Author Topic: GSN Ratings Tanking... (Read 20567 times)

clemon79 · « **Reply #15 on:** October 05, 2007, 01:54:25 AM »

[quote name=\'DjohnsonCB\' post=\'165600\' date=\'Oct 4 2007, 10:04 PM\']
If GSN ever goes away, so does my digital cable box. At least it'll shave about $25 off my cable bill.
[/quote]
I'd be right with you, if not for....wait, I don't HAVE a cable box!

/god I love my Tivo HD

CaseyAbell · « **Reply #16 on:** October 05, 2007, 02:15:29 PM »

Dawson Feud bombed on Sunday night, so there's no reason to expect that plastering it all over prime time would do any better. Millionaire has been trotted out again, but severe burnout will probably limit its effectiveness. I doubt Match Game would do any better in prime than Dawson Feud did. Same for the suggestion of emptying the vault with even less well-known oldies.

GSN got 0.3 in July, according to CableWorld, so the August and September numbers must have dropped down even further to 0.2. To get persnickety, that 0.3 in July was really something like 0.27. I'm assuming 64 million household availability, with the 175K average household audience CableWorld gave. So GSN didn't have far to fall to hit 0.2.

CableWorld never published a top-50 August chart. We'll see if they put one out for September. Assuming the MultiChannel number was a "high" 0.2 (close to 0.25) means an average household audience of something like 160K for the quarter. Which is bad, even by GSN standards.

How to fix it? Millionaire has been the network's most consistent performer, so I'll make my usual suggestion of a deal for the Meredith eps. The poker show was the network's best performer in second quarter, according to Multichannel, so maybe a couple more hours in prime wouldn't hurt. Getting the WPT from the Travel Channel may help a little.

Fantasyland would be a repackage deal for Drew's TPiR eps in prime time. Hey, we can dream. But short of a complete Spike-like makeover, this looks like the only Millionaire-style big play that's even remotely imaginable.

narzo · « **Reply #17 on:** October 06, 2007, 05:18:38 AM »

Nick is taking it's GAS channel to the web and I honestly believe the ONLY thing keeping GSN alive in any form on TV is the coming deal to air "the world series of poker". With a continued ratings drop the current management (remember this current team couldn't care a bit about what the old regime did) can say "hey, we tried originals, we tried reruns, nothing clicked. Let's become a cooking network, Rachel Ray is the hot thing now". Trust me, if it was owned by Time-Warner, Rupert Murdoch, or something this would have happened already. It's poker, it's gambling, and when this bubble bursts (which it will) then they become "GSN, the General-interest Show Network"

EDIT- It was pointed out to me it's the "World Poker Tour" they are getting from The Travel Channel. That's how much attention I give these shows.

Jimmy Owen · « **Reply #18 on:** October 06, 2007, 03:19:58 PM »

Since the scandals, game shows became niche programming. What's wrong with serving the game show niche and being satisfied with the small fan base? I enjoy the better crafted shows, so I haven't really watched GSN in primetime since the makeover.

clemon79 · « **Reply #19 on:** October 06, 2007, 04:21:11 PM »

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'165729\' date=\'Oct 6 2007, 12:19 PM\']
What's wrong with serving the game show niche and being satisfied with the small fan base?
[/quote]
Nothing, so long as the advertising rates that fan base commands are sufficient for the channel to turn a maintain a profit. Maybe GSN can do that on 0.2's, but if they can I think that shows a rare genius in their accounting department that doesn't appear to exist elsewhere at the network.

xavier45 · « **Reply #20 on:** October 06, 2007, 09:42:55 PM »

[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' post=\'165634\' date=\'Oct 5 2007, 02:15 PM\']
Dawson Feud bombed on Sunday night, so there's no reason to expect that plastering it all over prime time would do any better.
[/quote]
I think the main reason why this failed is because it was on for 5 hours in a row. I really don't know many people who would watch the same show for 5 hours in a row, unless it was a special marathon.

And to me GSN really has nothing else to lose. Would they really be killed if they gave an hour to their so called Highest Rated Classics? I would not be shocked to see if the Daytime ratings were higher than primetime.

TLEberle · « **Reply #21 on:** October 07, 2007, 12:10:37 AM »

[quote name=\'xavier45\' post=\'165760\' date=\'Oct 6 2007, 06:42 PM\']I think the main reason why this failed is because it was on for 5 hours in a row. I really don't know many people who would watch the same show for 5 hours in a row, unless it was a special marathon. [/quote]Except they did Game Show Saturday Night for roughly a year or so, right? I'd stick around for the Card Sharks host's tournament, or a $100,000 Pyramid tournament.

But I'm geeky like that.

JasonA1 · « **Reply #22 on:** October 07, 2007, 04:07:37 AM »

Well that's different. Those are events, not just 5 hours of regular ol' episodes. If they did GSSN's again with Millionaire celeb weeks, or "Super Jeopardy" or even crack the vaults open for some "Monopoly" or another weird niche show, it'd be cool.

And yeah, the focus seems real heavy on Karn Feud. I was surprised to find he was pretty popular among casual TV viewers, but obviously not enough to draw people to GSN.

The shred of optimist in me says the move to digital was done by carriers to get people to buy digital. As if to say GSN had so much potential interest, they thought people would upgrade to get it. Probably not true, but oh well. I've been enjoying the network more now than ever, devoting several hours to it in the daytime to catch "Super Password," Combs "Feud," P+, etc., etc.

Re: the first 5 years of the network though, was it really that good? I can certainly understand the allure of seeing Match Game in the clear whereas before you had to go on memories or fuzzy tape, but every shred of bumpers I've seen that shows what's coming up indicates a rather pedestrian lineup. Of curse, I got the network when it was at least 6 or 7 years old and the luster of these shows being seen again had faded some, but...black and white in primetime? Pish posh. Of course, they did have the advantage then of showing different runs of shows (shopping WoF!) and the biggie - TPIR.

I guess on a side side side SIDE note, what eras of shows did they get to in those early years? Did they show early Trebek J (first few seasons), for example?

-Jason

clemon79 · « **Reply #23 on:** October 07, 2007, 04:26:13 AM »

[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'165797\' date=\'Oct 7 2007, 01:07 AM\']
The shred of optimist in me says the move to digital was done by carriers to get people to buy digital.
[/quote]
The move to digital was done because most cable carriers have a limited amount of bandwidth to work with, and they can cram 7 or 10 digital channels in the same bandwidth as it takes for one analog one. Which means they can have 7 to 10 times more ad space to sell to clients. Most cable operators, in fact, would LOVE to get everything to digital because that maximizes their earning potential.

(Here in Seattle, in fact, most of the analog channels already are mirrored on a digital band, and it is in fact the digital ones you see more often than not, even if you're dialing up a single-digit network channel.)

So if they're going to waste an analog channel (and by extension, their potential ad space) on something, it sure as hell isn't going to be a channel pulling hash-marks.

Dbacksfan12 · « **Reply #24 on:** October 07, 2007, 08:41:43 AM »

[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'165797\' date=\'Oct 7 2007, 03:07 AM\']
I guess on a side side side SIDE note, what eras of shows did they get to in those early years? Did they show early Trebek J (first few seasons), for example?[/quote]I didn't get the network until 1997, but I distinctly remember them airing early episodes.

tyshaun1 · « **Reply #25 on:** October 07, 2007, 09:58:30 AM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'165799\' date=\'Oct 7 2007, 04:26 AM\']
So if they're going to waste an analog channel (and by extension, their potential ad space) on something, it sure as hell isn't going to be a channel pulling hash-marks.
[/quote]
Ya know, I hear that, but then it makes me wonder why a certain channel by the name of G4 seems to be available on most analog channels when it would love the get the numbers of GSN these days.....

(Yes, I know they're owned by Comcast, but G4 still struggles to pull six digit viewership averages after 5 years)

Tyshaun

Chelsea Thrasher · « **Reply #26 on:** October 07, 2007, 11:25:29 AM »

[quote name=\'tyshaun1\' post=\'165812\' date=\'Oct 7 2007, 09:58 AM\']
(Yes, I know they're owned by Comcast, but G4 still struggles to pull six digit viewership averages after 5 years)
Tyshaun [/quote]

Because a lot of G4's carriage is inherited from TechTV, which Comcast ~~violated~~ bought in 2004. When Comcast bought the channel, the cable positions went to G4. TechTV was a middle tier station with fairly nice carriage among cable ops - which ultimately was why Comcast wanted the station in the first place - as there was a time they couldn't bribe the heads of the cable companies (or Dish Network for that matter) to run the station on it's basic tiers.

Matt Ottinger · « **Reply #27 on:** October 07, 2007, 11:34:19 AM »

[quote name=\'tyshaun1\' post=\'165812\' date=\'Oct 7 2007, 09:58 AM\']Ya know, I hear that, but then it makes me wonder why a certain channel by the name of G4 seems to be available on most analog channels when it would love the get the numbers of GSN these days.....
(Yes, I know they're owned by Comcast, but G4 still struggles to pull six digit viewership averages after 5 years)[/quote]
One, you vastly underestimate the importance of the "owned by Comcast" part. The Evil Empire protects its own.

Two, the G4 audience is primarily young men, the Holy Grail of advertisers. The GSN audience skews way, way, WAY older and much more female. Raw numbers don't matter as much as demographics, and GSN loses on both counts anyway.

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #28 on:** October 07, 2007, 12:08:43 PM »

Quote

Re: the first 5 years of the network though, was it really that good? I can certainly understand the allure of seeing Match Game in the clear whereas before you had to go on memories or fuzzy tape, but every shred of bumpers I've seen that shows what's coming up indicates a rather pedestrian lineup. Of curse, I got the network when it was at least 6 or 7 years old and the luster of these shows being seen again had faded some, but...black and white in primetime? Pish posh. Of course, they did have the advantage then of showing different runs of shows (shopping WoF!) and the biggie - TPIR.

I think a lot of it was the excitement of seeing these shows again, but their schedule seemed much more varied. The original schedule featured early years of syndie Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Tic Tac Dough, Joker's Wild, plus Goodson-Todman shows not seen in years. They didn't squeeze the credits, they had shows like Club AM and Prime Games where Laura Chambers and Peter Tomarken played games with viewers, took phone calls and talked about upcoming shows, etc. It just seemed like a much warmer, friendlier place.

By the second year, they added Jim Perry's Card Sharks. The third year saw the debut of The Price is Right. Then came Oct 1997, and the not-so-dark period. It gave us our only chance to see Break the Bank, $20,000 Pyramid, Hollywood Connection, and a pile of other shows not seen since.

When GT came back in April 1998, it gave us a chance to see shows like Match Game and Tattletales right from the beginning - with fewer skipped episodes as they got more celebrity clearances by then. Plus, they had the "Game of the Week", where rare shows like Eye Guess, Fun Factory or the 2000th Fleming Jeopardy appeared.

I agree that the B&W in primetime didn't work, that's one reason why they scrapped that idea after a couple of years, but by and large the first five years were great.

Eric Paddon · « **Reply #29 on:** October 07, 2007, 12:10:41 PM »

[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'165797\' date=\'Oct 7 2007, 04:07 AM\']Re: the first 5 years of the network though, was it really that good? [/quote]

In a word, YES! We're talking about a time when GSN was 24 hours of totally different programming all day long with no duplicates whatsoever. If a show was on twice a day you saw different sections of the run. We're also talking about a time when GSN was geared to an AMC (old AMC)-TCM approach to game shows as a rich legacy of television history, with vignette reminiscences by Gene Rayburn, Betsy Palmer, CNR etc. "Wide World Of Games" would see two hours of shows devoted to a theme every Saturday, and you'd also get a mini-version of it in "Weekend Showcase" overnight on Saturday/Sunday.

I got GSN in 1997 just seven weeks before the "Dark Period" began, and I filled up more than 35 tapes of material in that span because it was like being a kid in a candy store with an avalanche of riches to chose from. That's a time we'll alas never see again.