GSN September Ratings - Ouch

[CaseyAbell]

GSN's prime time ratings tumbled to their lowest level in September since CableWorld started publishing the monthly numbers last December. The network did a 0.3 overall household rating in prime time with an average household count of 193K.

It wasn't any general problem in cable, which did very well during the month despite the start of the broadcasters' seasons. GSN just slipped to 43rd out of fifty cable networks in the rankings, its lowest since the magazine started putting out the figures.

Possible explanations are a softening of Amazing Races's numbers and continued erosion in Millionaire. These shows account for about two-thirds of prime time, so they can't be doing all that swell. But Amazing Race may still be pulling younger demos than the network is used to. CableWorld doesn't publish any info on demos, individual shows, or non-prime time.

EDIT: Sounds like I'm trying to find excuses for GSN, but the endless hurricane coverage last month may have hurt the network. The news channels did great during September and might have cannibalized some other cable operations. Fox News was the top-rated network for the month, and CNN and even MSNBC did much better than usual.

Still, the lowest GSN had ever slipped in CableWorld's ratings was 40th of fifty. Now it's down to 43rd. Amazing Race just had its exposure trimmed a little, which might not be surprising in view of these numbers. GSN's prime time offerings are starting to look same old same old.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Oct 24 2005, 10:05 AM\']Still, the lowest GSN had ever slipped in CableWorld's ratings was 40th of fifty. Now it's down to 43rd. Amazing Race just had its exposure trimmed a little, which might not be surprising in view of these numbers. GSM's prime time offerings are starting to look same old same old.[/quote]
Exactly.  No matter what direction GSN wants to go in, and no matter what term we want to use to describe it, they're not going to get anywhere by running the same episodes over and over.  And since there are only so many already-made shows that even remotely fit their "network for games" moniker, it would seem the only chance they have to improve their position is with original programming.  We keep talking about how expensive that prospect is, but I still say there are ways of making good, engaging games on a shoestring that don't all look like Trivia Track.

[sshuffield70]

[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Oct 24 2005, 09:41 AM\'][quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Oct 24 2005, 10:05 AM\']Still, the lowest GSN had ever slipped in CableWorld's ratings was 40th of fifty. Now it's down to 43rd. Amazing Race just had its exposure trimmed a little, which might not be surprising in view of these numbers. GSM's prime time offerings are starting to look same old same old.[/quote]
Exactly.  No matter what direction GSN wants to go in, and no matter what term we want to use to describe it, they're not going to get anywhere by running the same episodes over and over.  And since there are only so many already-made shows that even remotely fit their "network for games" moniker, it would seem the only chance they have to improve their position is with original programming.  We keep talking about how expensive that prospect is, but I still say there are ways of making good, engaging games on a shoestring that don't all look like Trivia Track.

[snapback]100259[/snapback]

[/quote]

Which is something I've said for awhile.  I see nothing wrong with reviving old titles just for GSN like they did with Whammy.  But they can't just make 65 a year.  Needs to be at least 130 a year..(what's good for Chain Reaction is good for GSN.)

[BrandonFG]

How was the primetime original games block from 2002 doing in the ratings? I actually looked forward to coming home for Whammy, Russian Roulette, even Friend or Foe.

[CaseyAbell]

For the last four or five months of 2002, GSN did 0.4 or 0.5 virtually every week in prime time. As the Boden originals started to burn out in reruns, the weekly numbers dropped to 0.3 or 0.4 (or worse - sometimes GSN fell off the CableWorld charts altogether) in the second and third quarters of 2003. The household numbers perked up considerably when Millionaire arrived in the fourth quarter of 2003.

We may now be seeing the same burnout syndrome for Millionaire. Amazing Race lifted the numbers in July and August, but September was a downer.

GSN has announced an ambitious slate of originals, but they're chancy. Lingo and Russian Roulette did okay, but there have been a lot of flops. The current originals - dodgeball, pool and poker - don't seem to be doing great numbers.

[xibit777]

[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Oct 25 2005, 07:34 AM\']For the last four or five months of 2002, GSN did 0.4 or 0.5 virtually every week in prime time. As the Boden originals started to burn out in reruns, the weekly numbers dropped to 0.3 or 0.4 (or worse - sometimes GSN fell off the CableWorld charts altogether) in the second and third quarters of 2003. The household numbers perked up considerably when Millionaire arrived in the fourth quarter of 2003.

We may now be seeing the same burnout syndrome for Millionaire. Amazing Race lifted the numbers in July and August, but September was a downer.

GSN has announced an ambitious slate of originals, but they're chancy. Lingo and Russian Roulette did okay, but there have been a lot of flops. The current originals - dodgeball, pool and poker - don't seem to be doing great numbers.

[snapback]100346[/snapback]

[/quote]

And we have to remember, this is back in 2002.   I'm sure GSN has become much more widely available to households since then.    I would have to agree with you about the news cable channels stealing viewers.    Especially older viewers (such as that of the typical GSN viewer) would probably rather be interested in watching hurricane coverage than GSN.    They don't seem to be panicing after 1 bad month.  But if another comes along we might just see Millionaire, Dog Eat Dog, Dodgeball, and all that casino crap (except for the brand new ones) gone.    The prof reported on his site that Poker Royale is on a downswing in ratings.

What will replace them?   Wow they don't have many choices do they?   Lingo maybe is all I can think of but they already burned through the first run of those episodes.

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Oct 24 2005, 11:45 PM\']How was the primetime original games block from 2002 doing in the ratings? I actually looked forward to coming home for Whammy, Russian Roulette, even Friend or Foe.
[/quote]
This Article, from 12-03 states they pulled a 0.6 2 years ago...losing 1/2 of that in 2 years...seems to me that they may want to consider revising their gameplan...slightly.

[mmb5]

Aren't cable ratings based on your household availability?  So, in 2002, if they had a 0.6, it was based on 6/10ths of 1% of the households that could GSN in 2002, and that the 0.3 is based on 3/10ths of 1% of the households that can get GSN now.  The amount of household viewing is pretty much the same, but the rules make it worse.  Not that it is terribly acceptable, they're in MSNBC territory, but at least they're doing it a lot cheaper.

What amazes me is when you get down to the microrating level of the lesser cable networks, the number is pretty useless anyway.   If the Nielsen rating pool is still around 5,000 households, about half of those can get GSN, leaving about 2,500.  0.003 of 2,500 can be 8 viewers, and 0.004 of 2,500 can be 9 viewers.  Once I heard a story about the Westerns Channel in Canada (where you can get some digital offerings a la carte).  Their rating was entirely based on whether an older couple in Calgary was watching or not.


--Mike

[CaseyAbell]

Millionaire did juice GSN's household ratings after its debut in mid-October, 2003. That's why the network has ridden the show so hard and so long. Unfortunately for GSN, Regis is losing his household ratings punch due to rerun burnout. And the demos for the show - and GSN in general - skew very old.

So they did reconsider their game plan, and they brought in Amazing Race to freshen up prime time. The result was a modest rise in household ratings for July and August and much younger demos for the 9:00 hour.

But even Amazing Race seems to be showing signs of rerun burnout now. With no new blockbuster game shows or reality series to pick up, the network has announced an ambitious development slate of originals. We'll see if any of them can help.

By the way, Nielsen is doubling the size of their sample to about 10,000 households and 25,000 viewers, which should be completed by early 2006. I agree that tiny slivers of the audience are tough to catch with any sample. But the long-term downtrend in GSN's prime time household ratings probably is real, given the inevitable Millionaire burnout.

[xibit777]

Also Casey did post the total average viewer amount in primetime at 193k viewers.   So total viewers is down by a lot.  It's not just the household availability that is keeping the rating down.   In fact, with the amount of households that can watch GSN now, it should be significantly higher than it was 3 years ago.  Not lower by any amount.

I think GSN has probably done a pretty good job of driving away their core audience for primetime with these younger shows like Dog Eat Dog and Amazing Race.   Older folks probably turn off the channel when Amazing Race comes on and then they find other channels have things they like to watch, so they just stop tuning into GSN period around that time (thus missing Millionaire as well)

[CaseyAbell]

GSN didn't drive away anybody with Amazing Race when it first debuted in July. The network released numbers showing nice increases across the board in viewership and households. And the effect showed up in the prime time averages.  That's why the network's July numbers were the best since January. The complete track since CableWorld started releasing the monthly averages:

Dec 2004  0.5 259K
Jan 2005  0.5 268K
Feb 2005  0.4 228K
Mar 2005  0.4 226K
Apr 2005  0.4 223K
May 2005  0.4 207K
Jun 2005  0.4 239K
Jul 2005  0.4 253K
Aug 2005  0.4 248K
Sep 2005  0.3 193K

The Amazing Race impact appears to have worn off in September, and Millionaire has continued its erosion. I don't think the traditional game show audience has been "driven away" from Millionaire by Amazing Race or Dog Eat Dog or dandruff or sunspots. The entire day and evening lineup on GSN leading into prime time Millionaire is traditional, old-skewing game shows.

It's far more likely that Millionaire's decline is the inevitable result of rerun burnout after two full years of hard use by the network.

Maybe GSN could pick up some Meredith episodes to freshen the franchise. Or Millionaire in general may have shot its bolt on GSN. Or the September numbers may be an aberration and October could perk up again. Or or or...

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Nov 4 2005, 12:42 PM\']The entire day and evening lineup on GSN leading into prime time Millionaire is traditional, old-skewing game shows.
[/quote]
Let's not start this again.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Modor\' date=\'Nov 4 2005, 01:04 PM\'][quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Nov 4 2005, 12:42 PM\']The entire day and evening lineup on GSN leading into prime time Millionaire is traditional, old-skewing game shows.
[/quote]
Let's not start this again.

[snapback]101368[/snapback]

[/quote]
Why? What's incorrect about that statement?

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Nov 4 2005, 05:18 PM\']Why? What's incorrect about that statement?
[/quote]
Because you're going to get idiots in here that are going to say "Love Connection is not a classic!" or "Lingo is an original, not a classic".

That said; Casey's post would have provided exactly the same information if he did not editoralize.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Modor\' date=\'Nov 4 2005, 02:24 PM\']Because you're going to get idiots in here that are going to say "Love Connection is not a classic!" or "Lingo is an original, not a classic".
[/quote]
Lingo is at least "in the classic style", so I'm willing to allow a little leeway to the interpretation there.

Love Connection, however, is not a game show, so I will concede that point.