The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime (Australian game show)
Encyclopedia
For the unrelated American game show, see The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime
The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime
The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime is an American game show which offered a $1 million grand prize to winning contestants. Based on a late 1970s unsold game show pilot titled The Letter Machine, the show aired in syndication from January 6, 1986 until September 11, 1987...

.


The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime was an hour long prime time quiz show that aired in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It was later adapted for an American audience as It's Your Chance of a Lifetime
It's Your Chance of a Lifetime
It's Your Chance of a Lifetime was an American game show that aired on Fox in June 2000. Australian TV personality Gordon Elliott hosted the show, with Mark Thompson serving as announcer ....

.

Overview

The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime aired 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...

 from 1999-2000. Seven began production on the show when rival network 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...

 announced production of an Australian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a television game show which offers large cash prizes for correctly answering a series of multiple-choice questions of increasing difficulty. The format is owned and licensed by Sony Pictures Television International. The maximum cash prize is one million pounds...

, which promised the largest cash prize on Australian quiz show history.

Chance of a Lifetime was produced in house by Seven. It was a knowledge based quiz. The million dollar prize was never won; only smaller amounts of money were awarded to contestants.

Hosts

Frank Warrick first hosted the show in 1999. For the second and last season, Seven personality and sportscaster Sandy Roberts
Sandy Roberts
Sandy Roberts is the weeknight sports presenter of Seven News Melbourne.Roberts grew up on a sheep farm in Lucindale, South Australia. After completing school he moved to Adelaide where he worked as a sports writer for the Adelaide Advertiser...

 was Warrick's replacement.

Rules of the game

The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime was conducted as follows:

A solo player competed for a chance to win over $1,000,000 in the form of an annuity, doing so by answering ten questions. The first question was dubbed the "Credit Card
Credit card
A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...

Question," with a correct answer eliminating any credit card bill debt the contestant had rung up (the bill itself was shredded onstage).

The next question was worth $5,000, and a contestant had to answer correctly to advance. If correct, the contestant would have a maximum of eight questions to answer, being forced to bet at least half of what they had at that particular point in the game. The catch was that each question came from one of ten different categories, and the contestant never knew where they would come from. However, the contestant was shown the category before the question was asked, so they would know and could bet accordingly.

Along the way, each contestant had two "Second Chances," which were used to help the contestant. One "Second Chance" allowed the contestant to switch the question for one in a category of their choice, and the other allowed the question to be made multiple choice. Once a contestant reached the third level of questions, a "Last Chance" was awarded, allowing the contestant to choose one of the two options for a second time.

A contestant could stop after any correct answer, but an incorrect answer deducted the amount of the wager and ended the game for the contestant. Even a miss on the credit card question ended the game.

A possible $1,280,000 was available to a contestant.

Ratings

Chance aired on Monday nights on Seven. Ratings began to slide after the first episode aired. The show ran for two seasons, and was eventually moved to weeknights at before the nightly news broadcast; Seven usually uses quiz shows as a lead in for its own news bulletins. It was eventually cancelled, with weaker ratings and excessive production costs cited as reasons for cancellation.

External links

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