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Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Sunday 8pm on ITV (February 2018)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
RD
RDJ
They just seem to be spending more time talking about the Million Pound win rather than showing it. And getting random celebrities to speak about it too and showing random other clips of people who didn’t win the Million... for reasons unknown.

The music is drowning most of the action out too. And is clashing with the proper incidental music.
Would just prefer they show it without all the random music and weird cutaways.

Also weirdly for Judith’s first show they’re showing 4:3 clips (with quite a good reflection effect). But for Judith’s second show they’re showing full 16:9 clips.
GO
gottago
Could simply a case that they've only got so much budget for archive and it's cheaper to pay for the key ones and fair-use (or whatever) the rest. Just because Stellify are owned by Sony doesn't necessarily mean they get cheaper access to their archive, and they certainly don't get free access. My company has a big archive and they don't give us any mates rates, we pay going rates. Every archive show has a specific set budget for archive clips and if money's tight they'll need to cut costs somewhere.
JA
james-2001
I find it hard to believe the tapes are missing, this isn't the 70s.
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BR
Brekkie
Amazing how so often TV companies get simple clip shows so wrong.
GM
Gary McEwan
Stellify do seem to like doing things in half measures. Reusing butchered Challenge clips, using YouTube clips of WWTBAM Australia and to add to that, the new album they've released on has half the music cues from the show.

Yeah they've only been around for 6 years, but at least try and put some effort into it.
SS
SuperSajuuk
I find it hard to believe the tapes are missing, this isn't the 70s.

I mean, for the longest time Series 1-4 was deemed missing. In fact, some episodes in that batch do not exist any more (examples including the Series 1 Christmas Special, and the episodes involving Perry Poole, as are probably all the unknown "specials" involving the Charles Ingram affair). They did get found after nearly 1.5 decades, but they've never been rebroadcast outside their "exclusive" airing on Challenge (the missing episodes were never found/provided to Challenge)

Sony's own channel does not even have re-edited originals (which I half expected them to air), they just repeat the butchered edits showing for years on Challenge, implying they aren't available any more. Of course they could turn up in a bargain bin if someone tried to find them Razz

Having said that, they do seem to have originals tapes of some things, like the whole Charles Ingram thing (its debatable if that is original or "edited" though) they put on YouTube last year.

I haven't watched the Million Pound Question yet (watching other channels) but I'll likely catch up on it via OD and then give my opinion about it.
Last edited by SuperSajuuk on 22 November 2020 9:04pm
JA
james-2001
Did anyone say they were actually physically "missing", or more that it took Challenge a while to sort out the rights? As that can happen sometimes.

Seeing as the first 4 series were rebroadcast on ITV over the summer of 2003 (albeit as compilations with new talking heads from some of the contestants), so they certainly weren't "missing" then.

And maybe it's just easier for the Sony channel to broadcast those re-edits, seeing as they'd need to be edited again anyway to remove the competitions and contestant appeals and those Challenge edits had already been done, as opposed to them actually being missing. Not actually repeating the original versions doesn't in any way mean they don't exist.
SS
SuperSajuuk
Did anyone say they were actually physically "missing", or more that it took Challenge a while to sort out the rights? As that can happen sometimes.

When they announced that they "found" S1-S4, they made the point that they were "long assumed to be missing" and not that the rights were an issue: see these tweets from them back when they actually used the site:



During the re-broadcast of these, they made reference to issues with the tapes that they were given, such as terrible sound issues in one: https://twitter.com/ChallengeTV/status/566282711405715457

From this, you could deduce that the tapes they got (which were clearly broadcast versions, although they could've been originals: the assumption is they were broadcast versions due to all the OSG's they had to cover up/edit out) were already damaged in some way and that it was lucky ig that so many were actually usable. Clearly some were either not even provided (as by the fact that a 1998 Xmas Special aired which has never been rebroadcast and for which almost no information is known about it) or unusable for broadcast.

In a few cases (iirc it was either S3 or S4), the aspect ratio of some episodes were wonky, with a few broadcast in the heavy letterbox formatting of movies.

They probably went missing at any time after the original repeats or after the rights were sold to Sony. Challenge certainly seemed to say that they "were lost" for a long time and the assumption went around that they would never be found.
Last edited by SuperSajuuk on 22 November 2020 10:10pm
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
Did anyone say they were actually physically "missing", or more that it took Challenge a while to sort out the rights? As that can happen sometimes.

When they announced that they "found" S1-S4, they made the point that they were "long assumed to be missing" and not that the rights were an issue: see these tweets from them back when they actually used the site:



During the re-broadcast of these, they made reference to issues with the tapes that they were given, such as terrible sound issues in one: https://twitter.com/ChallengeTV/status/566282711405715457

From this, you could deduce that the tapes they got (which were clearly broadcast versions, although they could've been originals: the assumption is they were broadcast versions due to all the OSG's they had to cover up/edit out) were already damaged in some way (it was lucky ig that so many were actually usable), and clearly some were either not even provided or unusable for broadcast (in those rebroadcasts, the aspect ratios were sometimes movie-like, rather than broadcast-like).


What do you mean "movie like"? Do you mean black bars top and bottom?

More likely they were 14:9, there wouldn't have been any real incentive to do any other ratio. At that time it would have 4:3 or 16:9 protected for 14:9. Note that YouTube uploads are almost always not a real indication of what went out, since people can and do do stretchyvision on non-widescreen material but anyway...

Sound issues on Challenge material isn't anything new, sometimes they get mashed up when pulled. Fun House had this issue as well where the sound was unique and it looks like for some reason a portion of the audio was to be changed (presumably it was on another audio track) and so the entire thing got mashed together on the end result.

I would be surprised if the episodes were "missing" as in fell through the wiping machine. Big differences between them being physically missing, not accounted for and "not available", which covers a multitude of sins.
JA
james-2001
I would be surprised if the episodes were "missing" as in fell through the wiping machine. Big differences between them being physically missing, not accounted for and "not available", which covers a multitude of sins.


I think the chances of a major TV show from the late 90s/early 00s actually going physically missing is practically zero, as you said there was likely some other issues preventing them from being shown. Just because that's the way Challenge worded it doesn't mean that was actually the case.

I know there was quite a lengthy period when UK Gold were unable to show the final series of 2point4 Children, and they said it's because they "couldn't get the rights to it", and I can imagine that was a similar situation to Challenge and the early Millionaire series. Of course it is on rotation on there again now (and they did keep showing the 14:9 copies of that series well into the 2010s, long after they'd replaced the 14:9 copies of every other show, which I guess could have been down to the issues that had stopped them from showing it before, stopping them from acquiring new 16:9 masters).

I guess there is the TVS situation, but that seems be be unique, and even then I think most of the tapes still exist, it's the paperwork that went missing.
Last edited by james-2001 on 22 November 2020 10:52pm - 4 times in total
SS
SuperSajuuk
What do you mean "movie like"? Do you mean black bars top and bottom?

More likely they were 14:9, there wouldn't have been any real incentive to do any other ratio. At that time it would have 4:3 or 16:9 protected for 14:9. Note that YouTube uploads are almost always not a real indication of what went out, since people can and do do stretchyvision on non-widescreen material but anyway...


Sound issues on Challenge material isn't anything new, sometimes they get mashed up when pulled. Fun House had this issue as well where the sound was unique and it looks like for some reason a portion of the audio was to be changed (presumably it was on another audio track) and so the entire thing got mashed together on the end result.

I would be surprised if the episodes were "missing" as in fell through the wiping machine. Big differences between them being physically missing, not accounted for and "not available", which covers a multitude of sins.

By movie-like, I mean that they were letterboxed in the filming style often used in movies, ie: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterboxing_(filming) (although the practice is used outwith movies, its where i commonly see it).

(This was observed when I watched them on TV directly and not from YouTube videos btw).

As for sound issues, while that may be true, the mere fact Challenge drew attention to an episode having sound issues implies it was that way initially when they received the tape. I can't really comment on other sound issues since I rarely saw such things myself in the past Very Happy

As for missing episodes (and note this is just my speculative opinion, not a statement of fact), I can only go on what was rebroadcast by Challenge, which didn't include a few episodes. At the time (I can't find the comment in where they said this, it may have been on their Facebook group), they stated some episodes were simply not included in what they were given for S1-S4 and since they'd already indicated this batch was already assumed "lost forever", the assumption is the unincluded episodes are still lost / unable to be found.

We only know that certain contestants played on a 1998 Christmas special because they are mentioned by Chris in a book of "magic moments and more" where he talked about their gameplay, but thats all that is known: no footage of it apparently exists.

You could be correct though: they might not be "physically missing", but since no one seems to be able to find them (and given the effort Challenge went through just to get what they did of S1-S4), its highly likely they're no longer in existence. You never know though.... maybe they'll turn up somewhere. Very Happy

My thoughts are that I don't believe they're not being broadcast because of a rights issue: if that were the case, they wouldn't have been likely to get broadcast rights for any of it. Having said that, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a rights issue, but I've never really heard of random episodes being blocked from broadcast because of a rights issue personally: if a whole series can be broadcast, why would one off episodes not be?
JA
james-2001
Or maybe Challenge just didn't get or show it because it was a special Christmas episode and was for some reason handled differently to the other episodes, that has happened with other shows of their down the years, where they've skipped over Christmas and other special editions, even though they do exist.
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