Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (US) (1999-2009)

Status: Ended

Airdate: 1999-08-15

Runtime: 1 hour

Rating(s): 6

Genre(s): Talk

Language(s): English

Description

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is an American television quiz show based upon the British program of the same title, which offers a maximum prize of $1,000,000 for correctly answering a series of consecutive multiple choice questions. Originally, as in the UK edition, contestants were required to correctly answer 15 questions of increasing difficulty, but in 2010, the format was modified so that the contestants are now faced with 14 questions of random difficulty. The program follows the same general premise as its original UK counterpart, and is one of many international variants in the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? franchise. The original U.S. version aired on ABC from August 16, 1999 to June 27, 2002, and was hosted by Regis Philbin. The current syndicated version of the show began airing on September 16, 2002, and was launched by Meredith Vieira, who remained host for 11 seasons, with her final first-run episodes airing in May 2013. Vieira was succeeded by Cedric the Entertainer beginning with the premiere of season 12 on September 2, 2013. As the first U.S. network game show to offer a million-dollar top prize, the show made television history by becoming one of the highest-rated game shows in the history of American television. The U.S. Millionaire has gone on to win seven Daytime Emmy Awards, and TV Guide and GSN have ranked it #7 and #5 on their respective lists of the 50 Greatest Game Shows of All Time. In 2013, TV Guide ranked it #6 in its list of the 60 greatest game shows ever.