Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Australian game show)
| Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Also known as | 'Millionaire' |
| Genre | Game show |
| Created by | David Briggs |
| Directed by | Peter Ots |
| Presented by | Eddie McGuire |
| Composer(s) |
Keith Strachan Matthew Strachan |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 8 (original) 1 ($5 Million) 7 (Hot Seat) |
| No. of episodes | 292 (original) 6 ($5 Million) 1000+ (Hot Seat) |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | GTV-9, Richmond, Victoria |
| Running time | 30 minutes (1999-2000) 60 minutes (1999-2006, 2010) 90 minutes (2007) |
| Production company(s) |
Grundy Television (1999-2006) 2waytraffic (2007-2010) |
| Release | |
| Original network | Nine Network |
| Picture format |
576i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV) |
| Audio format |
Stereo (1999-2006) Dolby Digital 5.1 (2007-2010) |
| Original release | 18 April 1999 – 6 March 2010 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by |
1 vs. 100 Millionaire Hot Seat |
| Question | Value | Amount lost if wrong answer | Missed answer value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $100 | $0 | $0 |
| 2 | $200 | $100 | $0 |
| 3 | $300 | $200 | $0 |
| 4 | $500 | $300 | $0 |
| 5 | $1,000 | $500 | $0 |
| 6 | $2,000 | $0 | $1,000 |
| 7 | $4,000 | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| 8 | $8,000 | $3,000 | $1,000 |
| 9 | $16,000 | $7,000 | $1,000 |
| 10 | $32,000 | $15,000 | $1,000 |
| 11 | $64,000 | $0 | $32,000 |
| 12 | $125,000 | $32,000 | $32,000 |
| 13 | $250,000 | $93,000 | $32,000 |
| 14 | $500,000 | $218,000 | $32,000 |
| 15 | $1,000,000 | $468,000 | $32,000 |
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is an Australian television game show which would offer a maximum cash prize of $1,000,000 for answering 15 successive multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty as a team. The show was originally based on and follows the same general format of the original version of the show from the United Kingdom, and is part of the international Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? franchise.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? debuted in Australia on 18 April 1999 on the Nine Network and was hosted by Eddie McGuire.
Beginning with an eleven question format starting at $1,000, this was later changed to 15 and offered a top prize of $1 million. However, in the 2007 revision of the show, the new maximum prize money on offer is $5 million; however, in the 2009 revision the top prize reverted to $1 million. The show ran in the Monday 8:30 pm time slot between 1999 and 2006 except for a brief two-week period in 2004 where a shortened half-hour edition was put up against Seven's Deal or No Deal in the 5:30 pm time slot leading into the 6:00 pm evening news. This incarnation turned out to be a ratings failure, and it lasted for only one week.
This was the very first country to have a fastest finger round where two people answered the fastest at the same time. As a result, another question was asked but neither of them got it right, so another question was asked. The fastest finger later on, instead of giving out one answer, two answers had to be given out to avoid any random guessing from happening. Later still, the contestants playing the fastest finger had to rank the four options in the correct order (as per the question), to avoid people winning Fastest Finger on a guess.
In the first few seasons, some questions often had a joke answer for the D choice (as with the US version of the show), for example, the question "The 80s band with the hit song 'Relax' was Frankie goes to ..... where?" had Collingwood offered as a D joke (this being a reference to Eddie McGuire being president of the Collingwood Football Club). As well, the Fastest Finger First segment from 1999 until 2003 required the ten contestants to give a correct answer as quickly as possible before reverting to the international standard of rules in 2004 where contestants had to order the four options in a row.
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