Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi

Background

K. Sriram, the general manager of Star Vijay, claimed Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi to be "the first international format to hit the Tamil television screens". On the contrary, there was an earlier show named Deala No Deala, the Tamil adaptation of Deal or No Deal, which aired on Sun TV briefly in 2009–2010.

Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi is unrelated to the show Ungalil Yaar Maha Latchathipathi, the official Sri Lankan Tamil adaptation of Who Wants to be a Millionaire which aired since 2011. R. Sarathkumar had hosted a show titled Kodeeswaran, which followed a similar format and aired on Sun TV earlier.

Season 1

In April 2011, Business Standard reported that actor Prakash Raj would host the licensed Tamil edition of the Hindi game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, which was then titled Ungalil Yaar Kodeeswaran. Actor Vijay was also considered to host the reality game show, but he declined the offer. Eventually, it was confirmed that actor Suriya would host the show.

The title of Kaun Banega Crorepati's Tamil version was later confirmed as Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi. Suriya was initially apprehensive when approached, but after seeing the game format, he was "convinced it would work". The episodes for Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi were shot at AVM Studios in Chennai, where its Malayalam equivalent Ningalkkum Aakaam Kodeeshwaran was also shot. Suriya was agreed to be paid ₹5 million (US$74,000) per episode, and 80 episodes were planned for Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi.

Season 2

In December 2012, Suriya stated that he could not host the second season due to his prior commitments. Subsequently, Prakash Raj, who was earlier considered for the show's first season, and whose previous appearance on television was in the 2003 Tamil serial Sahana, was finalised to host the show, making his debut as a television host.

Season 3

In 2016, three years after the second season ended, Star Vijay confirmed that the show was renewed for a third season. Arvind Swamy, who was a celebrity guest on the show in the previous season, was announced as the host. The season commenced on 30 May 2016, with a slightly altered format; such as two contestants per game, a new lifeline called double-dip (replacing the 50-50 option), and the ability for players to set their preferred safe-heaven amount on the money tree prior to playing.

Show format

The contestants must undergo an initial round of "Fastest Finger First", in which the host introduces the ten contestants of the episode and asks them all the same question. The contestants must then arrange the answers in the order described in the question. The contestant that places the four options in the correct order in the fastest time gets the chance to go on the "hotseat", i.e. playing the main game. All contestants must be over the age of 18 and a citizen and resident of India to be eligible. The person must not be a former contestant of the show and must be able to converse well in English or Tamil languages.

Each player will be asked fifteen questions, the prizes starting at ₹1,000 (US$15) and leading up to ₹1 crore (US$150,000). The first five questions are considered to be relatively easy. The player has 30 seconds per question. The second five are relatively harder. The time limit for these are 45 seconds per question. The final five are considered to be the most difficult hard and become increasingly more so. These have no timer. There can be, and generally is, more than one player per episode.

The show's host asks each contestant a number of multiple-choice questions. Of the four options only one is correct. Players answer correctly to win an amount of money. They are then shown the next question and four answers. Successive questions are worth a greater sum of money. In most cases this is double the previous sum. Players who answer question numbers five and ten correctly find themselves in a situation where their winnings are "safe". This means they will not lose their winnings under any circumstances. This allows the players to hazard a guess for question six and question eleven. Players answering a question incorrectly are eliminated from the game and their winnings go back to the previous "safe" amount. If the contestant was in the process of answering questions one to five, the safe amount would be zero; for those answering questions six to ten, the safe amount will be ₹10,000 (US$150), and for questions eleven to fifteen, it will be ₹320,000 (US$4,800). Players can decide to stop at any time, after seeing the next question, and take the winnings they have accumulated up to that point.

Current lifelines

For assistance, the contestant can use one, two or all three "lifelines" at any time during the game. Contestants can use a lifeline when they are undecided which answer is correct. A contestant can use each lifeline only once. He can also use all lifelines on one question.

Former lifelines

Reception

Initial reception to the first season of Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi was generally negative, though the show eventually garnered a large viewership and recorded large target rating points. A major criticism was in the questions asked to players, that were thought to be of lower-than-usual difficulty. K. Sriram later noted, "the questions were not silly, the options were mocking. The feedback we got was: Don't mock your own questions. We've taken it as constructive feedback and put it to the Big Synergy team". Difficulty level of questions became more accepted among public in later episodes. Neengalum Vellalam Oru Kodi received 5 million viewers on its first episode of the third season.