intro.

After that everything else deserves to be destroyed and never talked about again!

The Australian version also seemed to use reworked versions of the original Strachan pieces with additional instruments added in during the early years. I'm assuming the Strachan's did those versions as well?

Wow some truly awful titles there. Why on earth do they zoom in on that woman’s necklace?

The only good titles there are the ones at 2:30. And why does the first one have a non-standard logo?

As it was the first country the format was sold to, Celedor might have been a bit more lenient with their brand. Once it had been sold to the US I guess they had even greater power over use of the brand.

So the ‘twists’ for the new version are a new lifeline ‘Ask the host’ & the ability for contestants to set their own safety net (after the £1,000 safety net).

https://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/who-wants-be-millionaire-returns-itv-saturday-brand-new-twists