The Aussies have caught the ABC bug

[TravisP]

From Monday 14th June, Australia's Channel Nine is moving The Price Is Right to 5pm while their current 5.30pm slot will be used by an all extra edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? which Eddie McGuire will also front five times a week along with the regular weekly Monday edition at 8.30pm. The afternoon edition will also feature a viewer competition where they could win $10,000.

http://www.crikey.com.au/media/2004/06/08-0009.html

Surely its going a bit too far now as I've always credited them for having the sole weekly edition to keep ot fresh but I'm afraid this could damage. Perhaps they are getting desperate and really wanting to have a $1 Million winner plus to win the ratings in that slot.

[Craig Karlberg]

Thanks for making my aunt Louise down in Austraillia very happy Travis.  I'm sure she won't mind that at all.  However, methinks it'll suffer the same fate as our ABC show from 2000.  The only thing that can get worse there is that they start doing (gasp!) Celeberty editions too!

[ChrisLambert!]

The Aussies have done Celebrity Millionaires fromt he very beginning - just not with any type of regularity.

Interestingly, the ones they did in '99 were live.

Since both shows are on Nine, no doubt viewers will be confused as to why the Monday 5:30 contestant doesn't carry over to the 8:30 show. Or from the 8:30 to the Tuesday 5:30.  It's an odd move.

BTW, the story notes that TPiR was an hour-long last week; were those expanded editions (with adjusted rules), or just back-to-back airings?

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'ChrisLambert!\' date=\'Jun 9 2004, 06:50 AM\']The Aussies have done Celebrity Millionaires fromt he very beginning - just not with any type of regularity. [/quote]
And I seem to recall that they've always done it half the money to charity, half to a home viewer--also, they don't do the guaranteed $32,000 and the associated peanut gallery help on the first ten questions.

In fact, the most famous llama-in-the-broad-sense on "WWTBAM" seems to be Richard Hatch going down in the first five questions on an Aussie celeb show.

I'm more inclined to think of the 5:30 strip airing in Australia as their syndicated Meredith, while the regular Monday night airing is their network Regis "Super Millionaire"--even if they haven't entered the next DI-mension yet.

[starcade]

Rich Hatch going down on the first five??

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy...  

[sshuffield70]

[quote name=\'starcade\' date=\'Jun 9 2004, 06:34 PM\'] Rich Hatch going down on the first five?? [/quote]
 God, what a SCARY thought............

[TravisP]

Some news Down Under is that the first week has been recorded in one day with five recordings with a ten-minute gap between each one. Also Fastest Finger will remain while each winning player will go straight into the hot-seat rather then meeting Eddie at the main walk down, plus its at a faster pace and there is no-one accompying each contestant in the audience which cuts down alot of time due to the chit chat between Eddie and the audience member.

Also from the online TV listings is stating that its calling itself "Millionaire Super Season"

Oh and if those who don't know which question Rich Hatch bombed out before the $1K level it was this:
"What is 11 X 12?"