21Jul2010
“Pyramid” Revival for CBS Dead
We could have seen this from a mile away and I'm sure many of you could also. According to Deadline, which is really never wrong with this stuff, CBS has chosen the View-like talk show hosted by Sarah Gilbert of The Big Bang Theory and with other panelists like Holly Robinson Peete, Sharon Osbourne, Leah Remini, and the wife of the person who ends up making all these decisions Julie Chen. This means Pyramid is all but dead unless some unbelievable twist of fate occurs and Les Moonves wants a divorce. And to be honest, not to be rude, if you expected Pyramid to get picked up you were delusional. When it's against only game shows then yeah, it's looking good. Put it against a talk show in the format of a very popular one on ABC and
Read MoreView Comments (85)15Jul2010
XBox “1 VS 100″ Dead
The world has gone 1 VS 100 crazy recently. First we got the exclusive word that an American television network is looking at picking up 1 VS 100 for a brand new (and cheaper which will probably work better) series. Today, though, we get bad news. XBox has announced that it's 1 VS 100 live arcade game has finished after two seasons. The show seemed strong, with tens of thousands playing for real cash and prizes each week. The outcry for the death of 1 VS 100 has been very visible, too. Check out any tech blog and you'll see an overwhelming if not unanimous declaration of sadness to see the show go away. It was very popular and done unbelievably well. It opened the door for a lot of social game show programming. I doubt we would have seen stuff like the Family Feud Facebook game without it. Read on for more information.
Read MoreView Comments (6)08Jan2010
“Our Little Genius” Update: Audience Reports of Questionable Activity
The situation on Fox's now-canceled quiz show Our Little Genius is pretty bad. It would have been larger news if the NBC late night ordeal wasn't happening at the same time. To bring people up to speed if you are behind: Fox pulled Our Little Genius less than a week before its debut because there was an, "issue with how some information was relayed to contestants during...pre-production," according to executive producer Mark Burnett. Some audience reports from Hollywood Junket are shedding some more light on this.
Read MoreView Comments (77)07Jan2010
Fox Drops “Our Little Genius”, Contestants Briefed Too Much?
We've gotten just about as close as we can to a quiz show scandal as we can these days. Out of no where Fox has dropped the much-hyped quiz show Our Little Genius. It's not clear if it's a clear cancelation at this point or if it's just being redone. Now comes the really interesting part. The show wasn't dropped because of lack of confidence. Our Little Genius has been removed from the schedule because of concerns about information given to contestants during preproduction about what topics they would see during the game. All of this is according to the New York Times.
Read MoreView Comments (30)14Jul2009
Fall 2009 Game Shows Roundup
It's my favorite time of year on this site. The boring summer where I barely have anything fun to offer is almost up and it's time for all your favorite game shows to come back for a new season of tapings. The casting is basically over but you can still be in the audience, which is a lot of fun. Many shows are leaving Los Angeles to go across the coast so if you're near the New York City area, there's lots of chances for you to get in the action. Not only that but we get lots of emails asking us about their favorite shows. Here's a list of the big game shows last year and if they are returning or not. Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?: If you're looking for the primetime million dollar version, I wouldn't count on it. It's
Read MoreView Comments (22)19May2009
“Deal or No Deal”, “Fifth Grader”, and “Lyrics” Not Returning Fall 2009
It looks like this cycle of primetime game shows is over because of, yet again among a few things, god awful scheduling by the networks. NBC's Deal or No Deal and FOX's Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? and Don't Forget the Lyrics will not be coming back Fall 2009 and, simply put, they are almost positively canceled. No official word has been given but you don't need official word in these cases. They are dying in the ratings, audiences are going away fast, and it's constantly shuffled and removed. They are gone. Deal or No Deal should be no shock. The ratings for the three week trial the past few Mondays have been beyond terrible. They've been pretty bad all season. Originally I placed blame on the fact that this season NBC
Read MoreView Comments (16)23Jan2009
Did You Know “Hole in the Wall” Came Back? Apparently It Did. And Now It’s Gone.
I'm a big fan of the whole public relations/publicity thing. I have a lot of friends in it, so I enjoy hearing about it. The only thing I will give FOX's Hole in the Wall, when it first came out, was that it was marketed correctly. It was just a dumb, silly stunt show. They carried it way too seriously occasionally, but they didn't overly make it out to be something it wasn't. Of course that doesn't help the fact that the show sucks and can't sustain itself as its own show, but I figured I'll give them something. Ratings suffered and the show was quickly pulled from the lineup. FOX announced it would return in January a while ago, but truthfully I forgot about it. It was apparently on last Sunday. Go figure. Sunday night isn't
Read MoreView Comments (6)09Jun2008
GSN’s World Poker Tour Rights Expire
Interesting GSN developments that continue in the line or eliminating everything under former CEO Rich Cronin. The broadcast rights to World Poker Tour expired on Sunday, leaving the long time poker show without a home currently. GSN CEO David Goldhill said, “The World Poker Tour has been a great partner and the show continues to perform strongly on our network. We are continuing discussions with WPTE regarding how we may be able to work together – including perhaps broadcasting parts of Season VII.” This comes in a line of recent decisions eliminating everything from the network's past few years, including the probable cancellation of Lingo and World Poker Tour. So all the non-poker fans can be happy again. And yes, some of it does
Read MoreView Comments (16)18Oct2007
GSN Makes Statement About “Quiznation” Cancelation
GSN representatives just emailed us a statement they made about the cancelation of Quiznation. I thought this may interest those of you who enjoy it. Dear PlayManiacs, We have greatly appreciated your support of our PlayMania efforts over the last 19 months; it’s been an amazing experience and we’re glad to see that you’ve enjoyed playing along. It goes without saying that we’ve learned much from your feedback (so keep it coming) and while it’s true that quiznation’s last night will be October 31, we have even bigger and better participation opportunities in store for you all in the coming months. As soon as we’ve set all the details, you’ll be the first to know. We’d say more, but we don’t want to spoil the
Read MoreView Comments (16)13Oct2007
Playmania Cancelled
Following the October 31st edition of Playmania/Quiznation, the show will be no more as GSN has cancelled what used to be a really good show. The show really started to slip when they decided that doing pretty much 3 games a show was better than 10 games a show. This transition happened after the Goddess Mel Peachey left the show back in April. Replacing the two hour block is another two hour block of...you guessed it! Reruns! At 12am we get some fun Who Wants to Be a Millionaire which I'm sure everyone is excited for. But then the actual good news starts as for 5 days a week, 1am to 2am consists of Trivia Trap and Now You See It. This may be a good step in the right direction for GSN. But it's probably just some filler until they
Read MoreView Comments (42)13Aug2007
Nick GAS to go Broadband-Only
Nickelodeon Games and Sports (Nick GAS), a once popular kids channel to see the many game shows Nickelodeon produced in the 90s, has announced that they will be going Broadband-Only. The reason for the replacement is The N Noggin, two seperate channels that shared one, are going to be spliting up into their own channels, and Nick GAS 's slot gets one of them. The channel used to have such a variety of shows, blocks, and segments with hosts such as Dave Aizer, Vivianne Collins and Mati Moralejo. A network that used to show 20-25 shows a week, now only shows 6 shows a day with each host being dropped from the network, with it being a sign that Nickelodeon just doesn't care anymore for this channel. They have not announced when this will
Read MoreView Comments (24)09May2007
Bert’s Family Feud Gets the Axe
After 15 months on the air, Bert's Family Feud is cancelled. Bert Newton himself only just got word yesterday. The show was meant to be competition to Deal or No Deal, and sadly, did not fare well. It had only 580,000 viewers, compared to Deal's 917,000. The final show of Bert's Family Feud will air June
Read MoreView Comments (10)29Mar2007
“The Great American Dream Vote” Canceled
This season has been a season of very short runs for shows that aren't doing that well. ABC's wish fulfillment show, The Great American Dream Vote has been canceled after two episodes. It was so close to being tied with a show that didn't deserve to be canceled, The Rich List, which lasted one episode. Of course ABC is saying it can come back, but we'll believe it when we see it. Hey, Name That Tune fans: it clears Donny Osmond up for that show again at least. Donny Osmond, host of Dream Vote, is also hosting Pyramid in England, where they seem to have fixed many things, like allowing returning contestants (If you climb the Pyramid twice in one show) plus 7 in 30, and we've heard the show is quite good period. Now why couldn't we get
Read MoreView Comments (21)21Feb2007
Mike Richard’s “Price is Right” Audition Canceled
Reader Tom Beeman has informed us that TVTix told audience members who signed up for Mike Richard's test run of "The Price is Right" was caneled. Richards was supposed to try out on Wednesday, February 28th, at 2:45PM. No make-up is scheduled as of now, but we'll let you know if something comes
Read MoreLeave a Comment22Jan2007
“Play2Win” Dead on National Basis
Thanks to reader Troy Diggs for this story. On Thursday night, the poor hosts of "Play2Win", another "Playmania" ripoff, were making a big deal over the fact that the show is no longer on nationally. It still airs on WPIX in New York, but unless there are some other stations we're not aware of, that's about it. Supposedly, on Thursday night, they upped the money a bit but only did three puzzles. I'm sure you can imagine the huge amount of stalling they did
Read MoreView Comments (10)