Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Didn't they donate to Comic Relief, matching the winnings I think. In those days ITV and C4 usually withdrew their regular schedules up against the BBC telethons.

I wonder if there was any reference to the donation on the BBC One Show?

We’ve done 75 minute episodes before, mostly at the end of the series.

I still remember at the end of the 2019 run, you had:

8pm - Millionaire
9pm - A documentary which was doing horribly
10pm - Millionaire: Part 2
10.15pm - News

Likewise, instead of having the schedule at xx:10 junctions this Sunday, Millionaire could’ve shortened and been 50 minutes instead of 60. It’s very versatile in that sense.

I have actually watched two episodes on the trot on catchup before.. but it's one of those shows you have to be in the mood for. At the right time of night with a glass of wine it's really the perfect show to relax to.

They record (or used to anyway) Jeremy in two ways if a cliffhanger occurs, one where he acts as if they'll be returning after the ITV news and one where they just carry on straight through - these days however they just seem to adjust the schedule to run it straight through

There are quite a lot of little 'optimizations' they can do in the editing depending on if a show is slightly too short or too long, right down to how long they show the phone a friend dial tone for example!

Going back to the 1998 days as a 10 year old I thought the podium appearing out of nowhere from where Chris had just been standing on an empty circle minutes earlier dark magic! I can't remember how long it took some genius to finally work out 'we can save all the effort by just having Chris introduce the show from the bit of the set where he walks off to for FFF anyway!'

I also miss the manic end of the show from back then where Chris had to rattle off the list of contestants appearing on the next show, the ceefax page, the website, the postal address and the phone number all within about a minute! He made it look a lot easier than I suspect it is in reality!

Ceefax? Millionaire isn't a BBC show.

Yes, they did match the night's winnings. That was the week when ITV had moved the news to eleven and in among all the exciting new programmes they had Millionaire every night, including Red Nose Day. It was quite something to open the Radio Times that week and see all the new shows and big film premieres on ITV, and I really feared for BBC1 at the time because ITV had such a swagger about themselves and BBC1 looked very dull. Of course, I wasn't to know ITV would run out of good stuff within a matter of weeks.

Red Nose Day 1999 was I think the low point of Comic Relief, if not in terms of the money raised but in terms of the TV audience and the enthusiasm for the event. Not only did ITV show Millionaire opposite it, but it was one of the few occasions when C4 showed their usual Friday line-up with Friends, Frasier and Graham Norton instead of, as you say, dropping them for a week and showing a film instead, so it had much tougher competition than usual. And Comic Relief itself seemed a bit tired, summed up by the main attraction in the late evening being a TFI Friday special*, when that show was well past its best by then and utterly unfashionable.

Seemingly they seemed to agree with that because in 2001 they had Celebrity Big Brother and Ali G interviewing the Beckhams, which got huge coverage in things like Heat and appealed to younger audiences and seemed to revitalise Red Nose Day a bit.

* I remember Chris Evans on his Radio 2 show a few years ago saying that special was simulcast on both BBC1 and C4, but it actually wasn't, it was just on BBC1 - but there had been a regular episode of TFI that evening, with the repeat of that moved to Saturday night.



At the start it was indeed half an hour, but in the early days, when it ran for a week or so a few times a year, it could often run at any duration to fill any required slot. I remember one episode in 1999 that ran for 35 minutes, to enable ITV to show it directly opposite Winning Lines (also a Celador production, of course) for its entire duration, and when ITV had England vs Scotland in the Euro play-offs, they had two half hour episodes, at 7pm and 10pm. Any time ITV wanted to make a splash or cause problems for BBC1, it would be wheeled out wherever and for however long was required.

I think you're right that they try their best these days to keep contestants to the one show - and sometimes when they start late into the show it's super obvious they aren't going to go far - but occasionally they do still ring the klaxon. Heard it at least once in a 2020 episode.

Just testing you ...as I said Chris makes all this look far too easy!

I think rollover contestants work better when the show is on more than once a week. If it’s just going out weekly it’s better than it’s self contained, it also gives them more flexibility when it comes to the order.

Maybe it was just me, but Comic Relief 1999 sticks out to me more than any other year as there seemed to be more hype than usual for it. Granted I was only 11 though, but I remember the lead-in with CBBC having an afternoon of themed shows (might have even been the year they did sketches featuring stars swapping shows like the Chuckle Brothers presenting Blue Peter etc) and then the buzz about the Doctor Who sketch being shown in the evening. Boyzone had the single that year which of course was quite memorable and popular at the time. I'd say it's been more the last few years that it's felt like there's energy or something missing from the event, it's often come across a bit flat.

Back on topic though, I do miss the regular rollover of contestants on Millionnaire, although Clarkson does a really good job as host, I think the rollover gave the audience a reason to tune in and created the hype when contestant gets close to the £1 million question and the cliffhanger is there whether they'll go all the way or not.

I totally agree with you. They had a wonderful theme with the 9 multi coloured noses and the hooting nose as merchandise (that seemed very innovative to me as a young ‘un), and a brilliant set from what I remember.

The CBBC show felt special too rather than just an odd mention here and there amongst their normal programmes. Here’s the opening (courtesy of JB1601)