Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Wiki
Ramon Covalo

First Country

United Kingdom

First Date

August 18, 2007

Latest Country

Some Countries that had not been canceled yet.

Latest Date

???

Ramon Covalo is a composer whose music has been used on many variants of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, including the 2007 music from the British version, replacing the original Strachan cues, and the music used on most versions of Hot Seat.

Trivia[]

  • There was an original theme of Ramon Covalo's music. It was composed in late 2006/early 2007, and was intended to replace the original for the 12-question version. However, ITV ended up preferring something similar to what they already had and asked Matthew Strachan to do a remix of the original but he wasn't available, so Nick Magnus ended up doing the Rave remix. However, ITV liked Covalo's question beds, so they kept those cues.
  • In the Indian versions, Questions 7-11’s cues have added sitars and bongo drums.
  • It has been played in the UK for Series 22 to Series 30.
    • But, in the UK, the £500,000 and £1,000,000 questions of it were not played since nobody answered the £250,000 question right; the highest amount of money that any contestant has won in the 12-question format is £150,000. However, they did play them in other countries, like Russia, they played the question musics before.
  • There are updated versions of the £2,000-£50,000 question musics. The £75,000-£1,000,000 question musics were never updated. They were first played in Poland in 2008. Here’s the link of the episode: [1]. However, the updated version of the £2,000 question music was never heard until the revival in 2017 due to it being replaced by the Bonus question cue. The Poland show at first since January 2008 used the updated versions, then the next month used the original ones including Q6 (Q3) until they went back in what they started using from January to February 2008 in 2010. The updated Q6 (Q3) was first heard internationally in Colombia. Here’s the link of that: [2]
    • The French, Nigerian, and Kus Bani Koshur Crorepati, one of the Indian versions, didn't play the whole music, but instead used and repeated the first 32 seconds for the Q10-15 and the second 32 seconds for Q6-9.
  • It has not been played in the U.S., instead they have been playing Jeff Lippencott and Mark T. Williams cues in Seasons 9-17 and Questions 1-5 music in Seasons 14 to 17.
  • His cues have been played in the video game Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: Special Editions.
    • The £500-£1,000 question music were played on the questions 1-5, but, only the £2,000 question music was played on questions 6-15. Also, the £1,000 win cue was played for winning 1,000 and for winning 32,000.
  • Unlike Keith & Matthew Strachan musics, Ramon Covalo had a Bonus question cue (bonus question music played). It was only played for Australia’s $5,000,000 question, on Colombia’s $300.000.000 question, and sometimes on Poland’s 2,000 złoty question from January-February 2008, and then again in 2010 and sometimes as well on Czech’s 20,000 Kč question. Also for now, it was played on India (Hindi)’s 7 Crore rupee question in Season 9 revealed on October 3, 2017 on Anamika Majumdar’s 7 Crore question. This cue was played in Italian's 6th question in Season 13 only once and revealed on December 7, 2018 on Silvia Sacchetti's 5,000€ question (probably by accident). This bonus question cue was also played as Fastest Finger First question cue at the brazilian version (Quem quer ser um milionário?)
  • For unknown reasons, the Question 1-5 cue has never been played on the Russian version. But they used on the closing several episode in2008 - 2010.
  • Strangely, in the countries that have adopted the format and graphics developed by Olga van den Brandt (Netherlands, Croatia, Chile, Denmark, Israel, Bulgaria and Serbia), only the original question cues (Classic) play in the 6th and 7th questions, instead of the Covalo cues for Q3 and Q4. Also, in Australia that also have adopted the format and graphics, only the original question cues (Classic) play in the 11th and 12th questions, instead of the Covalo cues for Q7 and Q8. It’s unknown how the cues were played in the last 3 questions since no one in that revival has reached the 13th question.
  • The Polish version had changed periodically with the original and current question musics below. Here’s the table:
Question Amount January-February 2008, March-December 2010 February 2008-December 2009 February 2017-June 2023
50,000 zł Q10 (Current) Q10 (Original) Q10 (Current)
20,000 zł Q9 (Current) Q9 (Original) Q9 (Current)
10,000 zł Q8 (Current) Q8 (Original) Q8 (Current)
5,000 zł Q7 (Current) Q7 (Original) Q7 (Current)
2,000 zł Q16 Q6 (Original) Q6 (Current)
Question Amount Season 8 Season 9 (episodes 01-25) Season 9 (episodes 26-52) Season 10 Season 11 Season 12 Season 13 Season 14 (episodes 01-20; 22) Season 14 (episodes 21; 23-106); Seasons 15; 16
₹7 Crore/₹7.5 Crore Q13 Q16 KBC Bonus Q1 (Updated) KBC Bonus Q1 Q15 KBC Bonus Q1 (Updated) KBC Bonus Q1 (?) Q15
₹3 Crore

(only S8)

KBC Bonus Q1 (Updated) -
₹1 Crore KBC Bonus Q1 Q15 Q15 Q15 Q15 KBC Bonus Q1 (Updated) KBC Bonus Q1 Q15
₹75,00,000

(only S14)

- Q15 Q15
₹50,00,000 Q11 (S&B) Q14 Q14/ KBC Bonus Q1 (Updated)/ KBC Bonus Q2 Q14/ KBC Bonus Q2 Q14 Q14 Q14
₹25,00,000 Q10 (S&B) Q13 KBC Bonus Q1 (Updated) KBC Bonus Q2 Q13/ KBC Bonus Q1 (Updated) KBC Bonus Q1 (Updated) Q13
₹12,50,000 Q9 (S&B) Q12 KBC Bonus Q1 KBC Bonus Q1 (Updated) Q12/ KBC Bonus Q1 KBC Bonus Q1 Q12
₹6,40,000 Q8 (S&B) Q11 Q11 (S&B)/ Q14 (S&B) Q14 (S&B) Q11 (S&B) Q11 (S&B) Q11
₹3,20,000 Q10 (S&B) Q10 Q10 (S&B)/ Q13 (S&B) Q13 (S&B) Q10 Q10 (S&B) Q10
₹1,60,000 Q9 (S&B) Q9 Q9 (S&B)/ Q12 (S&B) Q12 (S&B) Q9 (S&B) Q9 (S&B) Q9
₹80,000 Q8 (S&B) Q8 Q8 (S&B)/ Q11 (S&B) Q11 (S&B) Q8 (S&B) Q8 (S&B) Q8
₹40,000 Timer Music Q7 Q10 (S&B) Q10 (S&B) Q10 (S&B) Q10 (S&B) Q7
₹20,000 Timer Music Q6 Q9 (S&B) Q9 (S&B) Q9 (S&B) Q9 (S&B) Q6

Note: S&B: Sitar and Bongo Drums

1) The reason why Q9 music cue was always played in question 6 (₹20,000) is that it was actually the cue for the ₹1,60,000 question, which was the 6th question from Seasons 4-8. Similar to that, the KBC Bonus Q1 original and updated cues were respectively played in the 12th (₹12,50,000) and 13th questions (₹25,00,000). However, in Season 8, the music cues of Q8 to Q11 was played in questions from ₹6,40,000 to ₹50,00,000, maybe because these were the 8th to 11th question in that season. Also for this reason, from Season 9 to some episodes of Season 14 (except Season 10), these music cues were played again in Q8-Q11 although they were from ₹80,000 to ₹6,40,000 questions.

2) In Season 8, it was not sured that Q13 music cue was usually played in the final question since normally, it is played in the 13th question. The final question was only asked once to Achin and Sarthak Narula, who both then became the first contestants to win ₹7 Crore in episode 32 exactly ten years ago.

3) The music cues from Q6 to Q10 are original; however, in some episodes, the current ones could be played, for example, the Q8 current cue was played in the 13th question of Sunil Kumar Tandi (Season 9 - episode 40).

4) In some episodes in Seasons 10 and 12, the question cues were played the same as Season 9 (episodes 01-25).

5) In some episodes of Season 14, Q11 music cues (clean version and S&B version) could take turns being played; while for Q8, 9 and 10 music cues with Sitar and Bongo Drums, they could be only heard in very few episodes after episode 23. From Season 15, these music cues were replaced correspondingly by the clean version.

6) Since the Jackpot question (₹7.5 Crore) was never asked between episodes 01-22 of Season 14, we didn't know what music cue was actually played. In that season, it was asked to Kavita Chawla (episode 33) and Shashwat Goel (episode 48), and Q15 cue was played in that question.

This will be continuously updated when KBC India starts uploading the episodes of Seasons 5, 6 and 7.

Links[]