After giving away $94 million over two decades Australian quiz show Millionaire Hot Seat is leaving television screens in 2024.
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Long-time host Eddie McGuire announced the news on August 4 with "great pride and joy, but also sadness".
He told 3AW radio the show will go into hiatus at the end of January 2024, following the 25th anniversary of Millionaire Hot Seat and the former Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
Four millionaires have been created between the two shows over the years with about 15,000 contestants having a crack at the jackpot.
"I've had the privilege of being in everybody's lounge rooms, or a lot of people's lounge rooms for a long time every night at 5pm," Mr McGuire said.
"And I love the fact that so many people come and say, 'I sit there with my grandparents and we did these things together' and it's meant a lot."
IN OTHER NEWS:
Mr McGuire said a different show will take the 5pm slot on the Nine Network after Millionaire finishes up.
Who has won a million dollars in Australia?
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire premiered in April 1999 and the Millionaire Hot Seat spin-off was launched in April 2009.
The first winner came six years after the show's debut with Sydney's Rob Fulton in 2005.
Just a month later IT analyst Martin Flood entered the history books following five years of preparation.
It took eleven more years for the next millionaire to be crowned, retiree Edwin Daly in 2016.
The most recent millionaire was Antony McManus, a Melbourne retail worker who appeared on the show in November 2021.
He used a lifeline to switch his million-dollar question which ultimately asked: Which of these classic literary works was published first?
- A: The Count of Monte Cristo
- B: A Tale of Two Cities
- C: War and Peace
- D: Les Misérables
Correctly answering A: The Count of Monte Cristo, he became the fourth winner throughout the series' two decades on air.
But perhaps what the quiz show is most famous for is a cheating scandal that struck the British version in the early 2000s.
Contestant and million-dollar winner Charles Ingram, his wife Diana and their alleged accomplice Welsh professor Tecwen Whittock were found guilty in a London court of cheating on the show.
It was found Mr Whittock was coughing to indicate the right answers for Mr Ingram, who was talking through his thought process before giving an answer.
However the couple has always maintained its innocence.
