I’m Hopefully the slowest news week in eons is over, because an interesting interview in AdWeek was published today. Show producer Mark Burnett was questioned about the new daytime edition of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? and for the second straight interview about this show, it seems like all the crew of the new edition of Fifth Grader wants to do is tear down Daytime Deal or No Deal. Never mind advertising the new daytime version of the once-popular FOX game show and telling about its merits, but they seem to love to say, “Deal changed, people don’t like it, they suck, we’re better.” And they’ve done nothing to prove that.
A few interviews with Fifth Grader staffers have involved them saying, “People don’t like the Deal changes, we’ve heard.” Are there certain changes you’re not a fan of, because I can’t pick out a single thing that the primetime does better than the daytime. The only big change is no models. But even then they still have two helping out. The Banker’s booth is different also. But that’s it. It’s the same exact show, but quicker, more exciting, and more challenging. Is there seriously a problem with the show I’m not noticing?
Maybe instead of bashing Daytime Deal, the Fifth Grader? staff may want to work on changing up the show a bit to make sure it doesn’t gets stale. I’ve read a very small amount of commenters saying Fifth Grader is nothing like Millionaire which, at least to me, is totally wrong. If you stuck multiple choices on the questions, the Fifth Grader format is a direct ripoff of Millionaire with a gimmick that is going to get stale daily. The FOX staff has gone on record repeatedly saying that the show won’t change when it goes to daytime. Potentially, the money will stay the same also (I’ll believe that when I see it). So what this means is that people will find out the quicker Fifth Grader is better and leave the FOX version, which will screw FOX over because they lose one of their more noteworthy shows and the daytime audience will never be nearly as close to what the primetime version is at now; or it’ll screw the daytime version because of massive massive burnout from too many version. It’s the one thing that’s really helping Daytime Deal out right now; it’s the only one on the air.
Mudslinging is a portion of the industry, most people who follow it should know that. But common sense would also say to find ways to make sure the show doesn’t get burned out, a way you can keep the original version’s crowd happy and bring in some people who aren’t fans of it, and make a compelling game which isn’t mock worthy. Deal or No Deal has done a good job. Beyond signing on Jeff Foxworthy, they haven’t shown a single sign that they can yet.
Popularity: 5% [?]