MUMBAI: Come 11 October, superstar Amitabh Bachchan will be back as the host of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) 4 game show on Sony. Incidentally, 11 October is also Bachchan’s birthday.
While the first season of KBC on Star Plus in 2000 saw the prize money as Rs Rs 10 million (Rs 1 crore), in the second and third seasons Star increased the sweepstake amount to Rs 20 million (Rs 2 crore). This time round, Sony has gone further ahead and raised the prize money to Rs 50 million (Rs 5 crore).
"Even though the basic format remain unchanged, the show will be faster and crispier this time. There will be 12 questions for Rs 1 crore and the last one would be the jackpot of Rs 5 crore," Bachchan said.
KBC 4 will be aired on Sony from Monday to Thursday at 9 pm.
At the press conference held in Mumbai, Bachchan along with Big Synergy CEO Sidhharth also announced some new additions to the game show format.
A new life line ‘Ask an Expert’ will be introduced in the fourth season in addition to the earlier ones – Audience Poll and Phone A Friend. However, the ’50:50′ helpline has been dropped. Instead, after the seventh question there will be ‘Double Dip’ in which the contestant can give two tries for the answer.
“Ten contestants who will participate in the ‘Fastest Finger First’ will get a chance for four days to try their luck this time,” Basu informed.
Some of the celebrities that are lined up to appear on the show are Bipasha Basu, John Abraham and Sanjay Dutt. The prize money amount will be donated to a charity.
A new concept of ‘Ghadiyal Babu’ has been introduced wherein participants will have to answer the first two questions in 30 seconds and the next five in 45 seconds. However, after the seventh question, there will be no time limit.
Multi Screen Media COO NP Singh said, “With new features, which make the journey to become a crorepati even more exciting, KBC 2010 is going to provide whole some entertainment with fun, knowledge and humour to the entire family. Big gets even bigger as the participants will get an opportunity to play for the jackpot worth Rs 5 crore. KBC is going to drive the next level of growth for the channel.”
