Millionaire's Longevity

[RyanZ]

So, now that Millionaire is at a 2.0 rating, what are your thoughts for the possibility of another season airing? Honestly, I'm not sure about it - it could go either way, especially in the next nine months or so of shows. Unfortunately, its harder for Millionaire to do what Feud has been doing with its online presence; there can't be as many funny moments that have been happening with Feud. I do think it's a fantastic idea for clips to be posted on the official MillionaireTV YouTube channel, which the show has been doing recently - admittedly, it hasn't been working out fantastically, but it's something that should have been going on for a while now.

[wwtbamfan]

Wait. 2.0?!? Out of what? 5 or 10?
Either way, a 2.0 is still bad. Yeah. I'm terrified.

Zachary
wwtbamfan

[FrankT]

There's nothing that can be done. The show's had its day.

[GSK]

Saying there's nothing that can be done is a little extreme, don't you think?

[RyanZ]

wwtbamfan: 2.0 is on the Nielsen rating scale; if I am not mistaken, it means that 2.0% of households watched Millionaire for the week. (I may very well be mistaken, though. If someone could clarify how the Nielsen ratings work, especially for syndicated shows, I'd greatly appreciate it.)

And yeah, it's not a reason to panic yet. If it consistently pulls in a 2.0 or lower throughout the year I'd worry, but we're talking about two weeks into a September-to-June season.

[RegisFan]

It's still strange for such a low rating in only the second week of the season, though. If this was the middle of the season and the freshness had worn off, I wouldn't be alarmed. A 2.0 in week 2 signals a surprising lack of interest from viewers.

I can't help but think that the local affiliates are partly to blame for this, though. Millionaire saw a lot of schedule shuffling this year due to both Family Feud and a massive wave of new talk shows. Millionaire isn't even airing in my city this season. The lack of support from local TV stations can only harm Millionaire's chances.

Also, as RyanZ said, Millionaire doesn't have the greatest promotion on the planet. Perhaps there's a small advertising budget or perhaps the advertising folks for Millionaire just aren't the greatest in the world, but very little is done to make people aware of the show. Millionaire's website is rarely updated, and the show's Twitter and YouTube accounts don't do the best job of advertising the show. There's more than a decade's worth of material to draw on to get people nostalgic and excited about Millionaire, so why isn't that material being exploited to its fullest potential?

Finally, I don't think we can completely discount the Shuffle format's role in this. The reaction from everyone I've talked to in person who has seen the Shuffle format is that it just isn't the Millionaire they know and love. I think that's a valid point. It's not a terrible format, but it doesn't look or sound like Millionaire, and I think it's just not as memorable as the original format in viewers' eyes. Bringing back some of the old music and game play elements would go a long way to bring back viewers who may feel alienated by the format change.

[FinalAnswer19]

I'm going to touch a little bit on Regisfan's last paragraph.

When I think of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," I think of a game show that tapes in the middle of what some like to think of where gladiators would go to fight. I think of a show with lights that are seemingly always moving up or down for every dramatic thing that happens on the show. I think of a show with fantastically composed music. I think of the host and contestant sitting in rather ugly chairs with computer screens in front of them in the middle of all of this action.

I don't think of the traditional game show with cheesy fireworks going off in the background of the stupid graphics. I don't think of some theme music you would imagine hearing in the background of some stupid college TV station "game show." I don't think of contestants standing behind some weird looking table staring at a novelty BIG SCREEN!

Since the shuffle format came to be, I have stopped watching the show. They should not have the right to call it "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" anymore. Maybe "Who Wants to Be a Boringaire" but certainly not "Millionaire." Plain and simple, it's not Millionaire. At least in the old formats we would usually see at least one million dollar question a season. How many have we seen thus far this season AND last season combined? None. And where on earth do they think they should cut your winnings in half if you walk away in round 1? You earned it, you shouldn't lose half of it. Heck, the government will take care of that for you.

I could go on, but I think that's enough ranting for one night. There's my two cents.

[RyanZ]

Hell, if anything else, if I asked my friends the last time they'd seen Millionaire, the response would probably be along the lines of, "What? That's still on?" That's not exactly indicative of great advertising. Hey, GSN managed to pull in nearly two million viewers for the first episode of American Bible Challenge after some stellar marketing. Almost two million people. On GSN. Granted, Millionaire doesn't exactly have the same obvious demographic that Bible Challenge does, but some re-exposure for the show couldn't hurt.

To me, if they want to pull in some viewers at least for a little while, they need to make the top-level questions slightly less obscure for a few shows so that someone can make it to the million dollar question, and then promote the hell out of it. Remind people that the show exists and that people are winning life-changing amounts of cash.

[FrankT]

They're never going to, we might as well face it.

[GSK]

Sept 29, 2012 3:40:37 GMT -5 FrankT said:

They're never going to, we might as well face it.

Why are you being so down? Would you act the same way if it was UK's Millionaire that was falling in ratings? I doubt it.

It's getting old now, so please stop.

[RegisFan]

I don't think FrankT is playing favorites, I just think he's exceptionally troubled by Millionaire's poor performance in the U.S. Cheer up, FrankT. Things don't look great right now, but there's still an entire season ahead of us for the show's fate to be decided.

As for some of the recent comments in this thread (my own included), I think we're touching upon a topic that perhaps we've been skirting around in recent months. How many of us are actually satisfied with the current format of the show, now that the novelty has worn off? I do find myself thinking that the Shuffle format became kind of stale rather quickly, and I think the presentation has a LOT to do with it. I know a lot of us may be reluctant to admit it, but has anyone else's enjoyment of the show gone down at least a little bit since the newness of the Shuffle format wore off?

[FrankT]

Sept 29, 2012 16:06:13 GMT -5 GSK said:

Why are you being so down? Would you act the same way if it was UK's Millionaire that was falling in ratings? I doubt it.

Yes, I would actually!

[GSK]

Sept 30, 2012 4:30:17 GMT -5 FrankT said:

Sept 29, 2012 16:06:13 GMT -5 GSK said:

Why are you being so down? Would you act the same way if it was UK's Millionaire that was falling in ratings? I doubt it.

Yes, I would actually!

So you'd still act as if they would never recover from low ratings, they're doomed, and that we all might as well give up now?

Wow.

[Tim0n]

Well, this one is gonna be confusing. Brace yourselves!

Since I started to follow WWTBAM all around the world on the interwebs, I never was sure if the US edition is still airing. I mean, there would be *some* clips of it, but usually they'd be between 1-2 years old (that was back in 2006). The website? B**ch please, that was older than my VHS recording of Space Jam! I only realised US Millionaire was still on when I saw first clips of the clock format... and that annoyed the heck out of me. I felt that an important rule, which made WWTBAM different to all gameshows, was thrown away. From then, things went downhill for the show. Removing PAF lifeline, new Money Tree, and then, out of all things, Shuffle format. Slowly but surely the show started to lose all the elements of the original format and became a right mess. The only thing that stayed the same was the name and the logo (well, of some sort).
Obviously nothing can go on forever (with some exceptions to this rule, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and Countdown). Unfortunately, the format is slowly but surely vanishing from the world, just as Weakest Link did (although this only went on in the UK for a longer period). Any forced changes that are made just to attract viewers are bound to wear off as quickly as they were introduced. This is why I'm happy that the Polish edition ended when it did. It was still relatively popular, and who knows if there won't be another revival in near future. That's what the UK Millionaire should do, too, instead of giving us low-quality 'live' celebrity specials. Nostalgia plays a big role in a revival's success. But if people remember the show as boring, then there won't be any effect to it.

Hopefully this isn't too hard to read, I'm writing this after a whole day of sorting out my college notes :L

[RyanZ]

If it's any temporary consolation, Millionaire is back up to a 2.2 rating for the third week. We'll see how it continues to perform during the season.