New WWTBAM season: Not good ratings news.

[Jimmy Owen]

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/distribution/syndication-ratings-rookie-race-opens-tight/144581
Broadcasting reporting lowest rating ever for new season of WWTBAM.

[cmjb13]

Noteworthy that maybe Feud is finally starting to cool off.

[TimK2003]

Noteworthy that maybe Feud is finally starting to cool off.

Judging by the reports on another thread as to what/where game shows are airing this season, it looks like there aren't as many markets where OTA stations are overdosing on 4-6 episodes of Feud a day. 

[BrandonFG]

Hopefully the ratings pick up soon...Celebrity Name Game got off to a pretty slow start as well last year.

[Kevin Prather]

How much weight do these numbers (only two weeks into the season) usually carry?

[Joe Mello]

Hopefully the ratings pick up soon...Celebrity Name Game got off to a pretty slow start as well last year.

The ratings listed were up to the 20th. CNG started on the 21st.

[Ian Wallis]

To be honest, I really wonder if WWTBAM is nearing its end.  They've tinkered with the game too much over the years and it just doesn't seem to have the magic it once did.  Plus, it doesn't seem to get the prime timeslots like Wheel and Jeopardy do.  I used to watch it every day, but I haven't seen it regularly in about four years.  Part of it is because it was only on a digital channel I couldn't get for a while, but when I finally did get it back it just wasn't that interesting with the shuffling format.

Another thing is that nobody's won the top prize in so long.  While I think the ABC version gave away the million way too often (sometimes with ridiculously easy questions), but the syndie version's gone too far the other way.  One million dollar winner every year or two I think is about right - but we've only had 3 in 14 syndicated seasons.

I said in another thread that I really like the changes this year.  For now I won't go out of my way to record it, but I'm hopefully ratings can gradually improve this year and I'll watch it whenever I can.  17 years is a pretty good run!

[BrandonFG]

Hopefully the ratings pick up soon...Celebrity Name Game got off to a pretty slow start as well last year.

The ratings listed were up to the 20th. CNG started on the 21st.

See the last two words of my post. And Kevin's point is pretty much how I feel...it's a small red flag, but it's also two weeks into the season.

Just like you can't forecast the football playoffs after three games, it's just too early to say Millionaire is toast. I'm sure it doesn't have the "timeslot security" that Wheel, Jeopardy! or even Feud are getting, nor does it air as often as the latter. Let people find the show and give it another shot.

[Chelsea Thrasher]

An improved format and host can't compete with literally dozens of time slot and affiliate downgrades.   Even within the confines of this small group here, look at the time slot/station thread from a month ago - there's relatively few markets where Millionaire didn't see some kind of demotion or reduction.

[TLEberle]

To be honest, I really wonder if WWTBAM is nearing its end.  They've tinkered with the game too much over the years and it just doesn't seem to have the magic it once did.  Plus, it doesn't seem to get the prime timeslots like Wheel and Jeopardy do.

Wouldn't it stand to reason that a station buying a quiz show wouldn't put it in competition with another established quiz show?

In Seattle, Millionaire now competes with Let's Make a Deal instead of The Price is Right. I thought it was well known that this was the farewell tour anyway.

[PYLdude]

Well, I wouldn't exactly call it the farewell tour yet (if you recall, it took me a good long while to enjoy the show and figured its cancellation was imminent for about seven years...plus stranger things have happened). But if your two biggest markets and your biggest champions among the stations airing your show are taking you away from the periods you've owned on those stations for years (that being KABC, WABC, and the ABC O&Os that carry Millionaire), it's pretty clear what they're trying to do.

And if they got everything done as early as they seemed to have done, maybe they just figure that they've got nothing to lose at this point because they had their fun, they made it to fourteen seasons, and they gave a ton of money away.

[TLEberle]

And if they got everything done as early as they seemed to have done, maybe they just figure that they've got nothing to lose at this point because they had their fun, they made it to fourteen seasons, and they gave a ton of money away.

or it could be that they didn't want to pay to rebuild the set again and pay to have everyone come back again when they could knock it out over the summer.

[PYLdude]

And if they got everything done as early as they seemed to have done, maybe they just figure that they've got nothing to lose at this point because they had their fun, they made it to fourteen seasons, and they gave a ton of money away.

or it could be that they didn't want to pay to rebuild the set again and pay to have everyone come back again when they could knock it out over the summer.

If that was the case, why haven't they done that all along?

[TLEberle]

If that was the case, why haven't they done that all along?

Situational annual dumbnity is what I had on my card.

(I don't know. I assume that it is in the interests of a game show to not have to strike their set all of the times, and that it saves them money each time they don't have to do that. But I'm not on their payroll so the above is my joke guess answer.)

[JonSea31]

Sounds like WWTBAM is most likely on the way out.  They've been modifying with the format since 2009, and even went through three hosts Iin three seasons.  As the saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  They repeatedly fixed the format, and broke it even more.  I don't suspect the series will last much longer - the probability of cancellation by May or early June seems pretty high.  Worse case scenarion, it was a wonderful ride.

The Regis Era was perhaps the best era, to me.