(Photo: Disney/Christopher Willard)
ABC is going to be giving a lot more money away for charity. The network has renewed Who Wants to Be a Millionaire for a fifth season. The show’s fourth season of eight episodes finished airing last September.
A revival of the long-running primetime and syndicated quiz show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. As in the original versions, contestants try to answer multiple-choice trivia questions for ascending amounts of money, with the hopes of winning the million-dollar prize. Players can take advantage of lifelines to help them answer questions and get further in the game. In this version, the lifelines are “Ask the Host” (replacing “Ask the Audience”), “50/50”, and “Phone a Friend”. Contestants can also invite an expert guest (anyone of their choosing) to help them answer questions. In the fourth season, pairs of celebrities played to benefit their favorite charities. Teams included Adam Devine & Anders Holm, Helen Hunt & Dan Bucatinsky, Joel McHale & Jim Rash, Tramell Tillman & Zach Cherry, Matt Damon & Ken Jennings, and Jordan Klepper & Ronny Chieng.
Airing on Wednesday nights, the fourth season of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire averaged a 0.33 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 3.66 million viewers (includes DVR playback through 3:00 AM). Compared to season three, that’s down by 4% in the demo and up by 10% in viewership.
The fifth season debuts on Wednesday, July 22nd. It’s unknown how many episodes have been produced this time around.
What do you think? Have you enjoyed watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on ABC? Are you glad this game show revival has been renewed for a fifth season?
