Massive UK Audience For 'Millionaire' Investigation - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

Brett Ferino · 04-22-2003, 02:26 PM

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - A 90-minute documentary on the British "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" cheating scandal earned England's largest television ratings for a reality-based program since the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997.

According to London's Guardian newspaper, the Monday night (April 21) special "Millionaire: a Major Fraud," averaged 15.1 million viewers, peaking with 16.7 million. As a point of comparison, February's wildly popular Martin Brashir interview with Michael Jackson averaged 14.1 million viewers. The numbers for the "Tonight with Trevor McDonald" special represent 55.9% of the available television audience.

The documentary focused on disgraced "Millionaire" winner Major Charles Ingram and his coughing conspirator Tecwen Whittock, offering the British public their first glimpse of the notorious episode, and the 19 audible coughs which led Ingram to victory. A subsequent airing of the full formerly-shelved "Millionaire" episode was watched by 1.6 million viewers on ITV2.

Tuesday morning on BBC1's "Breakfast," Ingram protested, "I did not notice or hear any coughing on the night. The clips that were played last night were wholly unrepresentative of the environment that I was sitting within."

AtlantaBravesFan29 · 04-25-2003, 07:27 PM

I saw it on the news today. Man, the things that they do for money. She coughed once for A,twice for B,3 times for C,4 times for D. What a joke!!! At least they took the money away from them. And now there is talk about a movie about this according to the news sources. I guess that this means that the daytime version in the states of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is in jeopardy because of what happened in England.

04-22-2003, 02:26 PM	#1
Brett Ferino Member Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Jul 18, 2000 Location: PA Posts: 3,782	Massive UK Audience For 'Millionaire' Investigation LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - A 90-minute documentary on the British "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" cheating scandal earned England's largest television ratings for a reality-based program since the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997. According to London's Guardian newspaper, the Monday night (April 21) special "Millionaire: a Major Fraud," averaged 15.1 million viewers, peaking with 16.7 million. As a point of comparison, February's wildly popular Martin Brashir interview with Michael Jackson averaged 14.1 million viewers. The numbers for the "Tonight with Trevor McDonald" special represent 55.9% of the available television audience. The documentary focused on disgraced "Millionaire" winner Major Charles Ingram and his coughing conspirator Tecwen Whittock, offering the British public their first glimpse of the notorious episode, and the 19 audible coughs which led Ingram to victory. A subsequent airing of the full formerly-shelved "Millionaire" episode was watched by 1.6 million viewers on ITV2. Tuesday morning on BBC1's "Breakfast," Ingram protested, "I did not notice or hear any coughing on the night. The clips that were played last night were wholly unrepresentative of the environment that I was sitting within."

04-25-2003, 07:27 PM	#2
AtlantaBravesFan29 Atlanta Braves Fan Senior Member Join Date: Aug 13, 2002 Location: Pleasanton,TX--40 Miles South Of San Antonio Posts: 1,859	I saw it on the news today. Man, the things that they do for money. She coughed once for A,twice for B,3 times for C,4 times for D. What a joke!!! At least they took the money away from them. And now there is talk about a movie about this according to the news sources. I guess that this means that the daytime version in the states of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is in jeopardy because of what happened in England.