Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is up there with some of the most famous and beloved game shows of all time. The problem for Irish people, though, is that the only option currently available is the UK version. There was an offering over on these shores a while ago, but it didn’t last long.
With game shows seemingly entering a new golden age, it could be high time to bring back the Irish version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
One of the Biggest Game Shows Ever
Not only is Who Wants to Be a Millionaire enduringly popular, but its legacy lives on across other areas of the mainstream. The brand is so famous that it has directly influenced countless other games across a diverse range of industries.
For example, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is one of the top slingo games available, aimed at players in the up-and-coming online bingo market. It stands out among other popular titles like Slingo Money Train and Slingo Cleopatra thanks to its use of the British game show’s iconic branding. There are also other related quiz apps on mobile that allow players to feel like they’ve stepped into an episode and are sitting in the hot seat.
There are more than 50 regional versions of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire available globally, with the original Irish version being one of the first offshoots. The Irish Millionaire aired for two seasons on RTÉ One between 2000 and 2002, aiming to capitalise on the popularity of the Chris Tarrant-presented offering over in the UK. Gay Byrne presented, and it followed the exact same format as the British version. It seems strange, then, that it only aired for a short time.
The British Who Wants to Be a Millionaire recently got rebooted with Jeremy Clarkson at the helm, and it has been met with widespread positivity. There’s clearly still a huge audience out there for this type of quiz content in this day and age, and small tweaks to the format can have a profound effect.
The game show medium has survived countless changing tides in the entertainment industry, and it’s arguably thriving greater than ever in the modern age. Indeed, with new ways to interact with this format across different platforms, it could be argued that we’re witnessing a new golden era for game shows, and Irish screens deserve to be a part of it. And that is why it would be so great to have Who Wants to Be a Millionaire return to this many-splendoured island.
If this is indeed a new crisis point in the history of game shows, it would make sense for Ireland to try to capitalise on this. Bringing back an already beloved offering like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire could be a safer bet than trying to cook up a completely original show. After all, a show as unpredictable as Millionaire is never short of surprises, even several hundred episodes strong.
