The Quiz Craze: It’s Only Just Begun

Some key answers on the “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” phenomenon a week into the quiz show’s return:

* August wasn’t a fluke: While some remained skeptical after its late summer premiere versus repeats, the show is now an undeniable ratings sensation--easily winning its time slot nightly against original sweeps programming, including NBC’s vaunted “Frasier” on Thursday.

* Send in the clones: Every network will try boarding this gravy train, while ABC has yet to decide how best to ride the wave--debating whether the show is a “Hula-Hoop,” as some rivals hope, which may stale if aired on a regular basis.

* This is true “appointment” viewing: Despite its success, the franchise yields only a marginal “halo effect”--that is, viewers spilling over into adjacent ABC programs.

* White men can answer trivia: The vast majority of contestants continue to be white men, with one woman and no racial minorities thus far finding their way into the “hot seat” to compete for $1 million.

Clearly, “Millionaire” has been a wake-up call to the networks and perhaps even some sitcom and drama producers, who--having lost prime-time real estate to newsmagazines--could now see more hours devoted to game shows, which share news’ advantage of being a lower-cost programming alternative.

The show is delivering more than 20 million viewers each night--territory normally reserved for NBC’s top-rated Thursday lineup--and leading ABC toward what could be its first “sweeps” victory since 1994. Moreover, some of that audience is being wooed back from cable as opposed to the other networks.

In a display of its power, an hour of “Millionaire” averaged more than 23 million viewers against NBC’s “Must-See TV” comedies. The second half outdistanced “Frasier” by nearly 7 million viewers, becoming the first ABC series to beat an NBC Thursday night sitcom since 1983.

Notably, once those shows ended more than 4 million people switched to “Greed,” a hastily assembled Fox knockoff that gave away $1 million in Thursday’s episode. That project has greatly improved Fox’s Thursday ratings but still drew less than half “Millionaire’s” audience.

With other imitators piling onto the bandwagon (CBS, NBC and numerous syndicators are developing their own quiz concepts), there’s fear removing the show would allow rivals to cannibalize the franchise; still, ABC has yet to make a decision what to do with it beyond November.

Executive producer Michael Davies said he is “prepared to go forward in any way they want to”--either as a periodic weapon or a series airing once or more per week--but acknowledged his own preference would be to stick with the current formula, presenting the show as a two-week event each sweeps period.

“I know that this works, and it terrifies me to do anything different,” he said.

The 33-year-old Davies, who found the show in his native England and left his ABC executive job to produce the U.S. version, cites various factors behind its popularity--among them a “strong rooting interest” and a sense of drama that copycats will struggle to match.

“ ‘Millionaire’ is not about the money. It’s about the stories. . . . It’s a perfect three-act structure, except you don’t know what’s going to happen at the end, unlike most forms of entertainment,” he noted.

Like “ER,” perhaps the last new program to arrive with such ratings fury, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” is a show people tune in for specifically--in this case, finding it on different nights and times.

Millions of viewers, in fact, show up and quickly bail out again. Almost without exception, the show has delivered far more viewers than the programs on ABC preceding and following it.

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Still, ABC points to certain series that have clearly benefited from “Millionaire’s” after-glow, such as Wednesday’s live “The Drew Carey Show,” which captured its biggest audience since early last year; and “The Practice,” which hit a ratings high on Sunday.

“You can certainly make a case for ‘Millionaire’ helping the other programs,” said Larry Hyams, ABC’s vice president of audience analysis. “The key thing is really the broad-based nature of its success. We’ve basically been getting everyone--younger, middle, older, kids.”

More women are also watching than men, even though the stated intent of broadening the contestant base hasn’t materialized. Six shows into the new batch of episodes, 50 of the 60 contestants have been men, and only a few have been minorities.

The producers are hard-pressed to rectify this because of the blind screening process, which has people around the country dial in and answer questions by phone, offering no means of “casting” the series, as is done on game shows such as “Jeopardy!” or “Wheel of Fortune.”

What isn’t clear is why this is happening, though there are theories ranging from bias in the questions to men simply being better at this form of trivial pursuit.

Davies is convinced women are not calling up in equal numbers. Part of the problem, he suggested, may be the requirement contestants clear a two-day window on short notice to come tape the show in New York City. “You eliminate almost every mother of younger children out there,” he said. “Mothers are not going to drop everything.”

“It may be that you’re getting a majority show that hasn’t percolated [out] to the minority audience,” added Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a think tank affiliated with the Claremont Graduate University.

The overall volume of calls has nevertheless been astounding, with 659,000 pouring in one night. “We’re crashing out the phone system,” Davies said.

If there is a difference between the sexes in terms of trivial knowledge, recent research indicates the gap between women and men in terms of leisure-time activities, at least, is actually narrowing.

“Our big finding is that men and women are becoming more similar in the way they spend their time,” said John P. Robinson, a sociology professor who is co-author of the book “Time for Life: The Surprising Way Americans Use Their Time.” “The walls between the genders are coming down.”

Though no ethnic minorities have had the opportunity yet to play for the money, the show has featured gay contestants. Though some viewers noted one gay player’s partner in the audience was not shown rooting for him after an initial introduction, as wives and girlfriends have been.

According to Davies, however, “Like any of the contestants, we cut to [guests] when they have a good reaction going on. I don’t want [gays] to be treated any differently when this happens.”

The producers’ admission before “Millionaire’s” new episodes began airing that they hoped to book more females prompted NBC late-night host Conan O’Brien to crack: “Apparently, most women who want to be millionaires just marry and divorce Donald Trump.”

Sure enough, in the rush to copy the “Millionaire” phenomenon, the joke could soon have a grain of truth. Among specials under discussion at Fox is one tentatively titled “Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?,” in which women would vie for the right to wed a wealthy bachelor.