Broadcaster aims to breathe new life into 13-year-old quizshow, with options including dropping its non-celebrity edition
It was once described as an "Exocet missile" in the ITV schedule. Now the long-running quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire? faces a fight for its future as the broadcaster looks to breathe new life into the 13-year-old format.
Programme-makers are looking at ways of freshening up the Chris Tarrant quizshow after a special live Christmas Eve edition was watched by 6.5 million viewers, its biggest audience for five years.
ITV has helped boost the popularity of the show with celebrity and live editions, and it is understood it wants more of the same if the format is to return later this year. One option is to drop the regular non-celebrity edition of the show altogether.
A new series is yet to be commissioned by ITV from producer Sony Pictures Television International but ITV today rebuffed suggestions that the show had been axed.
"The first-ever live edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire broadcast on ITV1 over Christmas attracted a very successful audience of 6.9 million," the spokesman said. "We are talking to the producers, Sony Pictures, about future episodes of the show and how it can continue to develop."
An ITV insider added: "With all our shows we want to make sure they have maximum appeal. We are talking to the producers about how we can continue to develop the show. All sorts of possibilities are being talked about."
Who Wants to be a Millionaire? was an instant smash hit when it debuted in 1998 and at its height was watched by 19 million viewers. The BBC ran up the white flag in the ratings war, describing it as an "Exocet missile".
But five millionaires later ? in the UK, that is, with many more created around the world ? the show has lost some lustre, typically drawing between 3 million and 4 million viewers in ITV1's peak-time schedule.
Originally developed and produced by Celador, the worldwide rights to the show were bought by Dutch interactive broadcaster 2waytraffic in a �106m deal in 2006. Sony bought 2waytraffic for �114.3m in 2008.
The quiz is also infamous for contestant Charles Ingram, the "coughing major" who won �1m but never got to spend it after he was convicted of conspiring to defraud the show along with his wife and Tecwen Whittock in 2003.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/12/itv-who-wants-to-be-a-millionaire
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