Millionaire goes interactive on ITV2

Ever play Millionaire at home with and think you know all the answers? Well, from November 24th you can play along for fun using your ITV Digital remote.

The interactive game will run on ITV2 simultaneously to the programme being shown on ITV. At the beginning of the show, Chris Tarrent will inform viewers that they can play interactively by switching to ITV2. By pushing the red button, you can play along as your set top box keeps tabs on your score.

At the end of the show, those with high enough points will see a message asking them to phone a number to be entered into a prize draw (sorry, no million quid).

The game is fun – well exactly as much fun as the real thing, and having to answer in the same time frame as the contestants makes it fun to play along – it could be even more fun when they have the direct return path set up next year, but, for the armchair players it's an opportunity to show that you really know your stuff – no cheating on that big question - of course, I knew them all.

The questions are overlayed on the screen so that the A-B-C-D answers correspond to the 1-2-3-4 of the keypad. If you want to stop the game at any point, but still retain your score, you can enter 0. It’s free to play and, if you score enough points to enter the prize draw, the cost is 35p on a premium phone line. Once you are playing you can’t change channel or you will lose your score.

So why is it on ITV2 and not on the main channel? Well, the answer is probably to give people a reason for switching to ITV2.

Overall, this is a nice simple extension to the show, which I’m sure people will have fun playing if they like Millionaire. Perhaps one day you will be able to have several people playing along around the same TV, but for now controlling the remote control will be the big contest of the night.

Interactive Millionaire has been created by iTV media and production house Carlton Active.