The thinking at ABC must be, if we haven't killed "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" yet, this show cannot and will not die.
    The network may have cut back from four episodes per week to two next season, but do not take that as evidence that the network has given up testing the game show's resilience in the face of overexposure.
    ABC announced during its upfront presentation that its celebrity, special edition of the game show, which typically ran during sweeps, would become a little less special in the fall, running on a weekly basis.
    Just last week, ABC moved the special edition of "Millionaire" to Monday nights in order to go head-to-head with its game show rival "Weakest Link" on NBC.
    Also last week, Buena Vista Television confirmed that it would be producing a half-hour syndicated version of the game show, meaning that there could be "Millionaire"-o-plenty for years to come.
    These developments suggest that "Millionaire" is still operating on the principle of running a good idea into the ground and getting away with it.
    A year ago, Media Life readers who answered a poll thought "Millionaire" had just six more months before it would plummet. They and all the pundits have been flummoxed, however. 
    The show still has at least one episode in the top-10 programs for the week, ahead of such darlings as NBC’s "The West Wing" and "Frasier."
    Last season’s four weekly episodes helped cut the average audience from 27.9 million viewers in 1999-2000 to 18.2 million viewers in 2000-2001. The median age went from 48.6 to 55.1.
    And while 18 million viewers is an enviable number for most programs, media folks see such rapid aging and audience loss as signs of serious trouble.
    "I think the network has a lot of confidence in the show. Unfortunately the rest of the industry does not agree," says Kara Lazarus, senior vice president and director of national broadcast buying at Bates USA.
    "It’s still a strong program. It has a loyal following, but the question is whether it can maintain its audience this next season. I don’t know if it will attract new viewers."
    Yet the risk of further audience erosion isn’t stopping ABC from making stunt programming regular programming, thereby diminishing the stunt effect by default. It's not stopping Buena Vista from trying its hand at a half-hour game show five nights per week.
    And just like last year, when ABC announced that "Millionaire" would be on four nights per week, media folks think that "Millionaire" is risking its still strong franchise on the promise of a fast buck.
    "It’s about the same concern we have about a lot of shows that are syndicated. There’s a strong feeling that it’s going to cannibalize itself," says Lazarus.
    "Money is the only logic. I don’t think it has anything to do with audience demand. They think they can make more money off of it."
    Ironically, both of last week’s "Millionaire" developments were also seen as smart decisions, once the potential threat to the original franchise was factored out.
    Media analysts say that the younger-skewing special edition is potentially more potent on Monday than in its original Thursday location, a night notorious for its cutthroat competition for younger audiences.
    "They want to have a strong show leading into football. Celebrity editions are around 15 percent higher in the ratings and the audience skews younger, so it makes sense on Monday nights to bring a younger audience into football," says Shari Anne Brill, director of programming services at Carat. 
    "On Thursdays, it’s better counter-programming to put on the older-skewing version."
     And in many ways, syndication is a logical format for "Millionaire."
     "I could see it living on in syndication," says Brill. "All the other game shows have been syndicated. It’s a nice, safe show that can be on nationally. There are a lot of syndicated shows that are not advertiser-friendly, and this would be."

June 18, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Elizabeth White is a staff writer for Media Life.

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