Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (Kanto)

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (also known as Millionaire) is a game show which offers a maximum prize of P 1,000,000 for correctly answering 15 successive multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty. The show is based on and follows the same general format of the British original version, and is now part of the international Who Wants to Be a Millionaire franchise.

Preliminary Fastest Finger round
On primetime episodes, 10 contestants had to compete for the right to play the main game. To earn the right to play, the contestants would have to successfully complete a timed task faster than any other player. Every Fastest Finger question had one goal: place four items in the correct order using four lettered keys (A, B, C, D) and pressing the OK key to confirm the answer given or pressing the Delete key to start over. Contestants had 20 seconds to complete the task at hand. The player with the correct order and in the fastest time of all the contestants would earn the right to play the main game. The remaining contestants, if time permitted, would play another Fastest Finger after the hot seat was empty. If no one got the task right, they would have to repeat the round with another task. In case of a tie, a tie breaker round would be run for those contestants.

An example of a Fastest Finger task would be the following below:

The Fastest Finger round has been eliminated from the syndicated series. Contestants immediately take the hot seat.

The world record for the shortest amount of time that a contestant has taken to come up with the right order is 0.87 seconds, which was set on January 12, 2000 (episode 35) by a contestant named Shannon McGehee who correctly sorted the order of four of Elizabeth Taylor's husbands. The record in Kanto is 1.94 seconds on 15 January 2000 (episode 3) by Yumi Watanabe, who correctly sorted the order of four prime ministers of Australia.

Main game
Once a contestant gets into the hot seat, the goal is to answer 15 multiple-choice questions correctly from progressively harder sets of questions. Each question is worth a specified amount of money, and the contestant has the option of "walking away" and not giving an answer after being presented with the question. In this case, their game ends and the contestant is awarded the amount of money they have earned for their previous correct answer. The amounts are not cumulative.

Questions 5 and 10 act as "milestones". Upon answering these questions correctly, the contestant is guaranteed at least that amount of prize money. If the contestant gives a wrong answer to any subsequent question, their game is over and their winnings will drop down to the last milestone achieved. (As such, questions 6 and 11 are considered "free guesses" because there are no winnings to be lost in the event the contestant answers them incorrectly.) If the contestant answers a question incorrectly before reaching the first milestone, he/she leaves with nothing ( P 0).

Starting with Season 10 of the current version, the graphics were updated, including a new "Millionaire Menu" that shows categories for the contestant’s entire ladder of 15 questions, which are revealed at the beginning of the game and are always visible to the player.

Also starting in Season 10, contestants have time limits for each question: 15 seconds each for questions 1–5, 30 seconds each for questions 6–10, and 45 seconds each for questions 11–14. Contestants who reach the 15th and final question receive 45 seconds for that question plus all unused "banked time" from the previous 14 questions. Usage of lifelines temporarily pauses the clock while the lifelines are played. Contestants who exceed the time limit on a given question without giving a "final answer" are forced to walk away with whatever winnings they have at that point, with one exception: if a contestant who uses the "Double Dip" lifeline runs out of time before making his second guess, it is considered an incorrect answer and the contestant will lose all winnings down to the last milestone achieved.

Lifelines
Contestants are given a series of lifelines to aid them with questions they are finding difficult. They can use as many lifelines as desired per question, but each lifeline can only be used once throughout the entire course of gameplay. Three lifelines are traditionally available from the start of the game. Depending on the format of the show, additional lifelines may become available after correctly answering the 5th or 10th question.

In the timed format of the show, the game clock is frozen when a lifeline is used; once the lifeline is completed, the clock continues from where it was stopped.

Current lifelines

 * Ask The Audience: The contestant asks audience members to use touch pads to designate what they believe the correct answer to be. Poll results are displayed to the contestant in percentage format.


 * Double Dip: This lifeline allows the player to make two guesses at the question; however, once used, the contestant is committed to playing out the question and cannot walk away or use any further lifelines. This lifeline is available throughout the game. The clock is frozen until contestants give their first answer, but this answer must be given right away. If that answer is wrong, the clock resumes for their second answer. A second incorrect answer (or failure to give a second answer before time expires) will result in a loss and the contestant's winnings dropping back down to the last milestone achieved.


 * Phone-A-Friend : Contestant could call one of up to three pre-arranged friends, who all had to provide their phone numbers in advance. The contestant had 30 seconds to read the question and answer choices to the friend, who then had the remaining time to offer their input to the contestant.

Defunct lifelines

 * 50:50 (2000-2009): This lifeline removed two randomly selected answers. It was replaced in 2009 with the Double Dip.

Top prize winners
Yumi Watanabe (15 January 2001)

Special editions
The show has had various special editions such as:
 * Champions Edition (where big winners come back and split their winnings with their favorite charities)
 * Zero Dollar Winner Edition (where those who took home nothing received a second chance)
 * Family Edition (where two, or three family members compete together)
 * Radio Edition (where ten Saffron-area radio personalities played for their stations)