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Television: Content vs. Cash
By Moryt Milo
Toward the end of August, I was on vacation with my family in Lake Arrowhead. One evening, as we sat around the cabin, my brother-in-law was channel-surfing when he landed on a quiz show called Who Wants to be a Millionaire? I didn't have the faintest idea what it was about, and the questions seemed incredibly stupid. Actually, it was the multiple-choice answers that followed each question that seemed a bit moronic.
"It's kinda cool," my family said. "This person has to answer all the questions correctly, and they'll win a million bucks."
Yeah right, I thought. There's got to be a gimmick. The questions must get really hard. No way are they going to give away a million bucks.
Well guess what? They did. A 31-year-old IRS employee (isn't that a bit ironic?) won $1 million. It's the largest payout ever awarded in the history of American game shows, not counting lotteries. This crazy game show, which disappeared and then reappeared in late November, was part of ABC-TV's efforts to win the ratings sweeps.
I'm guessing you've probably heard about this TV game sensation. If not, you're in the minority. According to the Nielsen's, 123 million people watched some portion of this program in its first eight November telecasts. This equates to 47 percent of the U.S. population. And to juice up the interest, the network created a simultaneous interactive website, so you could play along during the program. This maneuver attracted more than 300,000 users each day.
Now in case you're still lost, here's how the game works. To the best of my knowledge, 10 contestants get selected to come on the show. I haven't figured out how these folks are chosen, but no matter. They sit in a semicircle on a very high-tech looking stage waiting to answer one question. This part is similar to a zillion other game shows.
The contestants are then given a question, which has four parts to the answer. The contestant has to put the answers, A through D, in the correct order, either by date, size or something else along those lines. The quickest correct answer wins. This seems like the hardest part of the entire game--getting ahead of the pack.
This winner moves to centerstage and sits in the "hot seat," across from Regis Philbin. Then 15 questions are asked. Each correct answer moves the contestant up the money chart. At certain levels, if you answer the questions correctly, you are guaranteed various amounts. I'm convinced reaching the $1,000 mark could be achieved even with a frontal lobotomy. From there the pot grows by thousands
with a big jump to $32,000, and so on. The contestant also has these three things called lifelines. These lifelines are help from the outside if she or he is unsure of the answer. On the surface, the game appears quite simple, which is probably why it has caught on like wildfire.
You gotta give ABC credit; it successfully found a way to draw in the viewer, involve the audience and even use phone calls to outside friends. The concept is really very clever.
But as I watched Millionaire during its most recent airing, the film Quiz Show came to mind. It was about the 1958 quiz show, Twenty-One, which captured 50 million viewers when television was in its infancy. The movie told the story of how two contestants--the charmer and the geek--squared off to answer questions and get paid serious money for being right. Except for one big problem; the game was rigged. The network was found out; there was a congressional hearing, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Now I'm not claiming this new show is anything but genuine, although some of those questions do leave you wondering. Even the online news service stated that the questions answered by John Carpenter, the IRS guy, seemed relatively easy. In particular, the million-dollar question, "Which U.S. president appeared on the TV series Laugh-In?" does make you wonder how intelligent these producers think we are? (Answer: Richard Nixon.)
But there's one thing I'm sure no one would dispute. In Quiz Show, the entertainment industry was portrayed as an ambitious business, whose only goals were capturing viewers and winning ratings. This is still true today. Just imagine if during the past 40 years the entertainment world had paid as much attention to content. Now that would have really been ambitious.
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Campbell, California
