UK Millionaire Returns in 2011/The Cube Goes German
As mentioned on this site back in January. It was reported the civllian show of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? has been dropped after low ratings with their previous series. While the live celebrity special at Christmas securing above average ratings. More evidence came from The Sun newspaper earlier this week reporting that ITV have comissioned six live specials to be shown throughout 2011, featuring war heroes and celebrities playing for charity.
Rather than having the specials airing over six weeks, the major commerical network will be broadcasting them throughout the year with each show to be based on a theme. Although the six themes have yet to be fully confirmed, TV insiders have confirmed the first one will be a Mothers Day special airing on either 2nd or 3rd April. Other themes including Harry Potter, The X Factor and the popular ITV drama, Downton Abbey to be scheduled later this year. It has also been reported one of the specials will be a Remembrance Day special airing in November, where war heroes will play for the Poppy Appeal.
Each special will run for 90 minutes, a 15 minute extenstion to the Christmas special. Also the home viewer game will remain, where someone watching the show could win half the money the celebrities win by answering an easy question. It is also expected the show will be once again filmed in HD after the High Definition debut in December.
In other news, it has been spotted that a German TV network has picked up the rights to produce ITV’s hit game show, The Cube. As with other versions around the world, the German version will be recording on the UK set at Fountain Studios. Tickets can be obtained via the LostinTV website, recording takes place in mid April. It is unknown which channel has picked up the rights. With Sat1 already airing Die Perfekte Minute (Minute to Win It), it would be likely a rival broadcaster such as RTL (which airs Millionaire) or ProSieben (which airs Schlag den Raab) has picked up the rights to the UK produced format.
Oh, so German gets the Cube, and the US still doesn’t, when MtWi has started to deteriorate. By deteriorate, I mean slow down the show by adding more chit-chat and having less gameplay. I’m sorry, but is it any wonder Minute to Win It is doomed?
Sorry for exaggerating, but apparently, they’re turning this once fun game into a boring-ass performance, and I could care less. I hope NBC is reading this.
RTL picked up the rights for The Cube. There will be just one episode for now, hosted by Nazan Eckes and aired on April 29. If it’s successful, there might be more episodes.