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The Indian avatar of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Kaun Banega Crorepati, came, saw, conquered, and has gone into the history books as the show that redefined the dynamics of entertainment television in the country. KBC ended its run on Star Plus in January after providing the thrust that drove Star into pole position in the channel stakes.
Across the Atlantic, the US version of the Celador-licenced show is also set for its walk into the sunset. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire officially ends its just under three-year run on 27 June, ABC announced late on Monday.
To send it off, the network will reportedly air a 90-minute edition of the Regis Philbin-fronted gamer. After that, Millionaire will be revamped as an occasional series of specials, similar to how the programme debuted in 1999.
With the departure of Millionaire and NBC‘s Weakest Link from this fall‘s primetime schedules, the trend has now gone full circle: quiz-based game shows have once again been relegated to daytime, syndication and cable.
And that looks like a trend that is going to be replicated in India as well because the gameshow is increasingly looking to be a losing proposition.
