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Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Sunday 8pm on ITV (February 2018)

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JA
james-2001
Juicy Joe posted:
BillyH posted:
The show's record audience of 19.21 million was on 7th March 1999, which wasn't a big episode at all but happened the same night as a massive hour long episode of Coronation Street which got almost 20 million - Sharon and Ian's wedding. Everyone tuning in for that simply stuck around afterwards for Millionaire, and both episodes were the top 1 and 2 of both programmes in 1999.


Ian and Sharon are in EastEnders though?


Ian Bentley and Sharon Gaskell Razz
BC
Blake Connolly Founding member
A former member posted:
Is the syndicate stuff true?


According to the writer they really called themselves "The Consortium", but it was apparently true. Paul Smith has said he thinks they ended up getting 10% of all the prize money given out.
WH
what
james-2001 posted:
Hard to remember that only 5 years before millionare premiered the old IBA/ITC limits on gameshow prizes were still in effect. I think it was around £6000 at the time they were scrapped? Certainly the 1989 series of Wheel of Fortune makes a thing about their £4000 jackpot being the biggest on British TV at the time, less than a decade before Millionaire.

And before Millionaire was the seldom-remembered Raise the Roof, which like Millionaire, made the prize and its value the attraction to the show, but failed to do so in an endearing way. Millionaire’s success was in a way a 1-2 punch: the prize, and the suspense of the format.
AN
Andrew Founding member
james-2001 posted:
Hard to remember that only 5 years before millionare premiered the old IBA/ITC limits on gameshow prizes were still in effect. I think it was around £6000 at the time they were scrapped? Certainly the 1989 series of Wheel of Fortune makes a thing about their £4000 jackpot being the biggest on British TV at the time, less than a decade before Millionaire.


Also the $64,000 Question with Bob Monkhouse where they somehow got away with having a jackpot of £6,400
AA
Amber Avenger
Blake Connolly posted:
A former member posted:
Is the syndicate stuff true?


According to the writer they really called themselves "The Consortium", but it was apparently true. Paul Smith has said he thinks they ended up getting 10% of all the prize money given out.


I'd recommend a book called The Joy Of Quiz by Alan Connor to all TV Forumers, many will likely have read it already. From memory there is a chapter dedicated to Millionaire and it goes into detail about the Ingram case, the trial and the lengths people went to to get on the show in much more detail than I have read in most other places prior to now.
sda| and Blake Connolly gave kudos
JA
james-2001
Andrew posted:
james-2001 posted:
Hard to remember that only 5 years before millionare premiered the old IBA/ITC limits on gameshow prizes were still in effect. I think it was around £6000 at the time they were scrapped? Certainly the 1989 series of Wheel of Fortune makes a thing about their £4000 jackpot being the biggest on British TV at the time, less than a decade before Millionaire.


Also the $64,000 Question with Bob Monkhouse where they somehow got away with having a jackpot of £6,400


I think that was done only asking the jackpot question every 2 weeks.
BR
Brekkie
Juicy Joe posted:
Ian and Sharon are in EastEnders though?

Must be the episode when they eloped to Weatherfield.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
james-2001 posted:
Hard to remember that only 5 years before millionare premiered the old IBA/ITC limits on gameshow prizes were still in effect. I think it was around £6000 at the time they were scrapped? Certainly the 1989 series of Wheel of Fortune makes a thing about their £4000 jackpot being the biggest on British TV at the time, less than a decade before Millionaire.


The ironically titled £64,000 Question (which has its name roots in 64,000 sixpences, which is the modern day equivalent of about £1500 and later 64k shillings - about £3k today) gave £6,400 away towards the end of its run in the early 1990s, and of course Bullseye decided to give away £5k in cash on occasion, once they'd fulfilled the speedboat quota for people who live on the 7th floor of a tower block in Wolverhampton Smile

So it was gradually creeping up but sort of went crazy in the mid 1990s, including of course Bob Holness's replacement vehicle where they were giving houses away as prizes, but of course they weren't worth then what they are now so its sort of not quite the same analogy.
JO
Jonwo
VMPhil posted:
I really enjoyed it, though anything which goes in-depth into the commissioning process will probably sway it for me!

If you’ve watched the Fight for Saturday Night documentary on BBC Four you’ll have heard the story about how it was pitched and using the ITV staff to do phone a friend, so it was nice to see that dramatised.

It was a little amusing how dedicated the ‘syndicate’ was in getting on the show, all the ‘have you come alone’ and the secret offices and such


I found it funny when Liddiment was complaining about how the public always tune into the BBC for big events.

My memory's not great but didn't Chris Evans' previous Virgin Radio show and also TFI Friday have someone win a million pounds before WWTBAM did?
:-(
A former member
Jonwo posted:
VMPhil posted:
I really enjoyed it, though anything which goes in-depth into the commissioning process will probably sway it for me!

If you’ve watched the Fight for Saturday Night documentary on BBC Four you’ll have heard the story about how it was pitched and using the ITV staff to do phone a friend, so it was nice to see that dramatised.

It was a little amusing how dedicated the ‘syndicate’ was in getting on the show, all the ‘have you come alone’ and the secret offices and such


I found it funny when Liddiment was complaining about how the public always tune into the BBC for big events.

My memory's not great but didn't Chris Evans' previous Virgin Radio show and also TFI Friday have someone win a million pounds before WWTBAM did?

Yes I remember that - he kept on using the line “someone WILL BE a millionaire”. It was kind of annoying.
JC
JCB
Jonwo posted:
VMPhil posted:
I really enjoyed it, though anything which goes in-depth into the commissioning process will probably sway it for me!

If you’ve watched the Fight for Saturday Night documentary on BBC Four you’ll have heard the story about how it was pitched and using the ITV staff to do phone a friend, so it was nice to see that dramatised.

It was a little amusing how dedicated the ‘syndicate’ was in getting on the show, all the ‘have you come alone’ and the secret offices and such


I found it funny when Liddiment was complaining about how the public always tune into the BBC for big events.

My memory's not great but didn't Chris Evans' previous Virgin Radio show and also TFI Friday have someone win a million pounds before WWTBAM did?


Yeah, I think TFI did 'Someone's going to be a millionaire' in December 1999.

'Quiz' was great.Really cheesy but brilliant fun.
WH
Whataday Founding member
The Big Breakfast ran a competition called "Who Wants To Win A Mini On Air?" which I thought was a great name.
Night Thoughts, TVMan and JCB gave kudos

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