Who Wants To Be a Millionaire

Who Wants To Be a Millionaire

“Analyse the techniques used to create tension and viewer enjoyment in ‘who wants to be a millionaire?’”

One day, back in 1934, listeners to the wireless heard a strange new programme. It consisted simply of a man putting questions to the listeners – and encouraging them to write down the answers. This started off the history of the quizzes. From the 1970s/1980s, there were limits on prize money and it was economical for TV companies as greed wasn’t popular and was seen as socially undesirable. The first quiz show was on a pirate radio station called Radio Luxemburg and it was called the Symington’s soup programme because strangely enough, the winner won a voucher for powdered soup! It wasn’t the prize that made the quiz show popular; it was the fact that people could win something by answering questions.
As the years went on the quiz show evolved. In the 1990s, the birth of the quiz shows with large prizes appeared e.g. “The weakest Link” and “Who wants to be a millionaire?” But why do a lot of people criticise these shows? Because they encourage naked greed. For example, in the early part of 2003 a couple got prosecuted for cheating in “Who wants to be a millionaire?” and they were already rich!
Quiz shows are popular with people because the viewers like to play along but not actually be there in the spotlight. If the viewer at home gets the question wrong, they can guess again, you can’t on the show, you lose money. We also like to watch it to see the embarrassing things the contestants do or say. By watching someone else be humiliated we selfishly feel better about ourselves, happy it wasn’t us in the view of millions of viewers. We also like to see normal people on TV, people like us. It gives us hope that we might be able to win that money someday.
This essay I am writing will be focused on the hugely popular quiz “Who wants to be a millionaire?”
“Millionaire” as referred to by hit presenter Chris Tarrant is probably the most famous quiz show ever to...