Kind of reminds me of Debt. It was a huge hit, but due to a lawsuit for using game play similar to Jeopardy!, the producers had no choice other than to revamp the gameplay, and ratings fell drastically as a result of the revamp.
That's not what I remember at all. You're right about everything up to the word "gameplay," but I declare a writ of Proof or Not Real on the ratings deal being solely because the contestants chose a single category and played all five questions from it in order from 50 to 250 rather than being able to pick anything on the board. What I recall is that lots of the production team moved over to Win Ben Stein's Money to get it off the ground, and Debt suffered for it.
Millionaire must be suffering the same fate, only ratings have been falling at a slower pace.
Millionaire also never had as high to fall from, so the fractional losses will be bigger parts of a small pie.
Is there a link to an article about the Millionaire lawsuit? I'd like to read about it.
Probably, but it won't be on Wikipedia.