Who Wants to be a Millionaire - Yeh right

My first question has to be which department will have major budget cuts if any one wins the major prize on TV ONE's new tuesday night marquee show.

Of course Who wants to be a millionaire is probably the most successful quiz show brand in history with many of the mega commercial networks around the globe paying out millions in prizes over the years.

But the kiwis have done it on the cheap by borrowing the Channel 9 Studio in Melbourne and only flying across those selected to actually face the 15 questions asked by host Mike Hosking and therefore ditching the fastest finger first round, an integral part of the shows excitement around the globe.

I have been fortunate or unfortunate enough to have experienced WWTBAM in Britain and in Australia and the first questions are to get the contestants settled and with a safe grand in their pockets.

In NZ they are not!!, the poor girl who represented the first ever contestant in NZ had used all her lifelines by $500 and didn't make it to the safe grand !! not a very good start for the Kiwi version. For the cynical like yours truly, it looked like the bosses at TV One had an after thought "shit what do we do if any one gets a roll on and wins some money" ............." We better not take that chance"

As for the host, ONE brought across a cardboard cut-out of Mike Hosking and got an expat Kiwi from the centrelink office in Collins street to ask the questions or that's what it looked like such was the charisma of the Close Up presenter.