Buzzr's future

As I've written in comments and blog entries, I think there's a real debate at Fremantle on what to do with Buzzr. The exec shakeup is one symptom of the dispute. The stall in TV distribution is another sign that Fremantle is looking at all possibilities. As far as I can see, there are three genuine options for the future of the game show oldies diginet...

1) Shut it down completely. Nobody's watching it and it's not making a dime. This is what Fremantle did with the original Buzzr YouTube channel. It's not out of the question for the current diginet. Among other things, the careless mistiming of the commercial breaks on the channel tells me that nobody much cares even about basic technical operations.

2) Keep running the diginet for a small group of Internet oldies fans. This seems to be the current plan, and it's the most likely option for the near future, in my opinion. Sure, the combined membership of Game Show Forum and Game Show Paradise isn't huge, but it's an audience of some kind, after all. The recent acquisition of Classic Concentration and the tryout of color versions of several oldies indicate that Fremantle has more or less landed on this option for the moment. A possible variant is to forget about the linear TV channel and make Buzzr into a purely online operation.

3) Go hell for leather and try to make Buzzr into a genuine competitor for GSN. This is the high-risk, high-reward option, and it's the least likely, in my view. If Buzzr starts running current popular game shows like Celebrity Family Feud or Drew Carey's The Price is Right, we'll know that Fremantle is going all out. But this would p.o. GSN, a very good customer over the years, and there's no guarantee of success.

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