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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Archive for January, 2009

If you’ve been around this site since October 2008, you may remember a story we did about Cat Deeley.  According to a UK rumor, So You think You Can Dance? host guest hosted a week of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and impressed ABC so much that she was offered the hosting gig of the long running game show entering its tenth year in America in August 2009.  Of course we had no way of knowing if this is true because obviously ABC would never confirm current host Meredith Vieira leaving the show at that point, we had no way of knowing if Cat Deeley was offered it, or if she even guest hosted the show.  You can read the story by clicking here.  A link to the Mirror article is included.

We may be finding some truth to this rumor.  According to several sources, Cat Deeley will be guest hosting the week of February 16th.  She’s the first guest host of the season (correct me if I’m wrong).  So here’s one part of the rumor being truthful.  Anything else, though, we don’t know yet.  So I’d be sure to check out the show the week of February 16th to see how she does.  We may be seeing a lot more of her in the near future.

Popularity: 16% [?]

“Only Connect” Episode One, Part 2

Posted by Alex Davis On January - 30 - 2009

by: vPIP
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Continuing to showcase what has become a cult hit suddenly in the American game show scene, here’s the second part of Only Connect’s first episode with game play you can actually participate with.  Again, it’s the best game show I’ve seen in ages, and apparently a lot of you agree with me.  Part 3 will come tomorrow, because on Sunday the Steelers are going to win the Super Bowl and I’ll be gone.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Shows You Should Be Watching: “Solitary”

Posted by Alex Davis On January - 30 - 2009

Solitary logo, courtesy of iofferphotoI’ve wanted to write about the FOX Reality show Solitary for a while, but I keep forgetting.  With the new season going on now, giving the network good ratings, I figured this is a good time.  If you’ve been scared away from watching this show because it’s reality or some other bizarre notion, take a new look.  It’s one of the best and most entertaining shows that’s been on this decade.  So of course it came from Bob Boden, currently the vice president of programming at FOX Reality and former from GSN who helped to bring in all those great shows like Russian Roulette and Lingo.

The show’s simple.  Solitary sticks people in nine different rooms; each has their own.  Basically the only thing in their room is a red button which lets them leave the game.  “Treatments” are performed on the contestants which test them physically, emotionally, and mentally.  Treatments can be painful.  Players last in their pods for very long periods of time with nearly complete isolation from their loved ones during the course of their experiment.  Whoever is the final surviving player wins $50,000.

It seems a bit cruel, and it is, but it’s incredibly entertaining and gripping television.  It’s nothing on the cruelty level of The Chamber.  It’s tough and tests your endurance.  You’re not in danger of dying in any of these challenges.  Again, your endurance is just tested.  It sort of reminds me of the movie series Cube, if anyone’s seen it.  But more than anything, it’s a gripping and exciting reality/game show.  Something most have issues doing.  You quickly develop a love/hate relationship with the contestants, the challenges have you feeling for them, it’s not sluggish; it’s just fun.  It’s sadistic fun.  You can catch up with the show on Hulu by clicking here, or visit the website to find out where you can watch.  I’ve been watching it since the first series, and I’m addicted.  Anyone else a fan?

Popularity: 6% [?]

GSN Radio’s Power Outage

Posted by Nick Todor On January - 29 - 2009

Scary stuff over at GSN Radio today. During the seventh question of 10-sion, their power went out. It wasn’t even weather related; they’ve had clear skies all day. Here’s a recording of the clip that’s been posted to YouTube.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Ratings Updated: “Deal or No Deal” Finally Achieves 2.0 Rating

Posted by Alex Davis On January - 28 - 2009

November on Daytime Deal or No DealDeal or No Deal finally passed the 2.0 rating mark during the week of January 18th. It’s up 5% from the previous week. Daytime Deal has been a very interesting story. In the beginning, ratings were a bit scary, but they’ve been going up (or stagnant) every week since. Again, we published a bit ago that Deal or No Deal is currently under negotiations to come back for a new season, and I can’t see how it won’t be happening. It’s the top rated new syndicated show. We’ve been talking about how FOX’s strategy for the syndicated Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? so far has been, “People say Deal sucks; they took out everything good; watch us.” But last Sunday’s episode only got a 2.0 rating. Daytime Deal and primetime advertised Fifth Grader, not on a throw-away night, are getting the same ratings. Not against football either. I know Fifth Grader was on at 7:00PM ET on Sunday, but it’s far from a dead slot, and the show supposedly has a fan base according to producers. It’s going to be a fun Fall 2009 syndicated season.

The other game shows are all down except for Family Feud, still one of my favorites on the air. The long running game show hosted by John O’Hurley, entering its 11th season in September, gained 7% to a 1.5. Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! were down to a 7.7 and a 6.3, respectively, both those are both ratings broadcast networks would kill for today. You almost have to wonder how hard networks have pounded on the doors of Harry Friedman (executive producer of both) to have a broadcast counterpart stunt. Who Wants to be a Millionaire? is down to a 2.6, down 4% from last week. I don’t know about anyone else, and I hate being “this person”, but I’m just about ready for a million dollar winner. It’s been about six seasons since the last one. It seems basically impossible to win at this point which is a bit discouraging. Trivial Pursuit just can’t cut a break and went back down to its old friend, the .6 rating. But hey, it’s got a nice set at least!

Popularity: 5% [?]

For all the poker fans out there, GSN has altered the Sunday night poker schedule a bit for the inclusion of the new season of High Stakes Poker back for its fifth season after a hiatus of anger/tears from poker fans.  Starting Sunday, March 1st, HSP5 will air Sundays at 9:00PM ET with a rerun at midnight.  One note for the game show fans also.  On Saturday, March 7th, we spring forward one hour (that came quickly, didn’t it?) which will preempt that evening’s hour block of To Tell The Truth at 2:00AM ET.  It will be back to normal the next weekend.

Popularity: 3% [?]

“The Chuck Woolery Show” Debuts in March

Posted by Alex Davis On January - 27 - 2009

We touched upon this during Freaking Million Dollar Cat Game Show but since it’s getting close to time for Chuck Woolery’s new radio talk show, The Chuck Woolery Show to debut, we got a press release from our good friend Doug in Mississippi.  The show will be nationally syndicated and broadcast Monday through Friday from 7:00PM ET to 12:00AM ET, with encore feeds for the western time zones.  All of this starts on March 30th.  The show’s flagship station is still being negotiated right now.  The show is being produced by Syndicated Solutions, Inc..

The Chuck Woolery Show will blend top music with features Chuck knows well, like love and romance advice, special guests, and frequent listener interaction. Chuck Woolery said, “I started in radio and just love it! During all my years on television, I’ve come to realize that radio is truly the only medium where I can connect one-on-one with the audience. America has watched as I’ve brought thousands of couples together on television but now radio will provide me with unscripted freedom to interact with listeners on a very personal level and discuss their lives, relationships and much more. To prospective affiliates and sponsors, I share with you my full commitment to becoming the #1 Nighttime show in America. My syndication team at SSI and I look forward to working with all of you.”

You can listen to some show samples here.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Contestant/Audience Page Updated

Posted by Alex Davis On January - 27 - 2009

In a continuing effort to pretend I remember to do my job around here and keep you guys updated, the contestant and audience search page has been updated.  All canceled shows have been removed and I believe links are up to date; if not I’ll fix them later this afternoon.  The link’s at the top, and you can find out about most game shows on TV there.

Popularity: 2% [?]

“Wheel of Fortune” Celebrates 5,000 Episodes

Posted by Alex Davis On January - 26 - 2009

A lot of game show milestones have happened over this past television season, and quite a few for Wheel of Fortune especially.  It’s still number one in syndication, getting ratings that primetime networks would dream of having on such an unbelievably regular basis.  They added a million dollar top prize which was won in the first five weeks in some act of witchcraft by contestant Michelle Loewenstein.  Wheel can now add celebrating the 5,000th episode to its roster.  The number one syndicated game show, hosted by Pat Sajak and Vanna White, celebrated the 5,000th episode on Janaury 15, 2009  at Sony Picture Studios in Culver City.  Here are some pictures of the festivities.

Wheel of Fortune Show 5000 from Carol Kaelson/Sony Pictures Wheel of Fortune Show 5000 from Carol Kaelson/Sony Pictures

Photos courtesy of Carol Kaelson/Sony Pictures

Popularity: 5% [?]

Daytime “Deal or No Deal” Renewal Negotiations Begin

Posted by Alex Davis On January - 26 - 2009

Small blurb from Broadcasting and Cable: negotiations between NBCU and station managers have begun about bringing back the daytime edition of Deal or No Deal, for a second season.  This will make it the only syndicated game show to officially come back on televisions for a second season since Pyramid left airwaves in 2004.  Crossswords was reluctantly renewed last season but production company Program Partners stopped production because of lack of funds.  The final Merv Griffin created show has yet to appear, though mention of 2009 has been stated.  Deal or No Deal is the top rated new sydicated show for the Fall 2008 season.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Chuck Woolery is Having Senior Moments

Posted by Alex Davis On January - 26 - 2009

I know Lingo was made most popular in The Netherlands, but I think Chuck Woolery’s been smoking the pipe a bit too much recently.  The host of the former GSN original Lingo recently did an interview about his live show, the $250,000 Game Show Spectacular, and was asked about the popularity of Lingo.  He has this to say, “Lingo is the most popular game show in the world.”  Chuck can’t be that delusional, can he?  He does know about things like Millionaire and Deal or No Deal and The Price is Right and Family Feud; the list goes on.  I think Freaking Million Dollar Cat Game Show messed him up.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The British are Better Than Us: Only Connect Preliminary Match Part One
by: vPIP
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Sorry for the delay, I had a pressing matter this weekend.  But here we go, the first part of the first episode of what seems to be pretty popular around here now, Only Connect.  I know we were talking how that championship game was brutally hard, but this game is much easier to go along with.  It’s tough, but you can play along easily.  And again, I do agree with a lot of you that something like this on PBS as a college tournament or something would be incredibly welcomed.  I could see something like this, a show which rewards intelligence, in this era of game shows which really doesn’t for the most part, being a cult hit, much like Cash Cab on Discovery.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Can Someone Explain the Problem with Daytime “Deal or No Deal”?

Posted by Alex Davis On January - 25 - 2009

 alt=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% [?]

Weekend Replay: UK Gladiators Eliminator

Posted by Nick Todor On January - 24 - 2009

Season two of the UK’s Gladiators is underway, and it brings about this exciting Eliminator contest. I’ve included the description portion for folks outside the UK to see how they do it.

Popularity: 4% [?]

I’m a big fan of the whole public relations/publicity thing.  I have a lot of friends in it, so I enjoy hearing about it.  The only thing I will give FOX’s Hole in the Wall, when it first came out, was that it was marketed correctly.  It was just a dumb, silly stunt show.  They carried it way too seriously occasionally, but they didn’t overly make it out to be something it wasn’t.  Of course that doesn’t help the fact that the show sucks and can’t sustain itself as its own show, but I figured I’ll give them something.  Ratings suffered and the show was quickly pulled from the lineup.  FOX announced it would return in January a while ago, but truthfully I forgot about it.  It was apparently on last Sunday.  Go figure.  Sunday night isn’t exactly a “burn off a show” area, so I figured we’d hear something about it.  I watch Family Guy and American Dad too, so I thought I would hear something.  Either I wasn’t paying attention, or they just threw it there for shiggles to see what would happen.

But nonetheless, Hole in the Wall is gone yet again after barely achieving three million viewers.  That’s about as bad as you can get for them.  It looks like it’s going to be gone for good as well; its replacement is Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? which is starting to wear thin as well.  But again, I have to be honest, did anyone actually think the show would succeed?  If they thought they could captivate the nation for an hour each week with this unbelievably repetitive, over dramatic, and just bad idea for a stand alone show, there’s something wrong.  For the readers, was there some redeeming quality about the show that I missed?  Because I tried to watch an episode but I couldn’t.  I got more enjoyment out of watching YouTube clips of the US version online, which is where the show deserves to stay.  Anyone going to miss the show, honestly?

This has been the slowest week for news in a very long time.  However, we do have some Only Connect coming up later tonight.

Popularity: 3% [?]

ABC Orders “Shaq Vs.”

ABC has ordered the new series Shaq Vs. from Dick Clark Productions and Media Rights Capital.  The show sees basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal playing against a different sports figure in their native game.  It ranges from playing football against Ben…

Reader Concerned Citizen Plays “Millionaire”; Congratulations!

If you haven’t read the comments, I’m extremely happy to tell you all that one of our fellow readers and commenters will be in New York City on July 30th playing for $1,000,000 on ABC’s tenth anniversary revival of Who…

Two Small GSN Schedule Notes

Schedules are updated.  GSN is now providing the schedules in .doc form, and I don’t have Word on my Mac, so I can’t do anything with them.  Second, GSN will be doing a Millionaire marathon from 9:00AM ET to 6:00PM ET…

“Deal or No Deal” Replaces “Big Saturday Night” August 22nd

I’m not sure exactly how many people are going to be shedding tears over this but when GSN’s Big Saturday Night ends, Deal or No Deal will take a 10:00PM ET time slot on Saturdays, with 20Q and The Money List repeating at 8:00PM ET…

“Let’s Make A Deal” Pilot Now Casting

Fun news from yesterday afternoon: the CBS daytime pilot for Let’s Make A Deal is now casting.  If you’re in the LA area in early July with a costume handy, click here to take part.  They’ve got some good hosts lined…