Ratings: Pat and Vanna are happy happy joy joy

Readers of this blog know that I've often whined about the Nielsen Company's add-'em-up method of syndie ratings. This bashes Wheel of Fortune with its single daily run and rewards Family Feud with its (often) quadruple daily runs.

Wouldn't you know, in the latest week Wheel beat the beancounters. TV News Check sounds very surprised by this.

In a major upset, usual game show leader Family Feud was beaten by rival Wheel of Fortune in the session ending Sept. 30. Feud had been all alone at the top of the games for the prior 27 weeks, but this time Wheel rose 7% from the previous round to a 5.9 live-plus-same-day national Nielsen rating, while Feud fell 5% to a 5.8, landing in a tie for the runner-up spot in the genre with Jeopardy, which added 4% to a 5.8.

The full household ratings for the week of September 24-30...

Wheel of Fortune 5.9 - up four ticks to its notable win, despite Nielsen's best efforts
Family Feud 5.8 - down three ticks, maybe they should try six runs a day
Jeopardy 5.8 - up a couple ticks to tie Steve and friends
Millionaire 1.6 - flat at the usual number
Funny You Should Ask 0.5 - flat at the usual number

As a faux tweet noted, Child Support bombed along with the rest of ABC's TGIF block. The future doesn't look bright for the 5th Grader knockoff.

GSN's numbers were pretty typical for recent weeks. 382K/270K viewers prime time/total day for the week of October 1-7. GSN ranked 34th and 27th in the windows.

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