Frank Edoho gets frank about Who Wants to be A Millionaire

Remember that game show that was popular in the 2000s but sadly went on a long hiatus only to ultimately make a comeback?

The ‘Who Wants to Be A Millionaire’ show that drove audiences nuts with all the emotions you could think of, and its anchor; the infamous Frank Edoho, remember them?

The show was so famous due to its host and how he connected with the audience, using humor, sarcasm, and suspense to excite and educate viewers whilst also entertaining his guests.

He made the show feel more like an entertainment than what it set out to be while also capturing the essence of the concept; Who Wants to be A Millionaire.

It was back in the days when millions actually meant something in Nigeria, and MTN tried very much to make those dreams come through.

Frank Edoho though was honored to be granted an interview recently and he explained how he came by hosting the show to general audiences and the fame that came from it, and what the show did for his career in general.

The popular TV host revealed he initially wanted to dabble into rap music before being discouraged into venturing to broadcasting, and boy, did he make the right decision.

Imagine Frank Edoho doing RAP music? It’s hilarious to think of but not as fitting as his eventual career in broadcast.

The celebrity reveals he had initially studied Animal Science back at the University of Calabar before going into rap, but the criticisms he faced as a rapper was what drove him out of the business.

“I then became a rapper, but people would say my voice looks older than my face. I asked myself, ‘what can I do with the voice outside raping?” he said.

This then led to the future host working 4 years with Radio Nigeria, Metro FM as an On Air Personality.

Prior to becoming the host of the game show, he also spent a year with DBN before the show came calling.

Speaking of the experiences he got from hosting the show, the celebrity joked about a time he hosted a player who made the famous line, ‘you don’t know what you don’t know”.

“I remember a guy who came for the show – part of the rules of the game was – if you don’t get up to question five, you can’t take the money except you walk away.” He said.

“So, at question three, his money was just N10,000 and he had used all his ‘lifelines’, ‘50-50’, ‘phone a friend’ and ‘ask the audience’. So, I asked what he intends to do, he decided to walk away. The guy came from Onitsha. He looked at me and said ‘what you don’t know, you don’t know’ and he walked away through the back door.”

Frank Edoho also got honest about meeting fans of the show and the experience meeting them, including the puns that followed.

“One day, someone saw me and said ‘you are Frank Edoho?’ I responded ‘yes’. Then he said ‘you look bigger in real life but you are small on screen’. I said that’s because your TV is very small.

“Also, my car had a flat tire and I had to change it. People were watching and they started making fun of me. There was this particular guy who made a jest of me. He looked at me and said ‘Frank, phone a friend, you have exhausted your lifelines’.”

Surely, they were right on the part Edoho needed to phone a friend as he had exhausted all his lifelines.

What made the host an audience darling was his approachable demeanor and his humor. He felt very much like someone an audience could connect with even with him being all dressed in suits and acting all sophisticated. Frank Edoho was very much the everyday man.

On how the game show eventually got the rights to broadcast itself in Nigeria due to it being originally a British game show, he revealed:

”Who Wants to be a Millionaire started in 1999 in the United Kingdom, and some countries started watching it. Some countries went to do theirs without taking permission from the owner. That was copyright infringement.

“At the time the show got to Nigeria in 2004, about 128 countries were already showing the programme. We had to go to the producers in the UK to make enquiry and ask them to give us the right and license to operate. We paid some amount of money to get the franchise. This tells you the importance of intellectual property right, and it cannot be over emphasized.”

On his advice to Nigerian content creators, the host remarked:

“The youth are so vibrant when it comes to content creation. Young ones should try to bring out an innovation that would change Nigeria’s future.” He said.

“Do you know the world has changed to the extent that 10 years ago, I was thinking of owning a radio station?

“But today, I am not thinking toward that direction, the world has moved on beyond that. Think of podcasting.

“Podcasting is working right now. So, who is going to put huge resources into radio when there are other means to transmit using technology? The biggest podcaster in the world today is Joe Rugan, who makes 100 million dollars just for him to sit down, smoke and have conversation with others.

“So, I have to set up a radio station, master everything and pay a whole bunch of talented people to be presenting? Someone is doing the same thing and he’s making money. He has set the example globally that I can have a table, two chairs and just have a conversation.

“Instead of being a TV presenter, build a YouTube channel and start making money. Let me give an example. When Who Wants To Be A Millionaire ended in 2017, I started doing lots of other things like photography and filmmaking. I noticed that the people were very angry and I had to device a means in replying them on my social media handles.”

On the show’s eventual return and his own return to the show, Frank Edoho revealed:

“So, when Who Wants To Be A Millionaire got back, already 76 auditions had been done.

“After the 76 auditions, there was a question on the Big Brother show about something that had to do with suspense.

“A guy mentioned some names and I think someone mentioned my name that I was ‘the king of suspense’ and it started trending on social media platforms. This placed me at an advantage as I was announced as the host of the revamped Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, the highly acclaimed TV game show that’s making a comeback after a five-year hiatus.”

Well, thankfully he returned, cause obviously, no one can imagine what the show would be like without its original host who popularized it to the Nigerian audience.

They could do it better, but no one would reconnect with the audience like Edoho did.

Remember the segment with late Nollywood actor, Sam Loco? To be frank, no one beats Frank Edoho to Who Wants to be A Millionaire.