to glut of new game shows
All do well but 'Millionaire' is way ahead
By Jennifer Cox
Game show mania swept the networks this week, with all of the Big Four rolling out quizzers.
And it appears they are all winners, most notably ABC, whose "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" handily swept past all challengers, easily matching earlier audience records.
Even the also-rans drew better numbers than the shows they replaced.
So when will Americans tire of game shows, to pose the question on everyone's mind?
Certainly not this week, and probably not next week either. And maybe not all season.
"Millionaire" began its eight-day streak of shows on Sunday, with 28 million viewers watching, ranking it the fourth most popular show of the week, tied with "Fraiser," according to Nielsen. Fox’s "Greed," "Millionaire’s" only real game show competition for the first half of the season, drew an average of 12 million viewers over the three nights the show aired.
NBC’s Sunday premiere of "Twenty One" drew 16 million viewers, while CBS’s first airing of "Winning Lines" on Saturday received 10 million viewers.
With "Millionaire" and "Greed" ratings staying strong, "Twenty One's" numbers extremely promising and "Winning Lines" ratings adequate, it seems audiences are not yet tired of games shows.
Though "Greed," hosted by Chuck Woolery, lost to "Twenty One," Fox is still pleased with the show’s performance, since it did better than any of the shows it replaced, including the long-popular "Party of Five." Fox has yet to announce a permanent time slot for "Greed."
Hosted by Maury Povich, "Twenty One," NBC’s remake of the popular 1950’s quiz show, fared extremely well, capturing 10.7 percent of the audience, ranking it no. 18 on the week’s Nielsen chart. NBC plans to air the show in the 8 p.m. time slot on Sundays, before "Millionaire," and Wednesdays as well.
"Twenty One" replaces the newsmagazine "Dateline NBC" on both nights, which previously ran five days a week. "Dateline" ratings have been heading south all season until its last showing on Wednesday night, Jan. 5, when it won the time slot, capturing 10.3 percent of the audience.
CBS’s "Winning Lines," a revised version of a British hit hosted by Dick Clark, received the lowest ratings among the new game shows, drawing only 6.8 percent of the audience in its Saturday night slot. However, the show still fared a bit better than "Early Edition", the program it replaced. "Early Edition" regularly only captured 6.2 percent of viewers.
-Jennifer Cox is a staff writer for Media Life.