A $1 million win means huge ratings for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? — at least, that’s the case after Jamie Ding and Ben Affleck took home the grand prize on July 29.
Jeopardy!‘s Ding paired up with Affleck one year after the host of the game show, Ken Jennings, paired up with Affleck’s best friend, Matt Damon. Both pairs went on to win the $1 million for their charities.
When Ding and Affleck’s game had come to a close during their first episode, they had left off at the $250,000 question. This meant that they only needed to answer two more questions to win the grand prize. The pair did it, after using a few lifelines and talking them out, cementing themselves in Millionaire history.
Their win sparked huge ratings for the show and was up from the previous week. According to a press release, WWTBAM had 4.22 million total viewers. This was up four percent from the premiere, which had 4.07 million total viewers.
The ABC show was also the top program of the night for the second week in a row among total viewers. It had 28 percent more viewership than its closest competitor, CBS‘s Big Brother, which rang in at 3.29 million viewers for that episode.
Disney/Eric McCandless
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? also scored the show’s best performance in a year. The previous best viewership was for Damon and Jennings’ win in Season 4.
Ding and Affleck shared their first episode with Larry David and his daughter, Cazzie. Their second episode had Jason Alexander and Wayne Knight team up, as well as Tig Notaro and Pete Holmes.
The August 5 episode will feature Brad Paisley with Clayton Kershaw and Michael Kosta with Wendi McLendon-Covey. Will they reach just as high ratings?
The other contestants this season include Krysten Ritter and Sarah Shahi, Michael Keaton and Jon Lovett, Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel, Awkwafina and director Paul Feig, Billy Porter and Leslie Odom Jr., Nobody Wants This‘ Timothy Simons and Jackie Tohn, sisters Sarah Jane Nader and Brooks Nader, Saturday Night Live‘s Colin Jost and Michael Che, and Taran Killam and Will Forte. Will any of them also win the $1 million? Tune in to find out.
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Season 5, Wednesdays, 8/7c, ABC, stream next day on Hulu