Millionaire Hot Seat
Encyclopedia
Question Value
1 "$100" ($0)
2 "$200" ($0)
3 "$300" ($0)
4 "$500" ($0)
5 $1,000
6 "$1,500" ($1,000)
7 "$2,500" ($1,000)
8 "$4,000" ($1,000)
9 "$6,000" ($1,000)
10 $10,000
11 $20,000
12 $50,000
13 $100,000
14 $250,000
15 $1,000,000


Hot Seat (also known as Millionaire Hot Seat) is a spin-off of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Australian game show)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was an Australian television game show which would offer a maximum cash prize of $1,000,000 for answering 15 successive multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty as a team...

that began airing on Australia's Nine Network
Nine Network
The Nine Network , is an Australian television network with headquarters based in Willoughby, a suburb located on the North Shore of Sydney. For 50 years since television's inception in Australia, between 1956 and 2006, it was the most watched television network in Australia...

 on 20 April 2009, and is hosted by Eddie McGuire
Eddie McGuire
Edward Joseph "Eddie" McGuire AM is an Australian television presenter and businessman known for his long association with Australian rules football and the Channel 9 television network....

, as with the original version of the show. Including a special prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...

 edition that aired on 8 June 2009.

History

Rumours about a new shortened version of Millionaire first began circulating in February 2009, and were confirmed when the Nine Network produced a pilot version of the format titled Millionaire: Russian Roulette in March 2009. The official title was announced as Millionaire Hot Seat, but this was later shortened to simply Hot Seat. The new format was originally promoted as a short-run series, with advertisements featuring McGuire exclaiming “20 nights! $20 million dollars!”. It was announced on 7 April 2009 that Hot Seat would begin airing on 20 April 2009, in the – weeknight timeslot, and would compete against the high-rating game show, Deal or No Deal
Deal or No Deal (Australian game show)
Deal or No Deal is an Australian game show airing on the Seven Network and in New Zealand on Prime . It was the first international version of the game show, after the original Dutch version. It was the first of the versions to use the Deal or No Deal name...

, on the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...

. As expected, the show's format was shortened to 30 minutes, and given an overhaul of the rules and gameplay, in a system based on the Italian version of the show.

The Nine Network commissioned a second series of the show, to begin airing the week after the original 20-episode order had finished airing on 15 May 2009. The second series began airing on 18 May 2009, and it is unclear how many episodes it will contain.

A special prime time edition of Hot Seat aired at on Monday, 8 June 2009, featuring a contestant, Barry Soraghan, playing for the format's first million-dollar question. Ultimately, Soraghan answered the question incorrectly, and won only $1,000. At the completion of the taped episode, Soraghan was visited live on air at his Blackburn
Blackburn, Victoria
Blackburn is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 17 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Whitehorse. At the 2006 Census, Blackburn had a population of 11,958....

 home by McGuire, who then awarded him a two-week holiday for him and his family, as well as $5,000 in spending money. The episode achieved a ratings figure of 1,224,000 viewers nationally, and was the eleventh-highest rating program for the night, which was a vast improvement from the 812,000 viewers that Hot Seat managed in its regular timeslot on the same night.


Hot Seat was originally filmed in the iconic Studio 9 at the GTV9 Richmond premises, however as of February 2011, it has been filmed at GTV9's new home at Docklands Studios Melbourne

Docklands Studios Melbourne
Docklands Studios Melbourne is a major movie and film complex located in Melbourne’s redeveloped docklands precinct. The studios opened their doors in 2004 under the former name . The site is located approximately 1.5 km from the city of Melbourne’s Central Business District...

. The show's 500th episode went to air on 3 August 2011; that day's contestant won $100,000.

On 15 August 2011 the four remaining couples from the 2011 season of The Block

The Block (Australian TV series)
The Block is an Australian reality television show broadcast on the Nine Network. The show sees four couples compete against each other to renovate a home and sell it at auction for the highest price....

appeared on the show, attempting to win $1,000,000 for charity. But the final couple in the hot seat faltered on the $2,500 question, marking the worst ever performance by any contestant in Hot Seat history (much in the same manner in which The Mole
The Mole (Australian TV series)
The Mole was an Australian reality television series that aired on the Seven Network. It is based on The Mole franchise of programs that have aired in numerous countries. The sub-title for the Australian version of the show was a simple question: Who is the traitor?...

contestants produced a record-low $14,100 on The Weakest Link: The Mole Special back in 2002). The last couple won only $1,000 for their charity.

On 3 October 2011, a Farmer Wants a Wife

The Farmer Wants a Wife (Australian TV series)
The Farmer Wants a Wife is an Australian reality television series. Hosted by Getaway presenter Natalie Gruzlewski, the first six-episode series commenced on the Nine Network on 24 October 2007. Another 3 series have since aired, with Series 4 coming to an end in November 2009...

special went to air, ahead of the final that was to air later that night. Farmer Frank, the last contestant in the Hot Seat, had a chance to win $100,000 for his charity but lost, winning only $1,000 for the Royal Flying Doctors Services.

Format

Designed to be a faster-paced game than the traditional format, Hot Seat essentially involves 6 contestants playing each episode, with each taking turns to climb the money tree. The traditional three lifelines are replaced by a single "pass", which can pass the current question to the next contestant in line (who cannot pass the question further). Each question is also given a time limit, with 15 seconds allocated for the first five questions, 30 for the middle five, and 45 for the last five. If a player fails to give out an answer in the time limit, it is considered an automatic pass. If that question can't be passed on, that player is eliminated and the highest value on the money tree is removed. (This format is considered to be similar to the gameplay of The Weakest Link
Weakest Link
The Weakest Link is a British television quiz show, currently broadcast on BBC Two. It was devised by Mr Wilton and Euan Green and Cathy Dunning, and developed for television by the BBC Entertainment Department. It has since been replicated around the world. The UK version is hosted by Anne...

, in the manner that "weak" contestants should pass if they are unsure of a question and that the "strong" contestant wins the money on offer.) The money tree is given a total renovation (see right), with all amounts between $1,000 and $1,000,000 (not inclusive) reduced, and the 10th question milestone is removed. If one of the contestants answers a question incorrectly, they are eliminated, leave with nothing, and the highest value remaining on the money tree is removed.

In the case that the first contestant answers the first five questions correctly they are awarded with an additional $1000.

The game ends either when all contestants are eliminated, or when the question for the highest value in the money tree is answered. If this last question is answered correctly, the answering player receives the amount of money. If it is answered incorrectly or not answered in time, the last player to be eliminated receives either nothing (which means that nobody receives any prize money for that show), or $1,000 if the 5th question milestone is reached. No final contestant has ever gone away empty-handed.

In one episode, a contestant gave an answer to the final question, however McGuire told the contestant that she hadn't answered it in time and checked with the producers if this was a 'pass', or to give her the $1,000 as it was the last question. While the decision was being made, the contestant insisted that she had two seconds left on the clock. In the end, the contestant walked home with the $1,000.

In another episode, one of the contestants waiting in line had to leave the show due to family reasons. At the time, the $1,000,000 top prize was still in play. That contestant came back a few weeks later, in which a $250,000 win was achieved by contestant Dave Bowyer. In addition, contestants that don't get the chance to answer questions are often invited back a few weeks later.

During the second half of 2011, audio and visual questions were introduced to the format. Either an audio or a visual question would be asked once per episode, usually towards the beginning of the game.
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