The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: BrandonFG on October 20, 2003, 11:31:55 AM
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Was over at rec.arts.tv, and came across the ratings for what I believe is the week of 9/29, and found the following:
GAME/RELATIONSHIP
Wheel of Fortune: 8.6 (+ 6), Jeopardy: 6.6 (+ 2), Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire: 3.2 (+39), Family Feud: 2.6 (+30), Hollywood Squares: 2.2
(no change), Pyramid: 2.2 (+16), Blind Date and ElimiDate: 1.5 (-12
each), 5th Wheel: 1.1 (-27), Extreme Dating: 1.0
This looks really good for Millionaire, Feud, and Pyramid. H2 I'm not so sure on, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Feud pull a 3.0 by mid-season.
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The Millionaire improvement makes sense in year two, as people start to discover the program on their local stations. But the 30% improvement (that's been pretty consistant week to week) for Family Feud is remarkable this late in the show's run. Karn might be looking at a Year Three after all.
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I think it's cause people are looking at Feud now and saying "Wow...Family Feud looks different now...let's see what they did, or Hey, there's that guy from Home Improvement hosting Family feud! Let me see what's going on here..."
Something like that, I suppose...:-)
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Oct 20 2003, 10:31 AM\']Was over at rec.arts.tv, and came across the ratings for what I believe is the week of 9/29, and found the following:
GAME/RELATIONSHIP
Wheel of Fortune: 8.6 (+ 6), Jeopardy: 6.6 (+ 2), Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire: 3.2 (+39), Family Feud: 2.6 (+30), Hollywood Squares: 2.2
(no change), Pyramid: 2.2 (+16), Blind Date and ElimiDate: 1.5 (-12
each), 5th Wheel: 1.1 (-27), Extreme Dating: 1.0
This looks really good for Millionaire, Feud, and Pyramid. H2 I'm not so sure on, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Feud pull a 3.0 by mid-season.[/quote]
This was "Pyramid"'s first uptick week of the season--but what an uptick.
"H2" has gone up, it's gone down, it's static (although I believe its one up week was John Ritter's week). It's way too early to pronounce any kind of sentence for it (particularly since it just had a time change in Chicago). They should hope for a good November sweeps, since that at least will get KW to push the show hard during NATPE.
The interesting part is the immense dropoff of relationship shows as an entire genre--and the general upturn in traditional game shows (last season, "ElimiDate" was the only gainer in the game/relationship genre). That's very good news.
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With the exception of Millionaire, the traditional game formats are all 30 years old or close to it; much older in the cases of Jeopardy! and Squares. If you accept the notion that Milionaire is actually a derivative of $64,000 Question, it's much older.
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The current (or a recent) issue of Entertainment Weekly actually had Millionaire at a 4.1 a week or two ago. That would be a huge change.
Of the top 30 syndie shows in that list, only three were games (not counting weekend reruns) -- you can probably figure out the other two.
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Oct 20 2003, 10:31 AM\'] Was over at rec.arts.tv, and came across the ratings for what I believe is the week of 9/29, and found the following:
GAME/RELATIONSHIP
Wheel of Fortune: 8.6 (+ 6), Jeopardy: 6.6 (+ 2), Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire: 3.2 (+39), Family Feud: 2.6 (+30), Hollywood Squares: 2.2
(no change), Pyramid: 2.2 (+16), Blind Date and ElimiDate: 1.5 (-12
each), 5th Wheel: 1.1 (-27), Extreme Dating: 1.0
This looks really good for Millionaire, Feud, and Pyramid. H2 I'm not so sure on, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Feud pull a 3.0 by mid-season. [/quote]
WHat about Street Smarts' ratings? those are not listed(9/29 was the first week of new shows for SS)
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[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Oct 20 2003, 05:48 PM\'] [quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Oct 20 2003, 10:31 AM\'] Was over at rec.arts.tv, and came across the ratings for what I believe is the week of 9/29, and found the following:
GAME/RELATIONSHIP
Wheel of Fortune: 8.6 (+ 6), Jeopardy: 6.6 (+ 2), Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire: 3.2 (+39), Family Feud: 2.6 (+30), Hollywood Squares: 2.2
(no change), Pyramid: 2.2 (+16), Blind Date and ElimiDate: 1.5 (-12
each), 5th Wheel: 1.1 (-27), Extreme Dating: 1.0
This looks really good for Millionaire, Feud, and Pyramid. H2 I'm not so sure on, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Feud pull a 3.0 by mid-season. [/quote]
WHat about Street Smarts' ratings? those are not listed(9/29 was the first week of new shows for SS) [/quote]
I didn't see anything about it...it didn't even hit me. Would the fact that it has overnight time slots in most markets have anything to do with it?
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Forgive me for being stupid, but do the numbers in parentheses refer to percentage changes in ratings?
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Forgive me for being stupid, but do the numbers in parentheses refer to percentage changes in ratings?
Not a stupid question if you aren't used to reading ratings. Yes, they are percentage increases or decreases from the same week a year ago.
Eric
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[quote name=\'goongas\' date=\'Oct 20 2003, 08:22 PM\']
Forgive me for being stupid, but do the numbers in parentheses refer to percentage changes in ratings?
Not a stupid question if you aren't used to reading ratings. Yes, they are percentage increases or decreases from the same week a year ago.
Eric [/quote]
If so, I'm afraid this marks the end of H²....
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[quote name=\'Dsmith\' date=\'Oct 20 2003, 08:37 PM\']If so, I'm afraid this marks the end of H²....[/quote]
I'm afraid that that's spurious logic. Pulling a single week out of the year, and comparing its ratings to a single week from last year, is not going to give you a very good sample.
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..and for what it's worth, I'm among those really pulling for H2 to have a couple of more years. There's one thing about it that feels a bit awkward, tho. Since I wasn't a fan of the W. Goldberg days, I didn't catch how the current incarnation came just fired out of the barrel. Really getting into the show last season, it's weird to watch it now and really feel the prize budget cutbacks. It just makes the show feel cheap. It scares me a bit, as they finally turn the show around, then it goes from decent budget to cheapo. I totally understand why, but it almost makes you wish that the show had started low-end and stayed that way, getting by on it's comedy and it's charm, so you don't feel like now it's a show reeking of desperation. Am I making sense?
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[quote name=\'The Ol' Guy\' date=\'Oct 21 2003, 05:29 PM\'] ..and for what it's worth, I'm among those really pulling for H2 to have a couple of more years. There's one thing about it that feels a bit awkward, tho. Since I wasn't a fan of the W. Goldberg days, I didn't catch how the current incarnation came just fired out of the barrel. Really getting into the show last season, it's weird to watch it now and really feel the prize budget cutbacks. It just makes the show feel cheap. It scares me a bit, as they finally turn the show around, then it goes from decent budget to cheapo. I totally understand why, but it almost makes you wish that the show had started low-end and stayed that way, getting by on it's comedy and it's charm, so you don't feel like now it's a show reeking of desperation. Am I making sense? [/quote]
You're making perfect sense. While I still like it, it really does feel cheaper now.
Brandon Brooks
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[quote name=\'Brandon Brooks\' date=\'Oct 21 2003, 05:47 PM\'] You're making perfect sense. While I still like it, it really does feel cheaper now.
[/quote]
I suggest that maybe it's just about right now.
And this is Yet Another problem with a game show giving out oodles of money for no good reason....once you STOP, and you get your budget back to something reasonable, people think you're being cheap. Same thing happened when Twenty-One went to (a still-exhorbitant, IMO) $25K for the first win.
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and I'm with you on that. Like I say - if they had started where it is now and stayed on that track, you wouldn't feel like the show is hurting. I just hope it doesn't make too many viewers feel like their $1 weekly allowance was cut to 50 cents, making them think, "then who cares?" Perhaps King World should keep focusing their promotion more on the comedy than the prizes or even the game. Squares has never really been about the money...
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My hope is that the decreased prizes means that Squares is less expensive to produce this year, making it slightly more likely that it'll see another season. Of course, my hope could be completely unfounded, since the prize budget isn't a game show's biggest expense and it still needs to have decent ratings, but maybe...?
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Scott Robinson
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I'm less concerned about the prize budget, and more concerned about the talent budget. I've heard that it's next to nothing. Almost seems like if it does manage to survive for another year, Viacom may try to combine the prize and talent budgets to save even more money.
Ben T.
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[quote name=\'bttritle\' date=\'Oct 22 2003, 03:20 PM\']I'm less concerned about the prize budget, and more concerned about the talent budget. I've heard that it's next to nothing. Almost seems like if it does manage to survive for another year, Viacom may try to combine the prize and talent budgets to save even more money.[/quote]
Weren't they paying them scale anyway, outside of the regulars (or regular, since Martin Mull seemed to be the only one this year and last year) and center squares?
They may not be giving out the stocked gift baskets like they did back in the Whoopi days (and I noticed that for the "Pyramid" celeb gift baskets Sony has to run a plug for Crabtree & Evelyn in the credits, probably a first for a game show). They may also be either going to a deli or sending people to the CBS commissary rather than having Wolfgang Puck or other chi-chi caterers doing the meal.