GSN wasn't the first to "pitch the niche"

[CaseyAbell]

Not only do I get it, I get it...p.d.q.

[Jimmy Owen]

I think something on which we can all agree is, while GSN is not completely abandoning game shows, they are changing their focus.  Eighteen hours of games a day is down from twenty-four hours they had at launch.  The name change is further evidence of a desire to shed the "game show" stigma (which is more of an ad agency predjudice than an audience one.  We just like a good show, game or not.)  New shows in development are gradual steps away from the what is traditionally considered a game show.  The writer does bring up the point of the potential for Joe Sixpack and family to have to change their ideas about the various network identities. The card tourneys are on many different nets, without the bug in the corner, how would you know what channel you're watching?

[Ian Wallis]

In my opinion anyway, more than half of the music played today sucks.

Just half.....try 90%.....at least what you hear on most "pop" radio stations these days anyway.

I think something on which we can all agree is, while GSN is not completely abandoning game shows, they are changing their focus. Eighteen hours of games a day is down from twenty-four hours they had at launch.

It will be interesting to see what happens now that the several-week "reality" series haven't done well for GSN.  When they started getting into "Average Joe" and "The Mole", it seemed they were bent on becoming the "reality" channel.  Now that those shows haven't performed well, it leaves less "game-oriented" programming at GSN's disposal.

[DrBear]

1. Just to be anal, it's a-ha, not The a-has.

2. All we're seeing now  is another version of a great show-biz tradition - copy what's successful and run it into the ground to a depth hitherto unmeasurable. Remember the western craze, the doctor show craze, the nighttime soap craze...and more recently, the reality show craze? Now, we're seeing something similar with cable networks. Instead of being niches, they all want to shoot up the profits with lots of desirable eyeballs, so they all go for the same demographic and that requires similar programming. The reason, of course, is that once you pass, say, 30, you've made up your mind what brand you like and you stick with it, and you've seen enough advertising to know it's all crap, so you don't listen. The fact that you'd like to be entertained is beside the point.

You have to stop thinking of TV as an entertainment medium; it's almost totally an advertising medium now. Even on channels with no advertising, which mostly serve to advertise those channels (or their sisters).

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'DrBear\' date=\'Aug 23 2004, 01:28 PM\']You have to stop thinking of TV as an entertainment medium; it's almost totally an advertising medium now. Even on channels with no advertising, which mostly serve to advertise those channels (or their sisters).[/quote]
Would that include HBO, Showtime and STARZ!, which theoretically exist only on pleasing enough people to pay for them every month?

It seems to me that sooner or later, we're going to get the public revolt that those on the left would leave to see against Big Media.  But it's not going to be over corporate-friendly news coverage--it's going to be over focusing entertainment exclusively on one small subset of the population and kissing off everyone else.  It may not happen immediately, but it's going to happen, unless something spectacular happens that nips this trend in the bud.  Unfortunately, I have no idea what that might be, other than GoodLife TV or Pax suddenly getting 50 shares.

[CaseyAbell]

The Variety writer was just lazy. He couldn't be bothered to check a few schedules before launching his fact-free blather.

In (checked) fact, it would be hard to find a niche-ier network than GSN. It's just completely different from everything else out there. Game shows are in such disfavor now that no other channel on my zillion-channel cable system programs more than two-and-a-half hours of game shows for grownups a day. The two-and-a-hour outlet would be the local PAX affiliate, and I wouldn't bet too much on PAX sticking around very long.

The only outlet remotely similar to GSN is Nick's GAS channel for kid game shows. And I don't think many viewers would confuse the two.

As for a revolt against uniform media, it's already happened. Why do you think most people in this country pay for cable/satellite/internet? The ancient NBC-CBS-ABC triopoly broke down years ago. Now there are so many different visual media streams washing into the typical household that the variety is almost ridiculous. If I want to read Fidel Castro's press agency, watch a rugby match in Australia, or check the weather in Bangkok, it's a push of the remote button or a click of the mouse.

Just in case you're interested, it's 84 degrees in Bangkok right now with 89% humidity. Muggy and mostly cloudy.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'DrBear\' date=\'Aug 23 2004, 11:28 AM\'] 1. Just to be anal, it's a-ha, not The a-has.
 [/quote]
 He had it right. The linguistic conceit he was using was the one where you pluralize a single entity to refer to a collective of items of that same type. Like referring to "the Survivors of the world" as a catchall for all reality TV shows, regardless of name.

(What can I say. I have respect for someone who was essentially barely out of diapers when Take On Me was charting and still recognizes the greatness of the video.

[Jimmy Owen]

No question that GSN is the best place for game shows right now.  I think they would like to branch out from game shows and intrude on the turfs of ESPN2, TV Games Channel, Travel Channel and Bravo with the card tourneys and horse racing.  Are the card tournaments on the other nets considered game shows?

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' date=\'Aug 23 2004, 02:04 PM\'] Are the card tournaments on the other nets considered game shows? [/quote]
 No, but there are people here who will disagree.

They would be wrong.

[CaseyAbell]

Actually, they would be right, but it's an itty-bitty quibble on this issue. GSN's schedule remains overwhelmingly dominated by game shows whether you count Blackjack or not. Eight-five percent of the programming hours today (Tuesday 8/24) are game shows if you count Blackjack, eighty percent if you don't. By the way, I'm counting midnight-to-midnight my time, which is Central.

Interestingly, these percentages get even higher when the new schedule kicks in the week of September 27. The Saturday programming hours, for instance, are 100% game shows if you count Blackjack, 89% if you don't. I'll admit this is only temporary until new eps of Dodgeball begin, along with the pool and horseracing shows. But even then the percentages will stay very high.

I don't expect a Variety columnist to crunch numbers before tossing off a very puffy and very lazy opinion piece. But even a Variety columnist could glance at a schedule before he uses GSN as an example of lookalike, alphabet-soup programming. The numbers don't lie. There's just nothing else like GSN right now in this country's broadcast/cable/satellite teevee universe.

EDIT: To branch off a little...I don't want to restart the whole debate on whether the card-playing shows are game shows are not. But in one respect, at least, the debate is of more than academic importance to us game show freaks.

From time immemorial (or time memorial for all I know) it's been common practice at the final table of a poker tournament for the players to pre-agree on a split of the pot. They still play the game honestly to see who gets the title (we hope) but the money is pre-arranged. Obviously, everybody has to agree to the deal, so often there is no arranged split.

This is no secret. Last year ESPN trotted out Chris (Jesus, though he looks less like Jesus than the Red Sox' Johnny Damon) Ferguson on the WSOP shows to explain these arrangements. This got me wondering if the Travel Channel allowed such deals on their poker shows. A thread on Andy Bloch's bulletin board indicated that they definitely do not permit the practice:

http://www.wptfan.com/article.php?story=20030925182833799

Now, if Ken Jennings started agreeing to a pre-determined split of the Jeopardy money with his fellow-contestants, there would be screaming, shouting, Congressional investigations and possibly an Alex Trebek heart attack. Of course, that's because of the rigging scandals and the subsequent legislation on game shows.

I know, Ken would have to be nuts to agree to a deal, because he's gonna win, anyway.

So my question is whether ESPN's lawyers have established that their WSOP shows are not game shows for legislative purposes, or have gotten the tournament to ban pot-splitting deals, or both, or neither. I haven't watched too many of this year's WSOP shows, and I haven't seen any disclaimers similar to Chris Ferguson's little confession last year.

[Matt Ottinger]

A fascinating point, Casey.  One of the qualifications I think of in the whole game show/not a game show debate is whether the event would happen whether TV cameras were there or not.  Obviously, some of these poker shows are made-for-TV, but some of the key ones (notably the WSOP) are not. Much like popular sports, they rely on TV for prestige and revenue, but they were going on before TV discovered them, and they'd go on even if the TV cameras weren't there.  Since the event doesn't belong to ESPN and is being covered pretty much like any other "sport" they carry, I doubt that they have too much to worry about legally.

[CaseyAbell]

Good point, Matt. Right now, though, Fox Sports is carrying an invitational poker tournament that they produced with a bunch of poker pros. Fox provided the money, and I have to think they made REAL sure Howard Lederer and Phil Ivey and the other guys didn't agree to any deal. At this point you're getting real close to the rigging legislation. After all, the show wouldn't exist without your control and production, and quibbles over whether it's really a "game show" or not probably wouldn't impress the Feds.

I agree ESPN can use the "pre-existing tournament" cover for the WSOP to avoid outright legal problems. But gee, I bet (sorry) a few lawyers are antsy about the whole business. That's probably why Chris Ferguson did his little speech.

It's kinda funny and sad to read over that thread on Andy Bloch's board. Doncha know that very similar thoughts went through Dan Enright's head when he first decided to...oh well, you know the rest of that story.

[Dbacksfan12]

[quote name=\'CaseyAbell\' date=\'Aug 24 2004, 07:36 AM\'] GSN's schedule remains overwhelmingly dominated by game shows whether you count Blackjack or not. Eight-five percent of the programming hours today [/quote]
 Your good points are lost in the fact you must thumb this in our noses again.  Not everyone agrees with you on what is and isn't a gameshow.

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Dsmith\' date=\'Aug 24 2004, 08:43 AM\'] Your good points are lost in the fact you must thumb this in our noses again.  Not everyone agrees with you on what is and isn't a gameshow. [/quote]
 In his defense, I mentioned it first.

Mind you, he's still wrong.

[CaseyAbell]

Mind you, I'm still right. But like I said, it's almost irrelevant to this thread. Which is why I don't understand the thumb-in-nose comment.

Come to think about it, I don't put my thumb in my own nose. Can't pick much that way.

One more thing on ESPN and the World Series of Poker. The network of Chris Berman and bad promos apparently sponsored their own tournament with the best players from this year's WSOP. EPSN put up quite a bit of their own money. Something tells me the lawyers made sure there weren't any deals on that televised game. No legal loophole for a pre-existing tournament.

Found a funny poker blog where Daniel Negreanu whined about getting left out of the ESPN tournament. He kinda has a point after his very good WSOP performance this year.