The new season of the syndicated Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? started this week on the sour note of making the show cheaper. The prizes for answering 9, 10, or 11 questions correctly have been reduced.

	Previous	Now
9th question	$32,000	$25,000
10th question	$64,000	$50,000
11th question	$125,000	$100,000

Since most of the winners seemed to leave on one of those three questions, it should save the show money - and lower the payouts for most contestants.

On the bright side, anyone getting the tenth question right gets a new fourth lifeline, "Switch the question." If you don't like the question, use the new lifeline, and they tell you the correct answer and switch it out for a new question of the same difficulty level.

Most fun, though, is that the "Ask the Audience" lifeline now asks you, if you want it to. Click the link above to send an instant message to "MillionaireIM" on AOL Instant Messenger. The automated program on the other end will confirm your participation. From then on, if you're online while Millionaire is taping and a contestant uses the lifeline, you'll get an IM. You see the same question that the contestant in the Hot Seat sees, and all four multiple-choice answers. IM back your one-letter answer quickly, and it'll be part of the graph shown to the contestant. (They then IM you back with the correct answer.)

Millionaire tapes in the afternoons on weekdays from now through at least mid-January. I got three IMs today and got all three questions right. Of course, I rock, so that's to be expected.