Of all the game shows on British television, there’s long been a special place reserved for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Once hosted by Chris Tarrant, its original 30-series run was must-watch television. When it was revived with Jeremy Clarkson in the seat, it once again enjoyed tremendous success on TV.
Today, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is an entertainment brand that can reach well beyond TV audiences. As it approaches the 700-mark for total episodes, viewers have been treated to incredible highs and crushing lows testing their knowledge against the multiple-choice questions of the show.
Popularity creating demand beyond screens
Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash
The biggest appeal of game shows like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is the drama of people pitting their knowledge or skill in a game for cash, where risk and the potential for reward run wild in our imaginations. So, it’s perhaps no surprise that Millionaire has sunk its talons into the iGaming market. The franchise is now among the best online casino game selection picks, with a few different titles. Millionaire Rush is the latest addition to the series, bringing the MegaClusters formula to the prize table. In it, the aim is to pop matching symbols in sequence, pushing you higher up the prize table. It joins other hits from the show, including Millionaire Megapays, Live Millionaire Video Poker, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Roulette.
In addition to this, you'll also find Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-branded video games, notably one released in 1999 and another as recently as 2020, showing the show's long-standing marketability in other sectors. Board game variants of the format have also been available to purchase for a while. The fact that the brand has seen it fit to expand across this many spin-off games in rather different corners of entertainment shows the wide appeal of the show and the demand for these kinds of experiences.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire remains a titan of British entertainment, and will only continue to earn more viewers after the revelations of recent episodes.
The highest of highs and a distinct low
Image by No-longer-here from Pixabay
At the end of April this year, retired IT analyst Roman Dubowski etched his name into Who Wants to Be a Millionaire history. The Stockport man sat in the seat and got to the 15th and final question with a 50/50 left to play. The question was asked about what trademarked logo is depicted in works by Manet and Picasso, among other things.
As Dubowski stated afterwards, he thought he knew the answer before the four were offered, thinking back to the painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Édouard Manet. The red triangle gave the answer, which is the logo of Bass Ale. He used his 50/50 for the sake of it, picked Bass, and became only the seventh millionaire in the show’s history.
Just a couple of weeks later, sadly, the headlines coming from the show circled almost the opposite outcome. Having made her way to £250,000, contestant Jen was asked the £500,000 question. The question was which item had travelled at over 260 miles per hour in a competitive match, per the Guinness World Records.
The answers were a tennis ball, ice hockey puck, badminton shuttlecock, and table tennis ball. After using her Phone a Friend, she chose ice hockey puck. As badminton shuttlecock flashed green, she saw her possible £250,000 win get cut to £64,000 – losing £186,000 on the punt.
So, in a matter of weeks, the titanic game show delivered both sides of the drama that continues to make it such a huge hit on TV and beyond – and just in time for its celebration of hitting 700 episodes.
