Who wants to be a millionaire - phone a friend

[bounceagain]

Has anyone of you or know someone who has been on the tv program? When the players phone a friend, where is/are his/her friend/s, as they cant cheat. Are they in the studio or home or ? The question has always bugged me.

[andy-hughes]

The programme is pre-recorded, so I guess that the 'friends' must be near a designated telephone, and a call will come without warning. Because the friend is not watching the show being recorded, they have no forewarning of the questyion coming, and must answer it 'cold' - as they are seen to do when that section is edited into the broadcasted show.

This is more in the nature of an educated guess - if anyone knows different, I am open to correction.

[Pippa68]

Why do some of the 'phone a friends' seem to be surprised when they get the call?

If that was me and Chris Tarrant answered in his usual ''oh hello it's CT on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire blah blah blah'' I would say ''Well of course it is, you daft wassock'' ;o)

[NORMANTHEDOG]

a friend of my was on the show,but did not get into the chair,but he was told to inform his phone a friends,that the show was being recorded on that day and to noyify them of the date ,time,etc.just in case.

[spainlads]

A friend of ours won �250,000. He's James Plaskett, the chess champion who's also a friend of convicted 'WWTBAM' cheat Charles Ingram . He used one of his lifelines to ring his wife, Fiona, who was back home here in Torrevieja, Spain. The programme was filmed about 2 months before it was aired, she received a phone call from the programme saying that he had won the 'fastest finger' and she was at home alone.
So yes, you can cheat but you're asked not too!!

[sunflower71]

yes, the show is pre recorded and the contestants have to give WWTBAM the Friends phone numbers and the production team pre warn the friends.
They are told to sound suprised and have to answer the phone in 3 rings.
cannot see how they can cheat though as by time they google it the time is up.

[FoxLee]

We live less than a mile from the Millionaire studio in Borehamwood and in the early days, my son was a member of the audience for one show. One time when they did 'phone a friend', they got the answer machine. They tried again about ten minutes' later, and the person was there. The show that he watched took about 3 hrs. to record - someone had a query on one of the questions so they went off to check it, 20 min. delay. Also people take much longer to answer questions than is shown.

it wouldn't really be practical to have the phone a friend people in the studio - ten contestants, five phone friends each, 50 extra people to house in the studio and pay their expenses in getting there.