Sunday 15 March 2009

Who wants to be millionaire?

I was watching the classics version of 'Who wants to be millionaire' the other day and the more I watch I realise the brilliant idea behind the concepetualisation of this serial. The idea of a person sitting on a hot seat with a chance to change his/her full life for ever is like a fairy tale story. It seems this concept originated in UK in a radio show and has achieved so much popularity that it is franchised in over 100 countries now. What makes this show work I think is 2 important things - one is the quality of the questions which makes it challenging for both contestant & audience and two the collective feeling of well being such serial evokes. The audience attending the show and also television audience sitting in their living room want the person in hot seat to win and it gives them a feeling that they are winning each stage of it when they see the contestant going from one stage to other. A simple example is the 'Ask the audience' lifeline, none of the time it has it misguided the contestant and further more such lifeline increases the feeling in the audience to pray for the contestant to win. It is like a mini reality show and connects with the audience at all levels. And now even a film has been made with just this as a central theme!! One reason for the popularity of this film is definitely the popularity of the serial itself. One great thing behind such ideas is that it will not go off the popularity charts ever and I am sure such shows will keep coming back to the television screens in one form or the other.

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