GSN Schedules for August 20-26; August 27-September 2

[CaseyAbell]

By the way, having just realized that Woolery Lingo is celebrating its tenth anniversary today, I put a post on the blog. The screenshot shows one of those two hapless first-season "winners" who won literally $0...

It was ten years ago today, Sgt. Chuck taught the band to play

Yes, ten years ago today GSN debuted a little word game called Lingo. Based on a short-lived 1980s syndie and taped on the set of the show's Dutch version, nobody realized that Lingo would run continuously on GSN for ten years and counting.

By now seven seasons and two hosts and two co-hosts of the five-letter-fest have come and gone. But the reruns grind away. On the GSN Internet board I've suggested that at least the Woolery version be given a breather. Lord knows Chuck and Shandi and all the rest of 'em have given endless hours of often high-rated programming to the network.

The numbers are now wearing down, as you should expect. The new version with Bill Engvall got okay but not spectacular ratings, though it still hangs around the schedule, too.

I'm a big fan of the show in all its GSN incarnations. Just a sucker for five letters at a time, I guess. When I watched the debut ten years ago, I had a real feeling (and hope) that GSN might have its first huge success with an original. By pure dumb luck, I was right.

[Lingofan97]

By the way, having just realized that Woolery Lingo is celebrating its tenth anniversary today, I put a post on the blog. The screenshot shows one of those two hapless first-season "winners" who won literally $0...

Yet no story from Alex, though he said he would as the last "GSN ten-year original anniversary". Im surprised this version lasted as long as it did besides the ways of the first season and how cheap they were

[SpeedAndStrategy]

It's a Sunday. I'm guessing Alex will have a story up tomorrow.

[Lingofan97]

And most of those times GSN was producing worse viewership averages than they're doing now. Again, the ratings dictate everything. It makes no sense to dogmatize about the number of different shows a cable network has to run.

Those 25-30 shows that user is talking are all classics, some of them from before 1960. Now, if we have 18 shows on the schedule, like we've had the past two months, about a third of them should be classics (Match Game, P+, SP, 100K Pyramid, 25K Pyramid, Dawson Feud), another third should be originals (Newlywed Game, Baggage, Whammy!, Chain Reaction, Lingo, Catch 21), and then the last third should be modern pick-ups (DOND, 5th Grader, MDP, 1 vs 100, Family Feud, Minute to Win It).

NOTE: I don't count Dawson Feud as a different show from the modern version

GSN could try anything, but why bother? Just give the show a rest. Woolery Lingo's been on the network continuously for a full decade now. (Today, August 5, 2012, is its exact ten year anniversary!) That's literally unprecedented for any GSN original.

Just imagine the posts that would be made by some users if the only version of Lingo was Bill's

[dare2be]

I'm wondering if the anemic numbers for the Friday night 25K block would be any different for any other show? Perhaps people just have better things to do on a Friday night than watch game shows.

Seriously, has GSN had historically good numbers on Friday night?

[Lingofan97]

Seriously, has GSN had historically good numbers on Friday night?

With DWTS, NO.

I remember at least in November and December when more than one show aired on Friday nights, The $25,000 Pyramid and Card Sharks from 8-10pm would get 300K+ numbers at times. In the Fall I think Card Sharks would be a great Friday night classic, both the Perry and Eubanks versions.

[CaseyAbell]

I'm wondering if the anemic numbers for the Friday night 25K block would be any different for any other show?

You put last year's TPiR on Friday night, you'll do better than 200K. Fantasy scheduling, I know.

[Lingofan97]

You put last year's TPiR on Friday night, you'll do better than 200K. Fantasy scheduling, I know.

You'd probably get 2 million for the block

That would be a pretty good night for something like that modern. But for now GSN is sticking with classics. I'll be curious to see what Friday nights will turn into in September

[billycw]

I don't know how many episodes they got in this current lease, but I think they are getting pretty close on Friday nights to 200 episodes. That's how many episodes were in the last package, so if they did the same with this one, it shouldn't be much longer until they go back to June 1986 on Friday nights. Maybe then they would take it off Friday's, since they would have gone through all the episodes at least once.

So, we'll see. You know, despite the so-so to bad ratings on Friday nights for the show, I always remembered from the old boards people would say, why doesn't GSN air older shows in primetime? Well, nowadays they are and have been for quite awhile now. So, I hope those people are satisfied. GSN really doesn't have to air older shows in primetime at all, be glad they are now.

Personally, I never once said classics would do well in prime time. I have said I thought Classics could have done well from 4-6 PM or after midnight EST.The fact 25/100K has stayed on so long has been a treat for any classic fan. But GSN is hoping the new Pyrmaid will at least pick up an audience from the people who did tune in every now and then for the old Pyramids.The fact that 25 K has stayed on Fridays so long with so-so ratings at best is because GSN was playing out the string until the new shows were ready. Pyramid and classic fans should be appreciative it has lasted this long during prime time. I know never say never with GSN, but I doubt we'll ever see this again on GSN.
Still am shocked DOND is being removed from the schedule completely....the rerun abuse schedule for Chefs and Bible BEFORE it even airs an episode smells of previous DOND/WWTBAM abuse. I get GSN wants to show off the new "hits", but I hope the don't play them to death after the first month or so. I really think they will do well..there is an audience for the new shows. Just hope GSN doesn't think the audience will be Stepfords.

[gsguy12]

Personally, I never once said classics would do well in prime time. The fact 25/100K has stayed on so long has been a treat for any classic fan. Pyramid and classic fans should be appreciative it has lasted this long during prime time. I know never say never with GSN, but I doubt we'll ever see this again on GSN.

I never said you personally, what I meant was that in the past, certain threads were made saying why don't they show classics in primetime. That is what I was saying. Here is a sample thread from the past. Certain people were screaming that GSN should show classics in primetime vs. modern shows.

And I agree that people should be very grateful that they have kept an older show like 25k Pyramid in primetime for so long now. This has even lasted longer then Saturday night classics in the past. That's what I was trying to say with my post, the people that really wanted classics in primetime should be enjoying the Pyramid blocks on Friday nights.

[Lingofan97]

Personally, I never once said classics would do well in prime time. I have said I thought Classics could have done well from 4-6 PM or after midnight EST.The fact 25/100K has stayed on so long has been a treat for any classic fan.

The ratings disagree with you. With the way GSN programming has gone since around 2009, I'm surprised we still even have a minute of classics every morning. Be lucky DWTS and other originals didn't become popular, or else we could be seeing those right now 4-7pm, instead of true game shows like Catch 21 and Family Feud

And I agree that people should be very grateful that they have kept an older show like 25k Pyramid in primetime for so long now. This has even lasted longer then Saturday night classics in the past. That's what I was trying to say with my post, the people that really wanted classics in primetime should be enjoying the Pyramid blocks on Friday nights.

We're still lucky to be seeing 25K Pyramid in primetime. With the ratings it had, with any other block rated that low it would have been canned months ago. We'll be lucky to hold onto any type if classics Friday nights come September

[billycw]

The ratings disagree with you. With the way GSN programming has gone since around 2009, I'm surprised we still even have a minute of classics every morning. Be lucky DWTS and other originals didn't become popular, or else we could be seeing those right now 4-7pm, instead of true game shows like Catch 21 and Family Feud

Excuse me...but huh?.....agree that GSN has pretty much desired a more modern schedule since 2009. If the previous PD had stayed, that was the goal.
But GSN had tremendous ratings when DOND started.Also, shows like P Plus and MG were doing well in their time slots at that point. For 2 years, GSN didn't acquire a single episode of a classic.There wasn't a serious attempt by GSN to make classics a significant part of the schedule.Again, the goal was to fill as many slots with modern shows. Definitely worked around the reign of DOND.But bad decisions by GOODE concerning the type of programming GSN decided to go with caused a slow decline over the next few years.
When the same classics were being shown over and over like Groundhog Day, there is a diminishing return in ratings. Pyramid did better than any other classic because an episode of 25/100 K isn't easily recalled like an episode of MG or FF . As much as anyone loves a show, if you are seeing an episode of MG for the 8th time in a 3 year period, you tend to watch something else.
As far as the DWTS travesty, this alone probably caused Goldhill to seriously rethink the short term strategy of GSN. No one truly thought...I would hope...that we would be seeing Clark Fridays for this length of time. People should be grateful and appreciative of this.If you notice the PDF's,GSN will be playing Chefs and ABC to death the first few weeks. That is expected, but if they are huge hits like DOND was in 2009, GSN has a habit of serious overkill to maximize viewer ratings in the short term. Works wonders for about a year, but the end result is what has happened to Regis WWTBAM and DOND. They fade away and actually become a hinderance in their time slots before they leave. This is sad because those 2 shows deserve a place somewhere on the schedule.Then again, loyalty hasn't been big on GSN's mind last few years. Most networks are like that( surprised Fox gave the Simpsons another year. This is the same network that didn't even give MWC a send-off when that show kept them in business during the early days).


GSN viewers will never see another year like 2008 when 40 % of the weekday schedule was Classic. The fact we are seeing P Plus, SP and new 25 K is a treat for classic fans.I honestly believe GSN will have success with Pyramid, Chefs and ABC. Think there is a decent market out there with those 3 concepts to draw transient viewers to GSN. God only knows what they were thinking with DWTS....perhaps the single most dumb decision GSN has done in many many moons.But as a game show fan, unless you are peeved about DOND, you have to at least agree that the direction GSN is going is a positive one. Not something I have seen for a long, long time.

[CaseyAbell]

GSN viewers will never see another year like 2008 when 40 % of the weekday schedule was Classic.

Not this again. The only way you can get to that 40% figure for 2008 is to count 2004-05 Jeopardy eps as "classics." By that standard, a lot of Karn Feud and Woolery Lingo are classics. You can check a typical 2008 schedule to see for yourselves. Warning: that schedule has plenty of, gasp, poker on it. Horrors!

The schedule also has some oddities like Maury Povich's remake of Twenty One and the forlorn try to bring back Russian Roulette reruns.

[Xavier1989]

Not this again. The only way you can get to that 40% figure for 2008 is to count 2004-05 Jeopardy eps as "classics." By that standard, a lot of Karn Feud and Woolery Lingo are classics. You can check a typical 2008 schedule to see for yourselves. Warning: that schedule has plenty of, gasp, poker on it. Horrors!

The schedule also has some oddities like Maury Povich's remake of Twenty One and the forlorn try to bring back Russian Roulette reruns.

Can we please have a time machine so we can go back to that time again. I really want that schedule back.

[Lingofan97]

Can we please have a time machine so we can go back to that time again. I really want that schedule back.

I was never into High Stakes Poker, but it did well for GSN for years in weeknights, then moved to Saturday nights for a 10 hour marathon. 2008 and 2009 had pretty good schedules. Even 2010 was very decent in primetime. Things crashed in 2011 with Improv and Love Triangle. Since, GSN has done a lot better, but I think there could have been ways to get great ratings without block scheduling