The Elders Strike Back

[cmjb13]

Dumping Greed was, if I remember correctly, a knee-jerk decision after It's Your Chance of a Lifetime tanked, and clearly one they should have thought through.

Do you think Greed would have worn out it's welcome by now if it were still on?

[Don Howard]

[quote name=\'cmjb13\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 11:01 AM\'] Do you think Greed would have worn out it's welcome by now if it were still on? [/quote]
Quite possibly. But I'm guessing it had at least another year or two of good drawing power to go before being unceremoniously dumped.

[uncamark]

What we have here is the decisions of the Boomers coming back to haunt them.

When Leonard Goldenson decided to pitch ABC to advertisers based on demographics, he still believed in a mass appeal, broad-audience television network model, since along with "The Dating Game" and "Batman" he still had Lawrence Welk.  Demographics made what-was-then a weaker network with a weaker station lineup more of an attractive sale and also gave his network a programming distinction over CBS and NBC.

What I don't think Goldenson had in mind was younger demos becoming the *only* drawing card for advertisers.  We also had the ad agencies restructured so that the media buying decisions that used to be made by the more senior employees in the agency were now made by the newer employees, who simply didn't understand the appeal of older-skewing shows.  And let's face it--as the Boomers took over the power in media during the 70s and 80s, they thought that their generation was going to be the power generation in *everything* for the rest of their lives--and then got the biggest rebuff they could imagine when the advertisers dumped them like a wet blanket for the much smaller group of Gen-Xers.  (Now, the Gen-Xers are getting the same treatment as the ad community starts salivating for Gen-Yers.)

And the one problem game shows still have with advertisers that *are* interested in older demos is that the game show audience is considered much lower income than, say, the A&E/HGTV/Food Network audience that does attract advertising despite their older demos.  Remember that "Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker" movie ad with the fat housewife in the robe and bunny slippers nibbling on bons-bons in a trailer home taping a game show and playing it back to her son to make it look like she knew all of the answers?  That's what the ad community sees as game show fans--and they're not going to pitch Caddys, Infinitis, office computer systems or stock brokerage firms on GSN for that very reason.

And need I point out that the networks tried to go the relatively high road this past fall and do mostly-scripted programming--and that their key demos went way south as a result.  That's why you're going to be seeing more unscripted shows in the relationship genre in mid-season--and they aren't going away or being replaced by studio game shows any time soon.  We need another "WWTBAM"--and three "TPIR" specials every six months isn't that.

[gameshowguy2000]

[quote name=\'cmjb13\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 10:01 AM\']

Dumping Greed was, if I remember correctly, a knee-jerk decision after It's Your Chance of a Lifetime tanked, and clearly one they should have thought through.

Do you think Greed would have worn out it's welcome by now if it were still on? [/quote]
 I think cancelling Greed just because of IYCOAL's poor performance was a horrible idea.

I mean, would Greed's cancellation have that same effect on the performance of another short-lived Fox game show called The Chamber?

[ChuckNet]

I mean, would Greed's cancellation have that same effect on the performance of another short-lived Fox game show called The Chamber?

The Chamber just sucked of its own accord...nothing but a basic Q&A game w/the added dangers of extreme cold/heat.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[chris319]

[quote name=\'cmjb13\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 08:01 AM\']

Dumping Greed was, if I remember correctly, a knee-jerk decision after It's Your Chance of a Lifetime tanked, and clearly one they should have thought through.

Do you think Greed would have worn out it's welcome by now if it were still on?[/quote]
Aw, now you've pushed my Greed button.

Greed should never have been bought. It was a textbook example of weak concept meeting bad execution and nothing more than an expedient way to jump on the prime time quiz bandwagon of 1999. It wasn't quite as bad as Match Game '98 but not by much -- after all, you can only get so much mileage from questions about varieties of Swanson frozen dinners and flavors of Jell-O.

Greed made Mindreaders look like Shakespeare.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 11:37 PM\'] Greed should never have been bought. It was a textbook example of weak concept meeting bad execution and nothing more than an expedient way to jump on the prime time quiz bandwagon of 1999. It wasn't quite as bad as Match Game '98 but not by much -- after all, you can only get so much mileage from questions about varieties of Swanson frozen dinners and flavors of Jell-O.

Greed made Mindreaders look like Shakespeare. [/quote]
 I'm with Chris here. Once you base the questions on your big-money quizzer around questions based mostly on popularity polls, you have taken the "knowledge" out of the "general knowledege" part of the equation, and you just have "general". As in, a generally mediocre game show, whose only point of interest is that it was played for a truly sick amount of money. Which for some folks around here, is unfortunately good enough.

[tvrandywest]

Great dialogue, guys. Great insight from "Ol Guy" and "uncamark". Thanks for the stimulating reads.

Randy
tvrandywest.com

[TimK2003]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 03:30 AM\'] [quote name=\'TheInquisitiveOne\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 01:06 AM\'] This is exactly what I am talking about and why I am in support of AARP's efforts. Instead of asking us what they want, they're telling us what they want. [/quote]
But through their lobbying, isn't the AARP telling you what you want, too? [/quote]
 Not necessarily, but they are another big voice that can tell networks & advertisers that there are too many TV shows now with considerable sexual undertones and/or foul language.  There are still some shows that avoid taking that low road and they still get decent ratings.  

(i.e. Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond, Malcom in the Middle, and even 60 Minutes can do episodes that don't stress sex or bad words and they are constantly in the rating's upper echelon.)

[Jay Temple]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Jan 1 2004, 06:53 AM\'] [quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Dec 31 2003, 11:37 PM\'] Greed should never have been bought. It was a textbook example of weak concept meeting bad execution and nothing more than an expedient way to jump on the prime time quiz bandwagon of 1999. It wasn't quite as bad as Match Game '98 but not by much -- after all, you can only get so much mileage from questions about varieties of Swanson frozen dinners and flavors of Jell-O.

Greed made Mindreaders look like Shakespeare. [/quote]
I'm with Chris here. Once you base the questions on your big-money quizzer around questions based mostly on popularity polls, you have taken the "knowledge" out of the "general knowledege" part of the equation, and you just have "general". As in, a generally mediocre game show, whose only point of interest is that it was played for a truly sick amount of money. Which for some folks around here, is unfortunately good enough. [/quote]
 I agree halfway with you.  I think it was a well-constructed game except for the complaint I share, survey/study questions, like the only top-level question I know of.  I think it would have been great as a high-concept show:  "Which of these countries have produced a United Nations Secretary-General?"

[leszekp]

If you can dig up a copy of the 10/13/2002 NY Times Sunday Magazine, they had an article entitled "The Myth Of '18-34'" which discusses these issues. I'll have to summarize from memory, since you have to pay to see it online at:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html...DA90994DA404482

Here's the abstract:

"Jonathan Dee article questions logic behind higher price paid by advertisers to reach television viewers 18 to 34 years old; says that there are proportionally fewer viewers in this demographic than there used to be, that they have less money than they used to and that it is harder to separate them from that money than ever; notes that people over age of 50, who account for half of all discretionary spending in US and are voracious cultural consumers, are focus of less than 10 percent of advertising; photos (L)"

Some of the other points were:

1. Advertisers pitch to the 18-34 demographic because they believe that they can develop brand loyalty in these consumers. But there isn't a shred of evidence to indicate that's the case.

2. They don't pitch to the older demographic because they don't think they can sway them to change brands. And yet, there's no evidence to indicate that's the case, either.

3. Networks like Fox and the WB survive because they're able to tout their "superior" demographics in the face of lousy ratings. They're fighting hard to promote the '18-34' myth because if advertisers stop believing it, they'll go out of business.

[ITSBRY]

"Fox! Seventeen years, and we still haven't hit the bottom of the barrel!"

I'm mighty proud of this one:

"FOX- the network that can always sink just a little bit lower!"

ITSBRY
itsbry@juno.com

[The Ol' Guy]

I may believe there's still a little something to instilling positive reactions to brands in the young. It's probably a lot harder today because of multiple sponsorships of shows, but one thing that still influiences me today is that some of the shows I watched when I was younger, like Strike It Rich, were 100% sponsored by Colgate. Colgate was a game-friendly sponsor for many years (Dotto, Big Payoff, Top Dollar, Stump The Stars), and in appreciation, I buy with Colgate in mind. Maybe there are some other hooks and reasons only a shrink could dig up, but I remember they supported a lot of shows I liked when I was young, so I support them when I can. Now if I could only get my wife to buy Fab and Palmolive liquid. I wonder what she watched when she was younger..other than her pennies?

[ChuckNet]

"FOX- the network that can always sink just a little bit lower!"

With a possible return of Family Guy on the horizon, they may pull themselves up yet. :-)

ObGameShow: You know about FG's countless GS references.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[GSWitch]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Dec 30 2003, 11:17 PM\'] FOX=lowest common denominator television [/quote]
 The network that snubs Canada by NEVER televising a Toronto Blue Jays game on the Game of the Week.  Plus they would ALWAYS go into commercial during the singing of The Canadian National Anthem @ the Baseball All-Star Game.