who owns the rights to who wants to be a millionaire
Sony Pictures Television
title: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (U.S. game show) text: The U.S. version of "Millionaire" is a co-production of 2waytraffic, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Valleycrest Productions, a division of The Walt Disney Company. 2waytraffic purchased "Millionaire"s original production company Celador in 2008, while Valleycrest has produced the series since its beginning, and holds the copyright on all U.S. "Millionaire" episodes to date. The show is distributed by Valleycrest's corporate sibling Disney-ABC Home Entertainment & Television Distribution (previously known as Buena Vista Television). The U.S. "Millionaire" was taped at ABC's "Television Center East" studio on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York from 1999 to 2012. title: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? text: create original music, instead using the same music cues used by the British version; and the lighting system and set design were required to adhere faithfully to the way they were presented on the British version. However, some of Smith's rules have been slightly relaxed over the years as the franchise's history has progressed. "Millionaire" and all of Celador's other programmes were ultimately acquired by Dutch company 2waytraffic. Two years later, Sony Pictures Entertainment purchased 2waytraffic for £137.5 million. The format of the show is currently owned and licensed by Sony Pictures Television; however, the U.S. version is distributed not title: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (U.S. game show) text: 2018. Millionaire was subsequently renewed through the 2018–19 season on January 17, 2018. Game Show Network (GSN) acquired the rerun rights to the U.S. "Millionaire" in August 2003. The network initially aired only episodes from the three seasons of the original prime-time run; however, additional episodes were later added. These included the "Super Millionaire" spin-off, which aired on GSN from May 2005 to January 2007, and the first two seasons of the syndicated version, which began airing on November 10, 2008. On December 4, 2017, GSN acquired the rerun rights to the Harrison episodes of "Millionaire" (seasons fourteen and fifteen), title: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (U.S. game show) text: renewal, which SPE was hesitant to accept. The series was nonetheless renewed for the 2015–16 season, with various cuts to the show's production budget and a return to the original format (but with only 14 questions). Had the show not been renewed, SPE would have placed the show on extended hiatus for three years, reclaimed full rights to the show (without the innovations and format added in the syndicated run, to which DADT owns intellectual property rights), and shopped the revived show to another network or syndicator. On January 17, 2017, it was announced that "Millionaire" has been renewed through title: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (U.S. game show) text: Millionaire?" franchise. The original U.S. version aired on ABC from August 16, 1999, to June 27, 2002, and was hosted by Regis Philbin. The daily syndicated version of the show began airing on September 16, 2002, and was hosted for eleven seasons by Meredith Vieira until May 31, 2013. Later hosts included Cedric the Entertainer in the 2013–14 season, Terry Crews in the following season (2014–15), and Chris Harrison, who began hosting on September 14, 2015. As the first U.S. network game show to offer a million-dollar top prize, the show made television history by becoming one of the highest-rated