ITV revamp Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

By Patrick McLennan
( What's on TV )
published

ITV revamp Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
ITV revamp Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is getting a revamp. Contestants on the ITV1 show will now have to answer against the clock and phone-a-friend helpers will not just be heard but appear on screen. Host Chris Tarrant told The Sun: "I was wary of changing it as I was of the view that it was perfect, so why interfere with it? Yet the changes will work. "In future we will be doing all the early rounds against the clock. Thirty seconds against the clock will really change it." Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? clocked up a peak of 19.2 million viewers in March 1999 but an episode this month was watched by 3.4 million. The number of questions were changed from 15 to 12 and cash prizes were altered for each stage in 2007.

Patrick McLennan
Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 

An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.