Who Wants to Be a Millionaire premiered in primetime on ABC 20 years ago today

[TMC]

(August 16, 1999)



The shocking success of ABC's Millionaire, which became a national phenomenon when it launched for an initial two-week run in the dog days of summer 1999, paved the way for Survivor and Big Brother on CBS the following summer, which was then followed by American Idol on Fox in summer 2002. In fact, you could draw a line from Millionaire's success to Donald Trump assuming the presidency, says Bill Carter. "That August 16, 1999 fell on a Monday is of little significance except in the world of television, which quite unexpectedly experienced a revolutionary moment that night," says Carter. "The people involved certainly did not anticipate anything extraordinary was in the offing. They were grateful they had a chance to get a new little program on the air, even though it had all the signs of being a throwaway: an extremely low-budget game show being rolled out on ABC toward the tail end of summer, when viewing levels were often at their lowest. The Monday part only mattered because that night kicked off an unusual two-week experiment: the new program, hosted by Regis Philbin, would occupy various time slots on 13 consecutive nights—half-hours on the weeknights, hours on the weekend. That unconventional scheduling was about the only sign that ABC had made more than a glancing commitment to this new addition to its summer lineup. The stakes were clearly low. The entire budget for the 13-episode run was $1.8 million, a figure that, even back then, amounted to loose change in a network programming budget. But the stakes were certainly high for one man, Michael Davies, the program's executive producer, because he had literally walked away from a job as an ABC programming executive to take the reins of the show."

[Hawkee]

I was around twelve years old when Who Wants To Be A Millionaire premiered in 1999 and this was the game show that began my love affair with game shows and when I first saw Millionaire I was amazed at how amazing it was and while most people thought Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was gonna be a one hit wonder for ABC I truly believed that Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was gonna go far and become a hit because with Regis Philbin as the host I just knew he would appeal to fans and when you have a show of any genre with Regis Philbin as the host Regis seems to have a secret power in him that makes a show hosted by him a hit. And I believe that if Regis Philbin was not chosen to host Who Wants To Be A Millionaire the show would truly not exist for ABC. But I think Millionaire's popularity started to soar when John Carpenter became the first millionaire in the history of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and when that historic event happened Millionaire's ratings skyrocketed not only for the show but for ABC as well and soon with even more champions like Kim Hunt Joe Trela Kevin Olmstead and the late Ed Toutant Who Wants To Be A Millionaire continued to take off like a rocket in TV ratings and I think having special moments like this kept the show on the edge. But I think when ABC cancelled the primetime version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and started to focus on their other shows it hurt ABC like a painful wound and when the syndicated version of Millionaire began with Meredith Veira it proved that the show would be still alive on TV and will be remembered for having it's first ever female millionaire and the first special needs millionaire who was visually impaired. When Millionaire finally ended it's syndicated run this year it was truly a sad loss for the game show world. But I have a feeling that in a few years just like Family Feud returned in 1988 with the late Ray Combs and then revived in 1995 by the late Richard Dawson and in 1999 with Louie Anderson Richard Karn John O'Hurley and currently Steve Harvey Who Wants To Be A Millionaire will be revived this time with someone like FOX News anchors Greg Gutfield or Tucker Carlson or maybe with Montel Williams. But August 16th will always be remembered in history as the birth of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
Bestie

[AMackII]

Happy 20th Anniversary to WWTBaM(US version)

[DadTheKing]

Originally Posted by LaBestia

I was around twelve years old when Who Wants To Be A Millionaire premiered in 1999 and this was the game show that began my love affair with game shows and when I first saw Millionaire I was amazed at how amazing it was and while most people thought Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was gonna be a one hit wonder for ABC I truly believed that Who Wants To Be A Millionaire was gonna go far and become a hit because with Regis Philbin as the host I just knew he would appeal to fans and when you have a show of any genre with Regis Philbin as the host Regis seems to have a secret power in him that makes a show hosted by him a hit. And I believe that if Regis Philbin was not chosen to host Who Wants To Be A Millionaire the show would truly not exist for ABC. But I think Millionaire's popularity started to soar when John Carpenter became the first millionaire in the history of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and when that historic event happened Millionaire's ratings skyrocketed not only for the show but for ABC as well and soon with even more champions like Kim Hunt Joe Trela Kevin Olmstead and the late Ed Toutant Who Wants To Be A Millionaire continued to take off like a rocket in TV ratings and I think having special moments like this kept the show on the edge. But I think when ABC cancelled the primetime version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and started to focus on their other shows it hurt ABC like a painful wound and when the syndicated version of Millionaire began with Meredith Veira it proved that the show would be still alive on TV and will be remembered for having it's first ever female millionaire and the first special needs millionaire who was visually impaired. When Millionaire finally ended it's syndicated run this year it was truly a sad loss for the game show world. But I have a feeling that in a few years just like Family Feud returned in 1988 with the late Ray Combs and then revived in 1995 by the late Richard Dawson and in 1999 with Louie Anderson Richard Karn John O'Hurley and currently Steve Harvey Who Wants To Be A Millionaire will be revived this time with someone like FOX News anchors Greg Gutfield or Tucker Carlson or maybe with Montel Williams. But August 16th will always be remembered in history as the birth of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
Bestie

Hi, Bestie! Yes, Regis was the best WWTBAM host of all time. He made the show exciting. If they revive the show, they need a Regis clone. I don't see one right now.
DTK