There are already several threads about this on the GSN board. Really not too surprising to see a shakeup in the afternoon schedule. GSN ran a total day 0.2 rating in October, according to the
Starz press release. That's not horrible by the network's historic standards, but it ain't all that great, either. So Millionaire gets wheeled out in late afternoon to attract a few more eyeballs. It's been GSN's warhorse since last October, but they're riding this nag
hard.
After the return of All New 3's a Crap and Hollywood Showdown from the long-lost, I wouldn't be surprised to see RR reruns eventually resurface on GSN. Who knows, Inquizition might turn up one of these days. (Extreme Gong? Nah, banish the ghastly thought.)
Another tweak occurs in the prime time schedule, at least if you believe Zap2it. Dodgeball gets trimmed to one hour Thursday night, with Dog Eat Dog and WBSM taking the other two hours.
Also, the poker show starts next Tuesday, with a couple showings interspersed with Blackjack eps. Speaking of Blackjack it gets a
marathon Sunday, December 19. Which means it joins Feud, Dodgeball, Lingo, WBSM and Millionaire in recent or upcoming marathons. This network is marathon-crazed.
The second season of civvie Blackjack and the horseracing show start the week of January 10.
By the way, Starz promises to release those ratings every month, which would be a nice source of free info on the cable universe. Sure, the numbers are limited. No viewer totals, no demos, no individual show numbers. But it's better than the scanty info currently available for free on the web. At least it provides a quick and dirty idea of who's who in the cable business.
Starz (oddly enough, GSN's corporate sibling) of course has some self-interest here. They want to show how they outrank many ad-supported cablers. That's kind of apples and oranges, but I'll take the numbers, anyway. And the Starz exec does make a good point that movies really are big for many cable operations.
