Run, bear, run

Back when Screener TV was TV by the Numbers - and back when the site was a lot more interesting - there was plenty of talk about the cancellation bear. When a hungry bear is running after you and another guy, you don't have to outrun the bear. You just have to outrun the other guy.

In TV terms this means your show just has to do okay compared to other offerings on your network, not beat some arbitrary standard for all shows. That's why the cancellation bear didn't devour truTV quizzer Paid Off, though the show has really stunk up the Nielsen numbers. The latest run drew 105K viewers, which a test pattern could get on a broadcast network.

On GSN Paid Off would have expired after the first season. On a broadcast network it might have died after the first ten minutes. But truTV is a tiny cable outlet with a 131K total day viewer average for the latest week. So Paid Off's numbers don't look utterly horrendous by comparison, and the show got a sixteen-ep renewal.

By the way, Paid Off isn't a terrible show. Some of the humor is beyond lame, but the quizzer is competent and sometimes interesting. The heavy political message about student debt is annoying, but it may have actually helped on truTV, which has some odd p.c. leanings. (See Eichner, Billy.) But most of all, the show picked the right network to beat the bear.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ratings: syndies rebound from turkey overload

Image
As always, Thanksgiving week was soft for syndie game shows. So there was a big bounce back in the week of November 26-December 2. I should say the top three bounced back. There wasn't much happening for the bottom two. TV News Check has the household ratings... Jeopardy 6.4 - up nine ticks from turkey week and into first place Family Feud 6.3 - also up nine ticks for a second-place tie Wheel of Fortune 6.3 - another nine tick rise, it's the thing this week Millionaire 1.7 - flat Funny You Should Ask 0.5 - flat, a big surprise As I said in a comment on a previous entry, America Says has averaged around 450K viewers for its last three prime time runs (December 5-7). Maybe GSN has finally found a way to lessen their reliance on Harvey Feud . Overall, GSN's prime time numbers perked up from the previous week. The network drew 376K/255K viewers prime time/total day for the week of December 3-9. GSN ranked 36th and 32nd in the windows.
Read more

HQ co-founder dies at age 35

Image
Colin Kroll, co-founder of live game show app HQ , has died of an apparent drug overdose. He was 35. Mr. Kroll's girlfriend called police late last night because he wasn't answering phone calls at his Manhattan apartment. Officers found him unconscious in his bedroom with drug paraphernalia. Attempts to revive him failed, and his death is tentatively ascribed to an overdose of cocaine and heroin. Mr. Kroll had faced career issues before he hit it big with HQ . There were reports about his aggressive and possibly harassing executive style, though no formal complaints were ever filed. Twitter fired him before he founded HQ with Rus Yusopov. At its peak of popularity the live game show app attracted more than two million players and spawned a host of imitators. The show has since declined in popularity, though it still draws a sizeable audience. Rus Yusopov remembered Mr. Kroll in a tweet earlier today. "I will forever remember [Colin] for his kind soul and big heart. He ma
Read more

Buzzr gets noticed

Image
It's nice when Buzzr, our little oldies diginet, gets some attention outside the narrow confines of the game show Interwebs. I had never heard of the 2 Paragraphs site, but I assume they limit their stories to two paragraphs (duh). Sure enough, that's the length of their rewrite of a press release from Buzzr about the diginet's Betty White Christmas. I got the same release in my inbox, and the linked story gives me an excuse to rewrite it myself. Come to think of it, the 2 Paragraphs site probably imposes a word limit as well. Otherwise they could dawdle along for two 10,000-word paragraphs, which would pretty much defeat the purpose. Anyway, the site counts 8 days and 71 episodes of Betty in such Buzzr staples as Match Game , Tattletales , Password Plus and Super Password . I don't know if there are any "fresh" episodes of these shows in the stunt, as the oldies boards like to call them. (For the uninitiated, "fresh" means eps that haven't t
Read more