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GAME
EXPERT: 'MILLIONAIRE' GRABS VIEWERS WITH EASY, INTERACTIVE
QUIZ
ATHENS,
Ohio -- Question: What does the highly-rated "Who Wants to
Be a Millionaire?" television program have in common with
the famed quiz shows of the 1950s?
Answer:
Though both boast record prime-time audiences and big
prizes, "Millionaire" which returns to ABC during sweeps
week this month owes more to today's easy, interactive quiz
shows than its early-television predecessors, according to
an Ohio University expert on game shows.
The Regis
Philbin-hosted "Millionaire," which drew 22 million viewers
for its final broadcast and was second only to "Dateline
NBC" in Nielsen ratings August 16-22, may have billed itself
as television nostalgia, but it wasn't really a throwback to
the genre's heyday, says Anne Cooper-Chen, a professor of
journalism and author of "Games in the Global Village,"
which examines quiz shows around the world.
Before
contest-rigging scandals forced their cancellation by
television networks, the game shows of the 1950s wowed
viewers with stuntmen and geniuses including Charles Van
Doren, the brainy star of "Twenty One," who appeared on a
1957 "Time" magazine cover. A true spectator sport, home
audiences watched as contestants performed mental feats or
in the case of shows such as "Truth Or Consequences"
physical gymnastics.
But those
formats wouldn't impress today's television viewers, who
thirst for interactive programs, Cooper-Chen says. Even the
qualifying process for "Millionaire," which required
prospective contestants to dial a 900 number, involved
audience participation. "Today's audiences don't want to be
passive," she says. "During those early days of television
there was so little to watch. Van Doren mesmerized viewers;
he was supposed to be the American ideal."
Modern
game shows such as "Millionaire" engage viewers with simple,
multiple-choice contests. Cooper-Chen argues that networks
have "dumbed down" the challenges to appeal to a mass
audience that doesn't want to be stumped by obscure trivia.
"This is a totally new era," she says. "They're interactive
like the Wheel of Fortune or Price is Right where you and
the audience get to guess and feel just as smart as the
contestants."
Quiz
programs which will soon include remakes of "Twenty One,"
the "$64,000 Question" and "Family Feud" as stations
scramble to jump on the game show bandwagon not only make
viewers feel clever, but also are quick and easy for
networks to produce, she says.
To hit pay
dirt with "Millionaire," ABC only had to hire Philbin and
offer cash winnings to contestants. That's a small
investment compared to the production cost of a sitcom such
as "Seinfeld," which was saddled with a team of writers,
fancy sets and high-paid stars.
American
networks may have launched the game show genre in the 1950s,
but they owe their current success to overseas quiz
programs. Never rocked by the scandals that killed their
American counterparts, foreign game shows have been alive
and well over the last few decades, often evening television
staples. In 1998, a local version of "Wheel of Fortune" was
Hungary's top-rated prime-time show. "In Japan they're
extremely popular in prime time and have celebrities,"
Cooper-Chen adds.
Several of
the new game shows including "Millionaire," which is based
on a smash British program, and the upcoming desert-island
romp "Survivor," a remake of a Swedish contest borrow ideas
from these foreign hits. That includes an emphasis on risk,
adventure and humiliation: How far will contestants go to
win big bucks?
Television
viewers can expect networks to put an American twist on
these imported shows, Cooper-Chen says. While game shows
abroad spotlight and often punish the contest's loser,
domestic games hail the champions. "In the U.S., we
generally like winners," she says.
But
Cooper-Chen doesn't expect that we'll be cheering the champs
or jeering the losers for long. Game show buzz comes and
goes. While "Wheel of Fortune" star Vanna White graced the
cover of "Newsweek" in 1987, just a few years later, talk
shows and their celebrity hosts such as Jerry Springer stole
the spotlight. "There's one, then lots, and then they become
too many and people get tired of them," she says.
That won't
stop networks from trying to cash in on the latest game show
craze before audiences burn out. "Millionaire" returns
nightly to ABC prime time from Nov. 7 to Nov. 21, and Fox
debuts "Greed" this month.
Cooper-Chen
holds an appointment in the College
of Communication.
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