Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? is a British television game show that has been imported to many countries. In Britain, it was hosted by Chris Tarrant.
The United States version was originally aired on ABC and hosted in primetime by personality Regis Philbin from August 16, 1999, to June 27, 2002. It was brought back into first-run syndication on September 16, 2002 and was hosted by Meredith Vieira (2002–2013), Cedric the Entertainer (2013–2014), Terry Crews (2014–2015) and Chris Harrison (2015-2019). A 20th anniversary edition of the game, to air on ABC with late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel as its host, was announced on January 8, 2020.
All variants of the game show feature contestants answering multiple choice questions with four choices, one being the correct choice. If the contestant misses one question, the game ends and the contestant goes home with a set level of money (most recently $1,000 for Tier One questions, $5,000 for Tier Two questions or $50,000 for Tier Three questions). If a contestant chooses to walk away rather than answer a question he/she is uncertain about, the contestant keeps all money won up to that point.
The contestants originally climbed a money ladder to win a million dollars, though the format has been constantly changed. The player had three lifelines available, which were originally 50:50, which removes two wrong choices, Ask the Audience, where the studio audience is polled regarding the question, and Phone-a-Friend, where one of the contestant's friends is asked the question, and gets thirty seconds in total to receive the question and respond. The latter lifeline was eventually removed, due to individuals looking up answers online. A later format involves the first round which consists of ten questions of random difficulty and randomized amounts of money that do not match difficulty, and the amounts will only be revealed after a question is answered correctly or "jumped". The money is added into the bank if added correctly, and removed from play if the player uses one of his two "Jump the Question" lifelines. If a player walks in the first round, he may only keep half of what is banked. After all ten questions have been answered, the player makes it into the second round where he may keep his entire bank and answer four more questions to possibly win a million dollars. If the $100,000 question is answered correctly, it is into the bank and play continues that way. The player may walk if he does not know the answer and keep that money.
The current format is a return to the money ladder with escalating amounts and difficulty of questions, with two safe landmark amounts which varied as the show progressed from primetime to the current iteration, being $1,000 after five questions and $32,000 in the original primetime game. The current version has three lifelines, which are the same as the original three, save Plus One, which allows the contestant to invite a friend in the studio to assist with a question, as opposed to Phone-a-Friend.
John Carpenter was the first contestant to win the grand prize in any version of the program, and he won it in the US primetime version of the program.
Certain special editions of the show have aired, including various special celebrity editions as well as Who Wants to Be A Super Millionaire? which was hosted on ABC in primetime by Philbin in 2004. The money ladder featured drastically increased values, with the top prize being $10 million. No one won the top prize, though someone won $1 million in this edition.