Steve Beverly interviews Michael Davies

[Timsterino]

http://www.tvgameshows.net

He says:

- Davies said the method of contestant selection will be settled by the end of this week and TVgameshows.net will be provided the information. "I assure you, your readers are going to be delighted, or a majority of them will be delighted with the system we put into place," said Davies. "More details will be forthcoming. There are a lot of technical, legal and practical things which have to be worked out. We expect to have everything in place by the end of this week. We expect the qualification process to start around the 16th of February."

- Davies also said a final decision will be made shortly as to whether previous players who did not reach the hotseat will be allowed to compete.

- the higher-stakes network version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire "is going to be absolutely recognizable to Millionaire people and Millionaire fans as the Millionaire they know and love."

- The Emmy-winner also confirmed the show will return to taping on the day immediately before the air date, as was the practice during the original miniseries editions in August and November 1999. "We're going to be taping approximately 27 hours before air, at 6 p.m., or 7 p.m. in New York the night before air," said Davies.

- On an additional note, Davies said the exact level of the plateaus, other than the $10 million top prize, has not been finalized. Contrary to The New York Times' Sunday story, a miss at the upper plateau will not send a contestant reeling back to $10,000. "No, it will be as it always has been," said Davies. "You'll go back to where you were at the tenth question. What we haven't decided is whether the lock-in value will be $320,000. We are trying to decide if that's too much of a guarantee because we want genuine risk involved when you get to those big questions."

[Craig Karlberg]

If I'm reading this right, Davies wants to keep the format just as is with a few "ninor tweaks".  The only question is what will the 2nd saftey net value be.  In order for it to be $320,000, they must increase their budget by 10x.  I'm not sure if $320,000 is a good 2nd safety net.  Maybe $160,000 or $80,000.  It'll be intresting to see what comes out of the full interview.

[Matt Ottinger]

I particularly like how Steve says:

Contrary to The New York Times' Sunday story, a miss at the upper plateau will not send a contestant reeling back to $10,000.

Since, you know, the New York Times article never actually said that.  It was only Steve's interpretation of a vaguely worded reference that put the $10,000 figure out there, and a bunch of people (maybe even some other news organizations) lapped that up as fact.

[J.R.]

Here's my idea for a Prize Table:

  1: $1,000
  2: $2,000
  3: $3,000
  4: $4,000
  5: $5,000
  6: $7,000
  7: $10,000
  8: $15,000
  9: $25,000
10: $50,000
11: $100,000
12: $250,000
13: $500,000
14: $1,000,000
15: $10,000,000

This way, the end would make VERY interesting desicions. Do you risk $950,000 to earn $9,000,000 ? Also, it's less steep. Personally, I think the prize table we've been introduced to make ABC go bankrupt.

-Joe R.

[catnap1972]

[quote name=\'JRaygor\' date=\'Jan 28 2004, 09:37 AM\'] Personally, I think the prize table we've been introduced to make ABC go bankrupt.

-Joe R. [/quote]
 Another idea...go with your prize levels (set the two plateaus wherever), but if someone risks the million to go for the ten million and misses, they go all the way back to the first plateau.  I don't think anyone in their right mind would go for it, but there might be one or two gamblers out there.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Timsterino\' date=\'Jan 28 2004, 01:21 AM\'] "I assure you, your readers are going to be delighted, or a majority of them will be delighted with the system we put into place," said Davies. [/quote]
 That reeks of phone game, or some other sort of massively-accessible qualification process. I can't see someone like Davies gushing over how much The Perfesser's readers are gonna love it if it were anything save from a tour of local churches.

[starcade]

I think that safely means, barring legal issues, we'll probably see the phone game.

Reading the NYT article, though, I have to wonder if the difficulty will be so impossible (first five questions tier II high-level, rest Tier III and beyond) that to get anyone to about question 10 might be as impossible (if not MORE SO) than the Meredith version, even with SIX (??) Lifelines...

(Of course, the possibility could be that they could Flip any question after #5...)

[starcade]

Re: Bankruptcy concerns...

Of course, there's another possibility:  And it's the bane of Millionaire's existence (talking syndie season 2 here):  Annuities for the top three amounts.  You get say $1 million off the top and the rest later.

[Clay Zambo]

Starcade: Annuities would be a problem...why?  It's still a huge chunk of money.

CLemon79: I don't know, a tour of local churches wouldn't do it...it'd take too long, or they'd need a much bigger staff to cover many venues at once.  Although, come to think of it, it might bump up church attendance...

[DrJWJustice]

Just as a note, here's the table from the French version before the old franc was dropped in favor of the euro.  Perhaps go with this scale, but bump the 4 Million question to 10 Million.

1000F
2000F
3000F
5000F
10.000F
20.000F
40.000F
80.000F
150.000F
300.000F
500.000F
700.000F
1.000.000F
2.000.000F
4.000.000F

[Timsterino]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 28 2004, 01:17 PM\'] [quote name=\'Timsterino\' date=\'Jan 28 2004, 01:21 AM\'] "I assure you, your readers are going to be delighted, or a majority of them will be delighted with the system we put into place," said Davies. [/quote]
That reeks of phone game, or some other sort of massively-accessible qualification process. [/quote]
 It does indeed. I sense that something immediate like the phone game will return.

The ABC official website

http://abc.go.com/primetime/millionaire/mi...naire_home.html

now says:

"BE A CONTESTANT
Information on how to qualify to be a Super Millionaire contestant will be available here shortly. Check back soon!"

Not that it matters for me. I seriously doubt they will allow ex-hotseaters and I had my chance at the hotseat already anyway. Good luck to all who are trying though!

Tim :-)

[Craig Karlberg]

Intresting money tree there, but I still say 300,000 is a bit too much for question 10.  Joe R.'s tree sounds much more appealing & hopefully saves whatever budget ABC has to begin with.

[ChuckNet]

It does indeed. I sense that something immediate like the phone game will return.

The ABC official website

http://abc.go.com/primetime/millionaire/mi...naire_home.html

now says:

"BE A CONTESTANT
Information on how to qualify to be a Super Millionaire contestant will be available here shortly. Check back soon!"

<Homer Simpson>Woo-hoo!</HS> Nice to see Davies, et al. are listening to their fans.

Chuck Donegan (The Pleased "Chuckie Baby")

[Timsterino]

The interview is now up here:

http://www.tvgameshows.net/daviessm.htm

Tim :-)

[starcade]

Annuities have been seen (esp. in the Meredith version) to water down the true draw of the life-changing money of Millionaire.

Interview spoiler:  It's fairly certain now that the top prizes will be annuities, although the front-load will still be a significant chunk of cash.