Chris Tarrant leaves original UK version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"
I was just updating my other Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-related thread when I found this:
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire cancelled as Chris Tarrant steps down | Mail Online
After 15 years, Chris Tarrant, the host of the original UK version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, has decided to quit the show, causing it to be axed and canceled.
This was the original version of the show, which launched in September of 1998, and launched an international franchise that spread like wildfire across the world; to date, over 120 countries have either aired their own version of the show, or at least licensed it, airing other countries' versions of the show, making it the #1 most internationally popular television franchise of all time.
The show began with a 15-question money tree, but switched to a 12-question money tree in 2007, along with a new "rave remix" soundtrack that still kept some of the old music cues that were composed by Keith and Matthew Strachan; the new rave remix, which has a pretty nice EDM-feel to it, was composed by Ramon Covalo. (Personally, I like this remixed soundtrack better than the current U.S. syndicated soundtrack, which is nothing at all like the original, and was composed by Jeff Lippencott and Mark T. Williams, co-founders of the Los Angeles-based company Ah2 Music, which composes music for various TV shows.) In 2010, as the U.S. version transitioned to the current "shuffle" format, the UK version took after their old format, implementing time limits on questions, which was in turn influenced by the former Play It! attraction at Walt Disney World.
Chris Tarrant interview: Why nobody wants to be a millionaire now - Telegraph
According to Tarrant himself, the factors that contributed to the cancellation of the show were a combination of the fact that no regular contestant has won £1 million since 2006, that they scrapped regular public shows for a while in favor of celebrity shows, and when they started inviting back regular people to play, during a time of economic recession, no one ever went for £1 million, because they were too scared to risk losing a ton of prize money on an incorrect answer, because all it takes is one incorrect answer to eliminate a contestant and experience a significant drop in winnings. He stated that it took him 3 nights to give away only £80,000, whereas before, they used to average about £100,000 in a single night.
I could see them turning the show into a syndicated show, like the U.S. version did, and if Tarrant himself won't return, they could possibly pick a new host, like the way they picked Meredith Vieira after Regis Philbin declined, though I would imagine that there would be significantly tougher questions.
Notably, while the U.S. version got rid of both the 50/50 and Phone-A-Friend lifelines, the UK version stuck with them. In the U.S., they got rid of the Phone-A-Friend lifeline because of a recent increasing trend of "friends" using online search engines, even though the internet was invented long before the show, but the UK version instead changed how the lifeline worked; they brought the "friends" over to another sound-proof section of the studio, where they were not allowed to use the internet. The U.S. version previously got rid of the 50/50 lifeline in 2008, and replaced it with the Double Dip, which was taken from the 2004 Super Millionaire special event (which I took my screen name from) that offered a $10 million top prize. The Double Dip lifeline gives the contestant two chances to answer the question, but at the cost of the option to walk away; they must give an answer to the question, as opposed to the 50/50 lifeline, which eliminates two incorrect answers, leaving one incorrect answer and the correct answer, and still allows the contestant to walk away. Initially, in both the UK and the U.S., the selection of which incorrect answers to eliminate were pre-determined, but later on, it became more randomized.
If you live in the UK (though I don't) and you enjoyed Millionaire, share your thoughts here.
