Hot Seat to go “into hiatus” on Nine

Nine will change its 5pm programming in 2024, pulling Hot Seat off air after 14 years.

“With great pride and joy but also sadness, Millionaire Hot Seat will go ‘into hiatus’ at the end of January next year,” Eddie McGuire told 3AW this morning.

“I want to thank everybody who came on the show those who’ve watched it over 25 years. It changed my life. It changed a lot of other people’s life. It’s been an absolute joy. And the good news is the show that will replace me will be produced out of Melbourne and the wonderful staff at GTV who have worked alongside me, hopefully would be a big part of it.”

Michael Healy, Director of Television said, “Long-term fan favourite Millionaire Hot Seat, and its predecessor, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, have been fundamental pillars in our Channel 9 schedule for 24 years and will continue to be through 2023. For 2024 there will be a change, but for this year we look forward to bringing more triumphant stories to those who love the show and who play along with Eddie.

“For the past two and a half decades Eddie McGuire has made the show come to life, uncovered the great stories of our contestants, and has had the pleasure of handing over total prize money of more than $90 million. We thank him for his commitment to the show over those years and for the shows still to come, and look forward to continuing our successful partnership with Eddie into the future.”

Hot Seat began as a spin-off 14 years ago in 2009.

Based on an Italian format twist, the half hour show was originally promoted as a short-run series, declaring “20 nights! 20 million dollars!”

The show kept Nine competitive against the might of Deal or No Deal, which it outlasted, and defeated 10 News First. Seven briefly even threw Million Dollar Minute against the show.

By 2017 it was extended to a one hour format to compete with The Chase which has subsequently surpassed the Nine series in the ratings.

That has given Nine headaches for its 6pm News with Seven holding the ratings crown.

By next January McGuire will have had 25 years associated with the Millionaire brand, having first hosted super-hit Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Across its run McGuire has asked over 50,000 questions of 15,000 contestants.

While just two people have won the million dollars (4 including Millionaire), and 34 contestants have won $250,000, the show has given away more than $60 million.

Hot Seat‘s 2500th episode screened in April while there were nearly 300 episodes of the classic Millionaire.

“Millionaire probably broke me in a big way, nationally,” he recently told TV Tonight.

“It was a different stamp to The Footy Show. Ian Johnson, David Leckie, Michael Healy and I think (John Stephens) said ‘Give the kid a chance,’ because everyone wanted to host it.”

Of Hot Seat he said, “Gyngell rang me up and said, ‘We’re going to do a version of Millionaire but we’re going to strip it. Would you do it for us? You don’t have to do it, you’ve done everything, you’ve finished up as CEO…’

“I said ‘I’d love to do it.’

“And I remember ringing the guys after the first day of records and I said, ‘This is flying. This is really good.’”