GSN ratings May 7-13

[CaseyAbell]

From the blog...

TVNewser says GSN averaged 297K/232K viewers prime time/total day for the week of May 7-13. The network ranked 41st in prime time and 42nd in total day among all cable nets. Not such a bad performance by recent GSN standards.

One other note not on the blog: the rankings among cable networks are pretty good by any GSN standards. The network has rarely snuck into the top 40 over its history. If GSN can even get close to the top 40, as it did in the latest week, it's doing pretty well. I hope Douglas Pucci posts the individual show numbers pretty soon. I'd like to see why the prime time average, in particular, edged up close to 300K.

[wayne3924]

As you said, we've gotta wait for the individual numbers, but it'll probably feature the usual (Harvey Feud & 5th Grader dominating). The interesting numbers will be for Donnymid. If it showed any kind of improvement, then GSN will be justified in changing to it.

[MMM717]

Maybe, maybe not - if the change is more than temporary, the ratings would have to stay improved for some sustained period (at least a few weeks - maybe 3-4 minimum) vs. a similar period w/Clark Pyramid to really be 'justified', IMO.

Also, as others have noted, these same sampling of Clark hosted episodes have been recycled for too long, while these Osmond episodes are fresh in comparison.

[Lingofan97]

TVNewser says GSN averaged 297K/232K viewers prime time/total day for the week of May 7-13. The network ranked 41st in prime time and 42nd in total day among all cable nets. Not such a bad performance by recent GSN standards.

That's still a little bit of an improvement, but not much. GSN still needs to do something more to get numbers up. The 5th Grader and Family Feud leases were very good, the best leases since Deal or No Deal, but I think changing the prime time schedule around Mondays-Fridays, and acquiring something else good could push ratings ever higher.

[Lingofan97]

Daytime averages (ranked highest to lowest)
5:30pm Family Feud: 413K
5:00pm Family Feud: 360K
4:30pm Family Feud: 311K
4:00pm Family Feud: 299K
3:30pm Chain Reaction: 257K
3:00pm Whammy: 208K
2:00pm Catch 21: 208K
10:30am Pyramid: 200K (Clark did much better, but this will temporarily do)
10:00am Password Plus: 191K
2:30pm Lingo: 177K
11:00am Super Password: 170K
12:30pm Lingo: 162K
8:30am Match Game: 160K
9:30am Family Feud: 152K
11:30am Match Game: 151K
1:00pm Deal or No Deal: 146K
12:00pm Lingo: 144K
9:00am Family Feud: 112K
8:00am Match Game: 94K


Block averages (7pm-11pm)
Monday Family Feud: 246K (an improvement)
Tuesday The Newlywed Game: 261K (better)
Wednesday Family Feud (Harvey): 328K (the blocks are too long. 5pm hour does better])
Thursday Deal or No Deal: 165K (fail, Baggage could do better)
Friday Pyramid: 212K (about the same as Clark's block, slightly higher)
Saturday Family Feud (6-11pm): 356K (wow, beats Wednesdays)
Sunday 5th Grader (6-11pm): 449K (a GSN hit keeps growing)

Baggage new episodes
Wednesday 5/9: 302K, 266K
Thursday 5/10: 279K, 309K
Friday 5/11: 266K
*Not bad, hope it will do well in syndication. Still deserves another season with some changes.

[SpeedAndStrategy]

To be slightly fair to Donnymid in the morning, it did have the highest average of all the morning shows, plus everything in the morning took a hit this week. But on the other hand, the 10:30 AM slot was second only to 8 AM as the slot that lost the biggest percentage of its audience compared to last week. And all of the slots from 8:30 to 10 AM lost less than 20% of their audience, while the shows from 10:30 on lost 23-24% of their audience, leading me to think that Donny proved to be a weaker lead-in than Dick for the 11 AM hour. Here's the comparisons:

8:00am Match Game: 128K > 94K (27% decrease)
8:30am Match Game: 198K > 160K (19% decrease)
9:00am Family Feud: 134K > 112K (16% decrease)
9:30am Family Feud: 154K > 152K (1% decrease)
10:00am Password Plus: 221K > 191K (14% decrease)
10:30am ($25K) Pyramid: 263K > 200K (24% decrease)
11:00am Super Password: 220K > 170K (23% decrease)
11:30am Match Game: 197K > 151K (23% decrease)

So basically, although Donny didn't completely bomb in the morning, they're still better off with Dick. However, Donny did considerably better on Friday night than Dick did last week, and better than DoND as well. The Friday numbers still aren't great, but it's worth keeping Donny around then for now, and possibly giving him a daily afternoon slot as well. Basically, these ratings confirm what a lot of us thought was for the best.

[Playmaniac001]

I'm not really surprised with Pyramid, I figured it would do about the same or a little lower. I still think that they should replace something in the afternoons with Pyramid and leave Dick Clark's airings alone.

5th Grader & Harvey's Feud are still the top-runners. I think the block scheduling needs to end with the exception of Sunday night 5th Grader. Harvey does great at 5PM and decent at 11PM. I think they would go up even more without the Wednesday marathon. Block Scheduling just hasn't done anything spectacular for the ratings - and I think a regular schedule would do the same or better. GSN used to get 300s and 400s every evening with Deal or No Deal, Newlywed Game, Baggage, Feud, etc.

[CaseyAbell]

Calculated the averages from Douglas Pucci's numbers, and they agree with the 297K/232K from TVNewser. Nice to have some confirmation from different sources.

Donnymid got Friday prime time up to 230K, which contributed to the rise in the overall prime time average. Not great but better than 25K Pyramid last week. I look for Donnymid to hang around on Friday night, as GSN's online schedule and pdf now show for tomorrow, May 18.

In the mornings I was a little surprised that Donnymid did better than everything else. We'll see how much GSN uses the show going forward. I'll post whatever pdfs GSN sends out. There's a new one every day lately, it seems. For now both the online schedule and the pdf show 25K Pyramid in the morning for next week, May 21-27. An interesting thought: put both of the Pyramid versions in the 10:00 AM hour. They seem to get the best numbers in the mornings lately.

Overall, not a bad week for the network. The Sunday prime time average of 487K was downright impressive by any GSN standard. No wonder the network wanted Foxworthy for the Bible quizzer.

By the way, GSN doesn't call it "block" scheduling. In the accompanying e-mails with the pdf schedules, they refer to the "stack" of, say, Pyramid on Friday night. Sort of like a stack of pancakes or poker chips, I guess.

Crossposted to the blog with a screenshot of Donnymid.

[gsguy12]

An interesting thought: put both of the Pyramid versions in the 10:00 AM hour. They seem to get the best numbers in the mornings lately.

That sounds good to me. I like both versions and maybe Password Plus could move to somewhere else in the mornings, or just have it on at 2:30am.

Interesting that the morning shows took a steep dive in the ratings this week. Who knows what might happen next week?

[wayne3924]

Donnymid got Friday prime time up to 230K, which contributed to the rise in the overall prime time average. Not great but better than 25K Pyramid last week. I look for Donnymid to hang around on Friday night, as GSN's online schedule and pdf now show for tomorrow, May 18.

In the mornings I was a little surprised that Donnymid did better than everything else. We'll see how much GSN uses the show going forward. I'll post whatever pdfs GSN sends out. There's a new one every day lately, it seems. For now both the online schedule and the pdf show 25K Pyramid in the morning for next week, May 21-27. An interesting thought: put both of the Pyramid versions in the 10:00 AM hour. They seem to get the best numbers in the mornings lately.

It's only a start, but I agree. Donny's got Fridays at least for the very foreseeable future. I am getting a little tired of the non-stop waffling on the schedule, but there's not much that will be done about that, so we'll just have to see what happens.

Your idea for a Pyramid hour makes great sense; you placate the classics viewers, keep something modern viewers haven't seen in awhile next to it, and everybody gets something they want. It's fantastic.

Which means GSN will ignore it, no offense.

[starwheel]

That sounds good to me. I like both versions and maybe Password Plus could move to somewhere else in the mornings, or just have it on at 2:30am.

Interesting that the morning shows took a steep dive in the ratings this week. Who knows what might happen next week?

I don't know...Ludden is doing steady business in his timeslot, so I think he is good right where he's at, but Donny would be a good replacement for DOND at 1:00, which hasn't been doing well for quite a while. Or better yet...do a Pyramid hour at noon, and move Chuck's Lingo to 1:00, which would give the ratings a nice boost, and would be a good transition to the newer shows.

[Lingofan97]

8:00am Match Game: 128K > 94K (27% decrease)
8:30am Match Game: 198K > 160K (19% decrease)
9:00am Family Feud: 134K > 112K (16% decrease)
9:30am Family Feud: 154K > 152K (1% decrease)
10:00am Password Plus: 221K > 191K (14% decrease)
10:30am ($25K) Pyramid: 263K > 200K (24% decrease)
11:00am Super Password: 220K > 170K (23% decrease)
11:30am Match Game: 197K > 151K (23% decrease)

I'd have to say that the week of April 30-May 4 was just about what the morning numbers should look like. But with that decrease for every show, that lowered the daytime average a lot. Obviously, leasing new classics should come first in the daytime block before noon before changing anything else. But the numbers this week before noon were just horrible.

5th Grader & Harvey's Feud are still the top-runners. I think the block scheduling needs to end with the exception of Sunday night 5th Grader. Harvey does great at 5PM and decent at 11PM. I think they would go up even more without the Wednesday marathon. Block Scheduling just hasn't done anything spectacular for the ratings - and I think a regular schedule would do the same or better. GSN used to get 300s and 400s every evening with Deal or No Deal, Newlywed Game, Baggage, Feud, etc.

The Monday-Friday block scheduling should go, but I think we could live with the Saturday block of Karn & O'Hurley and the 5th Grader Sunday night block. Those last week, and historically have been the best nights for GSN.

For weekdays, a 6pm-Midnight block of The Newlywed Game, Baggage, Deal or No Deal, Family Feud, and Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader would produce nightly averages from around 250K now to 300-400K. The block I'm thinking of could do best like this...

6:00pm: The Newlywed Game
6:30pm: Baggage
7:00pm: Deal or No Deal
8:00pm: Family Feud (Karn)*
8:30pm: Family Feud (O'Hurley)*
9:00pm: Family Feud (Harvey)
9:30pm: Family Feud (Harvey)
10:00pm: 5th Grader
11:00pm: The Newlywed Game
11:30pm: Baggage
12:00am: Baggage

The *'s mean that in the future GSN should pick up a new lease of a game show for the 8pm hour, I think Who Wants to be a Millionaire. That in my opinion is an amazing Mon-Fri schedule for GSN right now

[CaseyAbell]

Your idea for a Pyramid hour makes great sense; you placate the classics viewers, keep something modern viewers haven't seen in awhile next to it, and everybody gets something they want. It's fantastic.

Well, thanks. You could set up four hours in the morning: Match Game at 8:00AM, Dawson/Karn Feud at 9:00AM, Donnymid/25K Pyramid at 10:00AM and the Passwords at 11:00AM. Something different every hour. Don't know if the numbers would be spectacular, but GSN doesn't have a lot to lose in the morning. Mix in a couple of (somewhat) more recent shows with the pre-1990 material.

Of course, if GSN could ever get their hands on very recent Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, they'd have two really powerful shows for daytime. But I'm not holding my breath on that.

[Lingofan97]

Well, thanks. You could set up four hours in the morning: Match Game at 8:00AM, Dawson/Karn Feud at 9:00AM, Donnymid/25K Pyramid at 10:00AM and the Passwords at 11:00AM. Something different every hour. Don't know if the numbers would be spectacular, but GSN doesn't have a lot to lose in the morning. Mix in a couple of (somewhat) more recent shows with the pre-1990 material.

I'd rather leave Karn Feud out of mornings. What I would do, as insane as it sounds is air 3 Match Game's from 8am-9:30am since the 8:30am episode does so well it could be a good lead in until 9, Password Plus back to back at 9:30am and 10am, $25,000 Pyramid at 10:30am, Super Password at 11am and Dawson at 11:30am. That might do well, it might not. But I have a totally different schedule for classics when it comes to mornings in the future.

[CaseyAbell]

I'd rather leave Karn Feud out of mornings. What I would do, as insane as it sounds is air 3 Match Game's from 8am-9:30am since the 8:30am episode does so well it could be a good lead in until 9, Password Plus back to back at 9:30am and 10am, $25,000 Pyramid at 10:30am, Super Password at 11am and Dawson at 11:30am.

That's an ideological solution which favors pre-1990 shows no matter what the numbers. I'm just looking at the ratings. Karn consistently gets better numbers than Dawson in the morning. In fact, Karn usually helps repair the damage that Dawson does at 9:00AM, when he loses much of the Match Game lead-in. See the latest week's numbers for a particularly glaring example:

8:00am Match Game: 94K
8:30am Match Game: 160K
9:00am Family Feud (Dawson): 112K
9:30am Family Feud (Karn): 152K

A lot of viewers really don't like Dawson that much. He's a strong, sometimes overbearing personality, compared to the much milder and more likable Karn. If anything, I'd drop Dawson Feud from the mornings completely and go with a Karn (or O'Hurley) and Harvey combo in the 9:00AM hour. That should produce a pretty decent lead-in for my proposed Pyramid combo in the 10:00AM hour and Password combo in the 11:00AM hour. But I realize these ideas won't get much traction on this board.

All this will get scrambled if GSN actually runs with that reality slate they unleashed at the upfront. The reality shows will take a big chunk of the schedule and force recent game shows toward more peripheral timeslots, like the mornings. We'll see what happens. GSN may have been scared off non-traditional stuff by the DWTS crash-and-burn. Right now the schedule is wall-to-wall traditional game shows. And all we're hearing about recently is the Bible quizzer and the new Pyramid, both of them traditional gamers.