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New Updated Schedule?

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Ian Wallis:

--- Quote ---Of course, some would welcome this nightmare in the hope that GSN would suddenly start flooding prime time with game show rarities from the vaults. I think the chances for this scenario are somewhat less than zero.
--- End quote ---


I agree with that.  Even if this "experiment" fails, they'll probably just start running "Match Game" et al over and over to try to gain back the audience.  Ever since GSN began, they haven't exactly been big on running "rarities" from the vault.

Unfortunatly.

CaseyAbell:
You can see some interesting peaks and valleys in the GSN numbers. The highest-rated week in this list was 3/10/03-3/16/03, thanks to the Big Bucks special. You might recall GSN's press release about the nice ratings the show got. Repeats helped produce good numbers the following week, but the one-time effect quickly wore off.

When the ratings really hit the skids in late summer 2003, there were some panicky threads on the GSN boards about the falloff. Some guy quoted Variety stories about how the network was tumbling from year-ago levels...which was completely true.

Speculation about the causes for the falloff mostly centered on burnout of the Boden originals and the launch of shows like Funny Money, which didn't do so great.

People chatter that Boden's eventual exit had to do with GSN's decision to move into non-traditional programming. That might have been a factor, but the alarming decline in the ratings in August and September 2003 may also have played a part. Basically, the network dumped every one of his originals except Lingo out of prime time as part of the survival strategy.

EDIT: At the risk of turning this entry into the Internet version of War and Peace, I'll natter on with some general thoughts about GSN's new programming direction.

To begin with what might seem heresy to some, I have a sneaking sympathy for Rich Cronin. He's nursed the network back to household-rating health, but he's still stuck with less than ideal demos. What to do?

The name "change" and logo refresh look trivial to me, but NEW is a valuable word in media. So I won't kvetch too much about the cosmetic changes. To me, though, the programming changes seem too much too fast.

Instead of tossing five shows out there to sink or swim, I would have introduced each new effort gradually with plenty of individual promotion. And I would have gone with shows that look more like traditional gamers first, to avoid wholesale mutiny among current viewers. Which means the blackjack show would have kicked off the changes and been given at least a few weeks to prove itself, instead of getting jumbled in with throwaways like Spy TV.

Reality efforts that include lots of game-show elements - Mole, Dog Eat Dog, Amazing Race if it ever becomes available - would have followed at discreet intervals. Again, each would have gotten plenty of individual promo time.

Finally, the wilder and crazier stuff - Average Joe, Fake-a-Date, Kenny vs. Spenny, Spy TV, the eventual dodgeball epic, Greek Games, whatever - would have followed at respectful distances...again, with lots of individual promotion.

Yes, this is a more cautious approach, and caution doesn't thrill anybody. But it sounds like a more reasonable way to hang onto the hard-won household gains while gradually attracting younger demos.

In his interview with the Prof, Cronin said that he didn't want a light-switch change. Sure enough, two-thirds of prime time is left undisturbed. But the light does switch on in a hurry at 10:00 PM Eastern.

I'm just not sure that some of the hour's new residents can stand the sudden illumination.

Jimmy Owen:
I'm not sure if five new shows at a time is a bad strategy.  I got more excited back in the day when the networks would show me three or four new daytime games than just one.  The first week of a new season had the same effect.  I'm treating next week as a "new season" for GSN.

Matt Ottinger:
We seem to go around and around the same points, so I'll make mine again.

GSN will never be the ratings-grabbing channel that Sony wants it to be, and changing the direction from "game shows" to "games" is a superficial and marginal difference at best.  Using more recent reruns and "edgier" originals will probably give them better ratings than the umpteenth replay of Card Sharks, but obviously at the expense of offending those of us who like our game shows in a studio, no matter how old they are.

So in short, this move is a positive change for the corporate bottom line, but only marginally.  It's not going to give them the results they want, but it'll probably give them better results than what they have.

tommycharles:
[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Mar 12 2004, 12:44 PM\'] We seem to go around and around the same points, so I'll make mine again.

GSN will never be the ratings-grabbing channel that Sony wants it to be, and changing the direction from "game shows" to "games" is a superficial and marginal difference at best.  Using more recent reruns and "edgier" originals will probably give them better ratings than the umpteenth replay of Card Sharks, but obviously at the expense of offending those of us who like our game shows in a studio, no matter how old they are.

So in short, this move is a positive change for the corporate bottom line, but only marginally.  It's not going to give them the results they want, but it'll probably give them better results than what they have. [/quote]
 But why does Sony expect it to be a ratings grabber? It's turning a profit (I think) and for what will always amount to a niche network, I don't think they can ask a whole lot more.

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