The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => Game Show Channels & Networks => Topic started by: CaseyAbell on May 29, 2004, 04:35:24 PM
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Saw a story in MultiChannel about GSN's new programming guy, Ian Valentine. Mostly the same as I've seen elsewhere, but there was a reference to GSN's numbers since the March 15 changeover:
"Since the March name change, primetime ratings have remained flat at a 0.5 through May, after suffering a 20% drop from 2002 to 2003.
"'I think that [GSN president] Rich Cronin began to point a new direction for the channel with the name change and the new slate of programming that I find exciting and challenging,' Valentine said. 'My job is to look at what’s working, and to find new stuff that might work to begin to broaden the appeal of the channel beyond just an audience that likes game shows to a much larger audience that enjoys competition, games and play-alongs.'
"While classic game shows will continue to remain a daytime staple, Valentine said the network will employ more original and acquired reality and gaming shows in primetime and during late night."
That 0.5 number is better than the numbers GSN generally got in April and May last year (each line shows the week, the prime time household rating, the number of households in prime time, and the rank in the top 40 ad-supported cablers):
04/01/03-04/06/03 Out of top 40, less than 215,000 hh
04/07/03-04/13/03 0.5 267,000 35
04/14/03-04/20/03 0.4 216,000 38
04/21/03-04/27/03 0.4 213,000 38
04/28/03-05/04/03 0.4 229,000 35
05/05/03-05/11/03 0.3 177,000 40
05/12/03-05/18/03 0.4 208,000 37
05/19/03-05/25/03 0.3 172,000 40
I got these numbers from the old CableWorld site. Unfortunately, that site no longer publishes weekly stats for free.
So the new stuff isn't killing GSN's household ratings. The demos may be getting a little younger. At least every ad on the network is no longer plugging arthritis meds. And the network has picked up a few new advertisers like Coke and Burger King.
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Can they tell if there are any new viewers or is it still just us watching?
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So much for those Spin-Off reruns I was hoping for.
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Not to offend you, Casey, but am I the only person who finds the term "cabler" annoying?
(Of course, I can't stand listening to the newsreaders on ESPNews, either, since they seem incapable of speaking standard English....)
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(Of course, I can't stand listening to the newsreaders on ESPNews, either, since they seem incapable of speaking standard English....)
That's because you were watching ESPNDeportes. :-)
ObGameShows: Anyone remember Two Minute Drill?
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[quote name=\'Fedya\' date=\'May 29 2004, 08:39 PM\'] Not to offend you, Casey, but am I the only person who finds the term "cabler" annoying?
[/quote]
"cabler", "web" instead of "network", "bows" instead of "debuts" or "premiers", and any of 472 other terms a poster might use to prove that they don't realize that most Variety writers are a bunch of hacks.
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I mentally substitute "writer I don't like" for the term "hack," a word I find annoying. It's just as easy to substitute "cable network" for "cabler" if that term rubs you the wrong way.
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'May 30 2004, 10:12 AM\'] I mentally substitute "writer I don't like" for the term "hack," a word I find annoying. It's just as easy to substitute "cable network" for "cabler" if that term rubs you the wrong way. [/quote]
I prefer "irritates" to "rubs you the wrong way."
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I prefer "irritates" to "rubs you the wrong way."
Fair enough. Make the mental substitution.
BTW, I decided to play amateur word-historian and did a Google web and news search on "cabler." No question the term originated with Variety, but it's now spread to many other media sites. I even found the term on the Motley Fool site. As irritating as it may be to some - or as much as it may rub them the wrong way - the term looks to have settled in as a convenient shorthand for "cable network."
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'May 30 2004, 10:51 AM\'] As irritating as it may be to some - or as much as it may rub them the wrong way - the term looks to have settled in as a convenient shorthand for "cable network." [/quote]
"The dumbing down of America"
Ain't it great...
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[quote name=\'catnap1972\' date=\'May 30 2004, 11:09 AM\'] "The dumbing down of America"
Ain't it great... [/quote]
Something I keep trying to prevent from happening to this board, and yet, progress marches on...
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To get back on topic, it's not great news for GSN, but it is good. They haven't lost viewership since the new name launch and their demos seem to be skewing younger in primetime which is what they wanted.
They've stopped the bleeding, now they just need to grow. They really need to get a head start on the upcoming Reality Central network that is coming later this year. Supposedly they're also in the market for off-net reality reruns and original programs as well as foreign versions of shows like "The Mole" and "Big Brother". I, for one, would love to see Big Brother UK as it airs across the pond.
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It'll be interesting to see if the reality network can defeat the old cliche about reality not repeating well. I agree the CABLER (sorry, but I'm dumbing down America just as "footballer" must have dumbed down Britain) should try to get shows that haven't been seen widely in this country, like UK Big Brother. Unfortunately the imports might have so many local references that American audiences could tune out.
GSN should be able to show good year-to-year growth over the next several months, because the comparisons to last year will be so easy. The numbers really tanked in the July-September quarter last year. The percentage increases in younger demos might look particularly good.
BTW, I bet there are still some old farts in Britain who think the empire's downfall can be traced to "footballer" as a shorthand for "football player" and other such abominations against the Queen's English.
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I'd love to see subtitled versions of our shows that air over seas, for example the Mexican Familly Fued, and Version of Price is Right, air during thel ate night hours, but I know that'll never happen :).
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GSN is trending away from game shows that are in English; foreign language shows seem to me to be an unlikely prospect. One thing they could get is the old web feeds (assuming they were saved somehow) of previous seasons of "Big Brother" and play that 20/7 (four hours of infomercials a night)
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It'll be interesting to see if the reality network can defeat the old cliche about reality not repeating well.
You even admitted yourself that you couldn't watch the first season of the Mole again, since you already knew what happened. I don't see why it should be any different with, say, Star Search or Survivor or Big Brother.
I agree the CABLER (sorry, but I'm dumbing down America just as "footballer" must have dumbed down Britain)
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
GSN should be able to show good year-to-year growth over the next several months, because the comparisons to last year will be so easy. The numbers really tanked in the July-September quarter last year.
Which means very little. The numbers last year were so bad that anything would be an improvement on them. The real test will be in the later parts of this year and early next year.
The percentage increases in younger demos might look particularly good.
Let's see how much that means in the long run.
BTW, I bet there are still some old farts in Britain who think the empire's downfall can be traced to "footballer" as a shorthand for "football player" and other such abominations against the Queen's English.
And this pointless remark has what to do with the topic again?
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[quote name=\'PeterMarshallFan\' date=\'May 30 2004, 05:05 PM\']
BTW, I bet there are still some old farts in Britain who think the empire's downfall can be traced to "footballer" as a shorthand for "football player" and other such abominations against the Queen's English.
And this pointless remark has what to do with the topic again? [/quote]
Yeah, because you've never made an aside in your life. Lighten up, Francis.
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'May 30 2004, 07:02 PM\']GSN is trending away from game shows that are in English; foreign language shows seem to me to be an unlikely prospect. One thing they could get is the old web feeds (assuming they were saved somehow) of previous seasons of "Big Brother" and play that 20/7 (four hours of infomercials a night)[/quote]
I'm only speaking for myself, but if this were somehow to actually happen, I would firmly commit to never watching GSN again (of course this is fairly easy, since I don't have the channel in the first place, and haven't since October 2002).
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You even admitted yourself that you couldn't watch the first season of the Mole again, since you already knew what happened.
"The Mole" is one reality show I'd definately watch again. Even though I know what happened, it would make it more interesting looking for the "hidden clues" to the Mole's identidy.
That's the one fault I had with the show - the hidden clues were a bit too obscure most of the time.
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No, I couldn't watch the first series of Mole again, but I thought the show was a well-produced series with a clever, double-suspense format. It's just hard for many viewers to commit to hours of a show where they already know the outcome. But you don't need scads of viewers to keep a niche cable operation going. So maybe the reality network will get by even with shows that have been seen before in the U.S.
As for GSN's easy year-to-year comparisons over the next several months, thanks for agreeing with me. It's kinda funny to read over some of the threads last year on the GSN board where various posters insisted that the Boden originals were ruining the network's numbers. Sounds strangely familiar, only now it's "reality crap" that's destroying the network.
In fact, little of the new stuff on the network this summer qualifies as what most viewers would call reality. Dog Eat Dog is just an elaborate studio stunt show, sort of Beat the Clock on roids. Street Smarts is an offshoot of Family Feud and Match Game. Star Search is a talent contest, which some might call "reality" but hardly has the same look and feel as, say, The Apprentice. Dodgeball and Greek Games look like sport/stunt competitions, something like American Gladiators only they don't take themselves so seriously. Celeb Blackjack is a game show, though there have been long and arduous arguments about this on the GSN board.
Vegas Weddings might be the closest thing to a straight reality show. Doubt it will last long, though.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'May 30 2004, 10:03 PM\'] Yeah, because you've never made an aside in your life. Lighten up, Francis. [/quote]
Fair warning, Chris: if you start talking about how you rarely wear underwear, I'm gonna throw up. :-)
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I've read this entire post multiple times, and maybe I'm and idiot, but Is GSN (or "BS"N) tanking or not?
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[quote name=\'HairMetalLives\' date=\'Jun 1 2004, 05:35 PM\'] I've read this entire post multiple times, and maybe I'm and idiot, but Is GSN (or "BS"N) tanking or not? [/quote]
In short, it's been steady since the changeover, which is good for GSN. The key part is to see if the channel grows over the summer, or if it remains where it is, since .5 has generally been GSN's rating ceiling for a LONG time.
Tyshaun
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Variety has published its usual story about big gainers and losers among cable networks for the month:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/v..._record_month_1 (http://\"http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/variety/20040602/va_ne_al/tnt_nets_record_month_1\")
For May GSN was up 28% over May, 2003 in prime time total viewers. That sounds more impressive than it is, because May, 2003 was a bad month for GSN. From the stats on the old CableWorld site, I figure the network only attracted a little over 200K households in prime time in May, 2003. So in May, 2004 GSN probably got about 260K households, on average, in prime time.
That's pretty good by GSN standards but it hardly puts the network among the cable leaders. The figure is also right in line with the 0.5 rating that MultiChannel published (based on GSN's claimed access to 54 million households).
With a new series of Blackjack in July and Dog Eat Dog (a decent summer ratings performer on NBC) in June, GSN should continue to show good prime time growth over last year. The comparisons to the anemic 2003 numbers will be very easy.
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'May 29 2004, 03:35 PM\']Saw a story in MultiChannel about GSN's new programming guy, Ian Valentine. Mostly the same as I've seen elsewhere, but there was a reference to GSN's numbers since the March 15 changeover:
"Since the March name change, primetime ratings have remained flat at a 0.5 through May, after suffering a 20% drop from 2002 to 2003.
"'I think that [GSN president] Rich Cronin began to point a new direction for the channel with the name change and the new slate of programming that I find exciting and challenging,' Valentine said. 'My job is to look at what’s working, and to find new stuff that might work to begin to broaden the appeal of the channel beyond just an audience that likes game shows to a much larger audience that enjoys competition, games and play-alongs.'
"While classic game shows will continue to remain a daytime staple, Valentine said the network will employ more original and acquired reality and gaming shows in primetime and during late night."
That 0.5 number is better than the numbers GSN generally got in April and May last year (each line shows the week, the prime time household rating, the number of households in prime time, and the rank in the top 40 ad-supported cablers):
04/01/03-04/06/03 Out of top 40, less than 215,000 hh
04/07/03-04/13/03 0.5 267,000 35
04/14/03-04/20/03 0.4 216,000 38
04/21/03-04/27/03 0.4 213,000 38
04/28/03-05/04/03 0.4 229,000 35
05/05/03-05/11/03 0.3 177,000 40
05/12/03-05/18/03 0.4 208,000 37
05/19/03-05/25/03 0.3 172,000 40
I got these numbers from the old CableWorld site. Unfortunately, that site no longer publishes weekly stats for free.
So the new stuff isn't killing GSN's household ratings. The demos may be getting a little younger. At least every ad on the network is no longer plugging arthritis meds. And the network has picked up a few new advertisers like Coke and Burger King.[/quote]
They may as well remove the "S" from GSN®, since they've altered their format (and quality) and diverted slowly from game shows!
GN® - The Network For Games
It'll never be the same, though.
What they should have done is create a separate channel devoted to reality game repeats, instead of ridding Game Show Network® of its pride and dignity. Kathie Lee Gifford said it best: all they ever make these reality shows for is at the expense of humiliation of others. It's appalling that networks are getting rich off them...
"Gimme games!"? Naw. If I want games, I'll tune in to ESPN.
Keep your bloody "games"; gameshows are and forever will be my speed.
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They may as well remove the "S" from GSN®, since they've altered their format (and quality) and diverted slowly from game shows!
Oh, some. GSN has picked up Dog Eat Dog and Street Smarts and will give them both lots of play. These are definitely game shows. At least that's what they call themselves on their web sites, and I don't see any reason to disagree.
I also think Celeb Blackjack is a game show. It's even staged in a studio instead of a casino, removing the one objective disqualification from the title. Purely subjective reasons like "it feels more like a sport than a game show to me" don't cut much ice with moi. What athletic abilities are being tested in this "sport"? Chip-pushing? But I've argued this too much on the GSN board.
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Celeb. Blackjack is a game show in the same way "Almost Anything Goes" was a game show. There is no host conducting the festivities, rather there are a couple of guys doing play-by-play. I do want GSN to succeed, but not at the expense of the stuff I enjoy watching, and that is old reruns of Goodson-Todman and Bill Cullen shows. I feel I did get a goldmine of stuff on video over the years and I am thankful. I feel though, that they have progressed beyond me.
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What I want to know is how you guys can make such grandiose proclamations, having not seen a SINGLE FRAME of this program.
Now, based on what very little I have heard, it SEEMS like it has game-show elements. But I can't and won't say that with certainty until I've seen the final product.
[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\' Jun 3 2004, 01:39 PM\']I do want GSN to succeed, but not at the expense of the stuff I enjoy watching, and that is old reruns of Goodson-Todman and Bill Cullen shows.[/quote]
You should want them to succeed regardless, because the success of GSN, in whatever format, is a demonstration that programming a cable channel to a niche audience CAN succeed, and right now that's about the only way you're gonna see your G/T shows again, if someone notices GSN's success and tries to duplicate it.
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I always thought the Internet was designed for grandiose proclamations. Anyway, I hashed through such a long debate on the GSN boards about whether Blackjack was a game show that I don't have the energy to do it all again. I will say the civvie series had some banter (boring but competent) between the contestants and the hostess. The celeb series sounds like it will have plenty of give-and-take between the dealer-host and the players. How much back-and-forth do you need before you reach the magic threshold of game-show-dom?
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Admittedly, I don't know what it will look like. If it looks more like "Gambit" than "World Series of Blackjack," I will be very interested. I got the impression that it will be somewhat similar to the card game telecasts by Bravo, ESPN, Travel Channel, etc. I don't think those networks are calling those shows "game shows."
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Funny story, but true. On my Comcast digital system, I was flipping through the upcoming schedule on GSN and hit the "Info" button for Blackjack. There was a brief description of the show followed by..."(Game Show)."
I literally laughed out loud. If whoever wrote that innocent little description only knew how many phosphors have been spilled over..."(Game Show)."
Just noticed that Zap2it describes Millionaire, Dog Eat Dog and Blackjack with..."(Game)." Not "(Game Show)." Just "(Game)."
Gotta smile, no?
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Jun 4 2004, 05:55 AM\'] I literally laughed out loud. If whoever wrote that innocent little description only knew how many phosphors have been spilled over..."(Game Show)."
[/quote]
Tivo does it too. Of course, Tivo also considers much of G4 (now G4TechTV, and as I expected, it sucks) to be Game Shows, since they are in fact shows about games....
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Hell, my interactive guide called some dumb flea market show on BBC America (when I was looking for one of my favorite sitcoms) a game show, when it was just people looking in a flea market. Those guides are not the most reliable source for genre classification.
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[quote name=\'itiparanoid13\' date=\'Jun 4 2004, 03:07 PM\'] Hell, my interactive guide called some dumb flea market show on BBC America (when I was looking for one of my favorite sitcoms) a game show, when it was just people looking in a flea market. Those guides are not the most reliable source for genre classification. [/quote]
"Bargain Hunt"? That's a game show. Two teams of two players go bargain shopping at a flea market. A few days later, their purchases are put on the auction block. Whichever team's items make the most profit at auction wins the amount of the profit.
If you're talking about "Cash in the Attic", that's definitely not a game show.
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Feels a little weird reviving a long-dormant thread. But Variety just published its oh-jeeze-let's-do-it-again-for-the-zillionth-time monthly roundup of gainers and losers in cable. GSN was up 28% in July over the same month last year in average prime time viewers:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/v...or_safer__sex_1 (http://\"http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/variety/20040727/va_tv_ne/auds_droop_for_safer__sex_1\")
GSN seems stuck on that 28% improvement, though it's a nice figure to be stuck on. It was the same number in May.
In a strange way the number is both more and less impressive than it seems. Less impressive because the network stunk it up in July 2003, giving it an easy comparison. Last year at this time Funny Money, the second season of Cram, and Naturally Stoned were all sinking like, er, natural stones. And the other Boden originals were burning out in reruns.
OTOH, the number is more impressive because the network has managed nice year-over-year growth while shifting its focus somewhat (though I think the shift has been as greatly exaggerated as the rumors of game shows' death).
Anyway, the number is good news for the three shows that chewed up about two-thirds of prime time in July: Millionaire, Dog Eat Dog and Celeb Blackjack. And GSN may be getting a little younger in the demos, if their press releases about Blackjack and Dodgeball are to be believed.
Technical point: "July" for ratings purposes means June 28 through July 25.
Off-topic point: I'm a little surprised by the big decline for E! Thought that network was cleaning up. Maybe they just had a very tough comparison to July, 2003.
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[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Jul 28 2004, 09:14 AM\'] Off-topic point: I'm a little surprised by the big decline for E! Thought that network was cleaning up. Maybe they just had a very tough comparison to July, 2003. [/quote]
I'm not.
Most of E!'s lineup are those dumbass "Top 100" lists. Just when I thought VH-1 had the most ridiculous lists, E! proves me wrong. "100 Most Starlicious Makeovers?" What in the flying f.........amily-board; watch the language. ;-)
ObGameShow: Hal Sparks formerly of "Talk Soup" has a few game show connections.
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I hardly ever watch E! - well, I liked the Family Feud dirtfest - so I'm hardly defending their programming. I just thought that I had read the network was doing fairly well. Guess I remembered wrong.
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Jul 28 2004, 10:45 AM\'] Most of E!'s lineup are those dumbass "Top 100" lists. [/quote]
I believe, and I know this is going off-topic (Me? Go Off-Topic? Never...), that it was one of those dumbass Top 100 shitfests that caused NBC to sue E! in relation to the SNL license (ending reruns on the net after a grandiose 1 week...
Such a waste...
ObGameShows: http://gameshow.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4993 (http://\"http://gameshow.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=4993\") - SNL GS Parodies
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Perhaps the people who used to watch E! have switched to GSN.
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jun 4 2004, 11:07 AM\'] G4TechTV, and as I expected, it sucks [/quote]
Granted I'm not in the same field you are (and don't really follow the genre that closely), so my interest in the channel a bit more limited, but it does bother me that with the merging of the two channels that my cable system hasn't figured out that G4TTV is now actually on two different channels (and all of the nets that they could be showing instead).
Screwy, isn't it? :)
Doug
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[quote name=\'Seth Thrasher\' date=\'Jul 28 2004, 12:12 PM\'][quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Jul 28 2004, 10:45 AM\'] Most of E!'s lineup are those dumbass "Top 100" lists. [/quote]
I believe, and I know this is going off-topic (Me? Go Off-Topic? Never...), that it was one of those dumbass Top 100 shitfests that caused NBC to sue E! in relation to the SNL license (ending reruns on the net after a grandiose 1 week...[/quote]
That was it.
E! announced a "101 Greatest SNL Moments" show that would've run back in January. NBC immediately sued them, claiming that the show would've been a violation of their contract (in that the material was not allowed to be used for clip shows or similar programming that they or Lorne Michaels could not control). Have not heard any progress on the proceedings, but the repeats remain off the air for the immediate future.
Seems to me that NBC may not've been that happy back when E! had the rights to Letterman "Late Night" and would show clips on "Talk Soup" (and Letterman would probably be livid himself, since he never allowed clips from his show or Snyder/Kilby to be used on "Talk Soup" and didn't like the fact that NBC was repackaging "Late Night" for cable).
E!'s loss will probably be Bravo's gain in a year or two.
ObGameShow: "Quien es Mas Macho?--David Yanssen, Lloyd BREE-ges o Yack Lord?"
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[quote name=\'Don Howard\' date=\'May 29 2004, 08:20 PM\'] So much for those Spin-Off reruns I was hoping for. [/quote]
That makes two of us, though it would still make sense for GSN as opposed to any other network to put them on, as I mentioned in a recent e-mail to Jim Lange.
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[quote name=\'DjohnsonCB\' date=\'Jul 29 2004, 12:21 AM\'] [quote name=\'Don Howard\' date=\'May 29 2004, 08:20 PM\'] So much for those Spin-Off reruns I was hoping for. [/quote]
That makes two of us, though it would still make sense for GSN as opposed to any other network to put them on, as I mentioned in a recent e-mail to Jim Lange. [/quote]
I dunno, since "Spin-Off" is based on poker, wouldn't it be a better fit for Bravo or ESPN2?
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Not really relevant to GSN because the list doesn't go down far enough. But MediaLifeMagazine has published the actual viewer numbers that generated the percentage changes in the Variety story:
http://69.20.6.242/news2004/Jul04/Jul26/4_...s5thursday.html (http://\"http://69.20.6.242/news2004/Jul04/Jul26/4_thurs/news5thursday.html\")
Impossible to tell for sure, but GSN looks to have landed somewhere in the 30th-35th vicinity among the rated networks. That's about as well as GSN has ever done. Who knows, one of these days I may click on the MediaLifeMagazine monthly roundup and see that GSN has struggled into the top 25...especially if the network can start growing its household availability again.
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Interesting to note that the top rated program in all of cable on that release is a remake of a 1960 show listed in the EOTeeVeeGS as a game show. I don't really consider the show a game, but some folks do and as such should be given props.
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ESPN Classic actually showed a few eps of that ancient Home Run Derby epic a few years ago. The production was almost amateurish...no crowd, not many cameras, a literally lost-in-LA atmosphere. Couldn't have been more different from today's derby.
But what a procession of Hall-of-Famers! Aaron, Mantle, Mays, Banks, Killebrew...an incredible group of all-time greats. I remember the contest between Mantle and Mays, which I believe Mickey won by a single homer. It was like watching the Cooperstown plaques come alive.