GSN Ratings Since the Changeover

[CaseyAbell]

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?

[clemon79]

[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....

[itiparanoid13]

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.

[MikeK]

[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.

[CaseyAbell]

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

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.

[BrandonFG]

[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.

[CaseyAbell]

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.

[Chelsea Thrasher]

[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 - SNL GS Parodies

[Jimmy Owen]

Perhaps the people who used to watch E! have switched to GSN.

[SRIV94]

[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

[uncamark]

[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?"

[DjohnsonCB]

[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.

[Jimmy Owen]

[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?

[CaseyAbell]

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

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.

[Jimmy Owen]

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.