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The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: colonial on December 01, 2022, 11:11:17 AM

Title: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: colonial on December 01, 2022, 11:11:17 AM
Debmar-Mercury has announced that it will offer the first three seasons of GSN's "People Puzzler" for syndication in Fall 2023 ...


https://deadline.com/2022/12/debmar-mercury-game-show-network-leah-remini-hosted-people-puzzler-syndication-1235185582/


The package includes more than 300 episodes.



JD
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: BrandonFG on December 01, 2022, 03:55:32 PM
I know America Says didn’t do so well in syndication, but I’m surprised GSN hasn’t tried this to get a little more exposure for some of its other originals.
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: BillCullen1 on December 01, 2022, 07:44:32 PM
They've got 300 episodes for three seasons? That's a lot for a GSN show.
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: pds319 on December 01, 2022, 11:42:15 PM
For a daily show, a standard GSN season is usually 65 episodes. They've been doubling up the episode orders recently since it's cheaper to keep production going for a couple more weeks than knocking it all down to start again in 8 months. The article says there's 325 episodes in the package so it's likely season 1 was 65 with seasons 2 and 3 hitting that 130 order.
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: DJDustman on December 02, 2022, 11:09:46 PM
Heyyy. I'll get to see myself on twice in syndication  :P.
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: tvwxman on December 03, 2022, 09:35:17 AM
And this is why local TV is dying. What's the point in this? No investment in a new product that a local station can brand better,  and a little money spent to fill a hole with programming that can be seen elsewhere more often, which assuming they get some new eyeballs to PP, will just lead those eyeballs to another channel plugging in the same content?
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: PPatters on December 03, 2022, 03:04:17 PM
And this is why local TV is dying. What's the point in this? No investment in a new product that a local station can brand better,  and a little money spent to fill a hole with programming that can be seen elsewhere more often, which assuming they get some new eyeballs to PP, will just lead those eyeballs to another channel plugging in the same content?

Syndicated reruns tend to be a great investment for local stations.
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: bulldog_06 on December 03, 2022, 06:37:45 PM
And this is why local TV is dying. What's the point in this? No investment in a new product that a local station can brand better,  and a little money spent to fill a hole with programming that can be seen elsewhere more often, which assuming they get some new eyeballs to PP, will just lead those eyeballs to another channel plugging in the same content?

Syndicated reruns tend to be a great investment for local stations.

Especially with such stations like MyNetwork TV and CW that carry syndicated content a lot.
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: PYLdude on December 03, 2022, 09:28:46 PM
And this is why local TV is dying. What's the point in this? No investment in a new product that a local station can brand better,  and a little money spent to fill a hole with programming that can be seen elsewhere more often, which assuming they get some new eyeballs to PP, will just lead those eyeballs to another channel plugging in the same content?

Syndicated reruns tend to be a great investment for local stations.

You do know you responded to someone who works in television, right? And who might have a little bit of a better perspective?

Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: PPatters on December 06, 2022, 10:53:04 PM
You do know you responded to someone who works in television, right? And who might have a little bit of a better perspective?

But am I wrong?
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: Jimmy Owen on December 07, 2022, 05:56:02 AM
Cable shows look like cable shows. Daytime filler at best..
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: tvwxman on December 07, 2022, 06:07:30 AM
You do know you responded to someone who works in television, right? And who might have a little bit of a better perspective?

But am I wrong?
Ok I'll bite.

Yes, mostly. Something cheap like People Puzz will be inexpensive to buy and slot (as compared to something like WoF or Kelly Clarkson, which cost lots of $$$), but here's the rub, local stations only get a few ads to sell during syndie programming, so the payoff is limited.  They can charge more based on the ratings...which, let's be honest, reruns of PP are not going to light up the airway, esp since there's a chance someone has already seen the show.

Cheap, easy to program, but little output.

Local TV thrives when they produce their own stuff (like local news) , in which they get to sell ALL of the ads. 22 minutes in an hour = 44 30-sec ads. That's way more lucrative, but costs more than cheap syndie programming of reruns from another channel .
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: Dbacksfan12 on December 07, 2022, 09:44:41 AM
reruns of PP are not going to light up the airway, esp since there's a chance someone has already seen the show.
Perhaps I’m extrapolating more than I should out of this comment, but couldn’t that be said for any rerun?  Furthermore, how many people besides a diehard will remember that Megan from Topeka won $2500 on episode 19?
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: tvwxman on December 07, 2022, 04:32:51 PM
reruns of PP are not going to light up the airway, esp since there's a chance someone has already seen the show.
Perhaps I’m extrapolating more than I should out of thus comment, but couldn’t that be said for any rerun?  Furthermore, how many people besides a diehard will remember that Megan from Topeka won $2500 on episode 19?
It's a good point. The counterpoint is : People search out hit shows that have millions of viewers and have hit the 100 ep mark to be brought into syndication.  People remember plots, jokes, set ups, storylines. Game shows don't bring that to the table.

(Most) game shows are not like that. With the exception of Wheel and Jep, there aren't many game shows that have reached "appointment television" over the years. And sorry, Price fans, it's no longer appt tv. And neither are the prime time shows. Their ratings are good but not good enough, and the problem with them is their airings are too sporatic and not set in stone (like Wheel and Jep).
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: BrandonFG on December 07, 2022, 05:37:54 PM
I see both sides of the coin. It's been a decade since I worked in TV so I know things have changed a lot. Case in point: the wall-to-wall newscasts, which as Matt points out, are more lucrative than buying whatever syndicated show.

However, I see this being a show that the indie or "My Network" affiliates pick up, or said sister stations from my example. Our MNTV station aired America Says reruns at 10:30 am, and I think the national ratings were no better than what 25 Words or Funny You Should Ask pulls, give or take a tenth of a point. For this experiment to work, I imagine you have to do more than the middle-of-the-pack first-run shows already serving as background noise. If you're not pulling much higher than what GSN sees, it's a bit of a wash, IMO.

If the other stations are like my local MNTV affiliate, this might become a surprise hit but I wouldn't expect it to set the world on fire ratings-wise.
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: JasonA1 on December 07, 2022, 06:29:45 PM
The counterpoint is : People search out hit shows that have millions of viewers and have hit the 100 ep mark to be brought into syndication.  People remember plots, jokes, set ups, storylines. Game shows don't bring that to the table.

(Most) game shows are not like that. With the exception of Wheel and Jep, there aren't many game shows that have reached "appointment television" over the years.

I'm not sure the point trying to be made here. Isn't the strategy to see if they can replicate the show's success on GSN in a broader arena? I recall one of the articles about GSN's overall slate touting how much day-to-day engagement they get with their strategy of leaning into 5-a-week shows. Did I miss what you were driving at?

-Jason
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: tvwxman on December 08, 2022, 04:24:36 PM
I'm not sure the point trying to be made here. Isn't the strategy to see if they can replicate the show's success on GSN in a broader arena? I recall one of the articles about GSN's overall slate touting how much day-to-day engagement they get with their strategy of leaning into 5-a-week shows. Did I miss what you were driving at?

I think the point is : doesn't a station want to air successful shows that get higher ratings so that they can charge more money and turn a bigger profit?

Airing 2 year old reruns of a cable game show isn't going to accomplish that. And instead,  the local tv station becomes a little more homogenized (and irrelevant) in a 5000 channel universe.

Call me curmudgeonly, but I can't imagine the producers are thinking that People Puzzler is going to be a cash cow. Instead , they're going to make a little money on syndie rights and then next year, the next batch of cheap programming will be slotted. Or, the 6th double run of the day of Feud on that channel.
Title: Re: "People Puzzler" coming to syndication
Post by: snowpeck on December 08, 2022, 05:08:09 PM
I'm not sure the point trying to be made here. Isn't the strategy to see if they can replicate the show's success on GSN in a broader arena? I recall one of the articles about GSN's overall slate touting how much day-to-day engagement they get with their strategy of leaning into 5-a-week shows. Did I miss what you were driving at?

I think the point is : doesn't a station want to air successful shows that get higher ratings so that they can charge more money and turn a bigger profit?

Airing 2 year old reruns of a cable game show isn't going to accomplish that. And instead,  the local tv station becomes a little more homogenized (and irrelevant) in a 5000 channel universe.

Call me curmudgeonly, but I can't imagine the producers are thinking that People Puzzler is going to be a cash cow. Instead , they're going to make a little money on syndie rights and then next year, the next batch of cheap programming will be slotted. Or, the 6th double run of the day of Feud on that channel.
I mean let's call it what it is, or is going to be -- cheap programming to fill time slots with low ad rates.