Million Dollar Password
Million Dollar Password is an updated version of the game show Password on CBS, which was hosted by Regis Philbin and ran from June 1, 2008, to June 14, 2009. FremantleMedia produced the program.[1]
Million Dollar Password
Shawn Kennedy
Mark Gentile
Lewis Flinn
Lewis Flinn
United States
English
2
12
Cecile Frot-Coutaz
Vin Rubino
Chris Ahearn
Graham Shaw
Eric Singer
41–43 minutes
June 1, 2008 –
June 14, 2009
Production and broadcast history[edit]
Million Dollar Password premiered June 1, 2008, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.[2] The initial order of the series consisted of six hour-long episodes, each comprising two games. These six episodes were taped in New York City's Kaufman Astoria Studios in March 2008.[3] Repeats of the first season aired on Thursdays beginning June 26, 2008, moved to Sundays on August 3, 2008 and finished on August 24, 2008.[4]
Season two, another six episodes, began on December 18, 2008, with a special Thursday broadcast. The show moved to its regular Sunday time slot three nights later.[4] These games were taped on August 2–4, 2008, at CBS Radford studios in Los Angeles.[5] On January 7, 2009, despite good ratings, CBS removed the last two episodes (one featuring Norm Macdonald and Jamie Kennedy scheduled for January 11, 2009 and another with Chelsea Handler and Jeff Garlin scheduled for January 25, 2009), along with a Season 1 repeat scheduled for January 18, 2009, from its schedule. The program returned to the schedule on May 24, 2009.[6] Excluding June 7, 2009 for the broadcast of the 63rd Tony Awards, the network ran a mixture of unseen episodes and repeats of Season 1 and 2 episodes on Sundays until the beginning of July.[4] The first four episodes, airing during the official 2008–09 television season, had an average viewership that made the show finish as the 42nd most-viewed program of that season.[7]
Betty White became the first celebrity to play in all American television versions of Password with her appearance on the June 12, 2008, episode.[8] The widow of Allen Ludden, who was the host of the original Password in its various incarnations from 1961 to 1980, she also appeared on December 28, 2008, and was the only celebrity to appear more than once during the show's run.[9] Sande Stewart, the son of Password creator Bob Stewart, was a consultant for the show. Noted cruciverbalist Trip Payne acted as the show's "word expert".[10]
On August 3, 2009, during the 2009 Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour, CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler officially announced that there were no plans to renew the series; despite strong overall ratings, the show was most popular among a very old demographic that was not popular with advertisers.[11]
GSN originally aired repeats of the series on Sunday nights in mid-2010, later putting the show additionally on weeknights for a few weeks more, until removing the show from the schedule completely. It was then re-added in a Saturday afternoon slot in January 2011.[12] In June 2013, GSN removed the series from the schedule again.
In 2021, episodes of the series then aired on Buzzr.
The director of the show was Mark Gentile; he served as the director for the primetime version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? for its entire network run (between 1999 and 2002, which Philbin had also hosted) and was the consulting producer for the syndicated version's first two seasons before becoming the director of Duel (which aired between December 2007 and July 2008).
International versions[edit]
Indonesia[edit]
A version of Million Dollar Password called Password Jutawan ("Password Millionaire") aired originally on Global TV with Muhammad Farhan as host from 2008 to 2009.
Spain[edit]
A version based on the Million Dollar Password format has been adapted for their audience. The program, entitled Password, premiered on July 7, 2008.[17] Hosted by Luján Argüelles, it is nearly identical to the 2008 Philbin version. The biggest differences include the top prize of €25,000 and changing the program to a forty-five-minute (with commercials) weekday broadcast.
Licensed merchandise[edit]
Endless Games began distributing a home box version of Million Dollar Password in November 2008[27] and a second edition was released in June 2010.[28] iToys distributed a handheld electronic version of the program in 2008.[29] In November 2008, RealArcade published an iPhone OS game based on the show entitled Million Dollar Password 2009 Edition. In December 2008, the game was released on some mobile phone platforms and, in March 2009, RealArcade released a version of the game for PCs and Macs.[30] Million Dollar Password 2009 Edition was released on CD-ROM in July 2009, distributed by Encore USA.[31] Andrews McMeel published a 2010 day-to-day calendar based upon the program in July 2009.[32]
Ratings[edit]
U.S. standard ratings[edit]
In the following summary, "rating" is the percentage of all households with televisions that tuned to the show, and "share" is the percentage of all televisions in use at that time that are tuned in. "18–49" is the percentage of all adults aged 18–49 tuned into the show. "Viewers" is the number of viewers, in millions, watching at the time. "Rank" is how well the show did compared to other TV shows aired that week.