Prime time

As a faux tweet noted, GSN has been touting the second season of America Says, coming in November.

GSN ordered a whopping 95 eps for the second run, and I wrote that they might use the show in prime time. Looks like that's correct, based on this blurb at GSN TV Nation (free but tedious registration required)...

The new season [of America Says] will debut in November in Prime, replacing an episode of Family Feud.

I'm doing some Kremlinology here, but the wording is suggestive. GSN wants us to know that they're cutting back on Steve Harvey's Family Feud. It's ironic that America Says is a Feud knockoff, though the clock moves things along a lot faster. Pyramid vs. Password, you know.

GSN has already sliced a lot of Feud off the schedule, though the oldies boards continue the endless whines about the network's use of the show. (See here and here for a couple of recent complaints among many others.) Beyond Business 101 reasons for avoiding overreliance on a single product, GSN may be ever so slightly worried about Fremantle's future plans.

Right now Fremantle's game show diginet Buzzr is only a dusty backwater for a tiny bunch of oldies nuts and no threat at all to GSN, which continues to ride high as a top 30 cable net. But there's nothing to stop Fremantle from trying to build Buzzr into a real competitor with popular current shows like, you guessed it, Harvey Feud. Fremantle has the product, after all, especially with the success of their recent ABC reboots. Not to mention those daytime winners on CBS.

So when GSN has more or less lucked into a genuine homegrown hit like America Says, why not use it to lessen their dependence on Fremantle?

UPDATE: Promos on GSN say the new season of America Says will run at 9:00 PM. I wonder if the show will eventually get a double run at 9:00 PM and 9:30 PM.

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