20Jun2011
Ben Bailey Wins Emmy; “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” Tie
Last night CBS presented the 38th annual Daytime Emmy Awards, hosted by Let's Make A Deal host Wayne Brady. I didn't watch (not a fan of award shows) so someone can clue us in as to how Wayne did, but regardless many other game shows were represented well. As previously established Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak and Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek were honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards. Trebek told CBS News backstage, "We're part of Americana. People, when they hear the themes to 'Wheel' and 'Jeopardy!', they know immediately what the reference is. Part of that is because we've been on for so long. We hope it will continue for as long as we want to do it." Click here to learn more about the awards.
Read MoreView Comments (21)13Jun2011
Official: Jim Thornton Chosen as New “Wheel of Fortune” Announcer
Edit: It's official. We're missing our "We Called It" banner or we'd be displaying that right now. Jim's official run starts on the season debut, September 19th. “We are delighted to welcome Jim Thornton into the Wheel of Fortune family,” said Wheel of Fortune executive producer Harry Friedman. “Jim’s rich, friendly voice and engaging personality are a great fit for our show and its tradition.” Click here to read more.
Read MoreView Comments (51)26May2011
“Wheel of Fortune” Lines Up “Tennis Week” with Tennis Channel
The season may be ending soon, but Wheel of Fortune is still pulling out the stops to get your attention. Next week the show will present a brand new themed week: "Tennis Week". Tennis Week will be sponsored by the Tennis Channel and it will air May 30th through June 3rd. The channel will help give away trips to some of the biggest events in tennis around the world as well as setting up some special guest appearances. Click here to read about the special guests and trips coming up.
Read MoreView Comments (4)11May2011
Game Show Nominees for 38th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards
The 38th annual Daytime Emmy Awards are rapidly approaching and, as always, game shows are being represented well. Last year Discovery's Cash Cab (a show I still think is incredibly overrated) swept the games, winning both best game show and best host for Ben Bailey. They'll both be back trying for yet another, but a field of others will try to keep the newest Emmy Award off their shelf. The host this year will be Let's Make A Deal's Wayne Brady. Click here for the full list of nominees.
Read MoreView Comments (11)12Apr2011
Win a Cruise with “Watch Wheel with Wendy’s” Contest
Fast food chain Wendy's is partnering with Wheel of Fortune for the special "Watch Wheel with Wendy's" contest, where you could win a family cruise. The contest is actually going on now, April 12th, and runs through May 15th. During this period a Wendy's kids meal will be branded with a Wheel toy and game piece. Then, check out Wheel every night from May 23rd through May 27th to see if your game piece matches the puzzle on the show. Winners will receive one of five family Caribbean cruises. Be sure to visit Wheel's website for more information.
Read MoreView Comments (7)22Mar2011
“Vanna For A Day” Winner Katie Cantrell Appears on “Wheel” March 24th; Trebek and Sajak Win Award
Lots of Wheel of Fortune news for you today. In February, Wheel launched the "Vanna For a Day" competition where one lucky winner would get the chance to stand in front of the iconic puzzle board in place for regular host Vanna White. Katie Cantrell, a senior at Savannah College of Art and Design, won. She beat out more than 1,000 other ladies for the chance.
Not only that, but both Pat Sajak and Alex Trebek are being honored with a Lifetime Achievement award at the Daytime Emmys which will be broadcast live on June 19th on CBS. “Who of us has not laughed and been entertained by the unique and ever present game shows, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!?” asked NATAS Chairman, Darryl Cohen.
26Jan2011
Finalists for “Vanna For a Day” Competition Announced
A few weeks ago Wheel of Fortune announced a new "Vanna For a Day" competition. The contest allowed women to enter videos online and possibly become co-host of the show, with Pat Sajak, for one episode. In addition the winner gets flown to Los Angeles, stays in a luxury hotel, and gets a makeover with Vanna's people. Over 1,000 people entered the contest and submitted videos to the show's website. From those, five people were chosen. Click here to see who the five are and vote on who you want to win.
Read MoreView Comments (4)19Jan2011
Ratings Report: “Money Drop” Stabilizes
We're now completely out of any form of 2010 ratings for syndication. Updates for both last night's Million Dollar Money Drop and all of syndication for the week ending January 9th are in. There's some relatively decent news for Money Drop. Its ratings seemed to have stabilized and the viewers who like it are sticking with it. Last night's show, with a record $300,000 win, got a 3.4/5 rating. On the surface, yeah, it's not the greatest rating on the planet, but it's pretty close to Minute to Win It which gets touted as the greatest thing to ever happen to game shows, and Money Drop is cheap enough. Click here to read more about the ratings for network and syndication game shows.
Read MoreView Comments (10)13Jan2011
Ratings Report: “Family Feud” Hits Another High; “Baggage” Debuts OK
The ratings for the week ending January 2nd, the final week of 2010 before the new year, are out. For the holidays, fans of Family Feud should have been sending cards and presents to host Steve Harvey for saving the show. It's becoming a recurring theme around here, but yet again Family Feud hit a season high. The rest of the syndicated shows, except for one, also saw an increase. Next, GSN's Baggage entered a ten market test run this past Monday. The ratings are out for the first two days and while it's not lighting the world on fire, in the grand scheme of things it's doing fine. We've also got the ratings for Million Dollar Money Drop, with more to come. Click here to read about all the ratings and what they mean.
Read MoreView Comments (1)09Jan2011
This Week in Dirty Game Show Moments
Game shows, for the most part, are PG rated. Very little goes on that can be construed as dirty. If something slips by it's generally by accident, and if others catch it the ensuing reaction is priceless. A shocking amount of that happened this past week all over the world. We picked out some of our favorite moments of innuendo. Click to see the moments.
Read MoreView Comments (4)06Jan2011
Lora Cain Becomes First Female Guest Announcer on “Wheel of Fortune”
Game show hosting has been gender neutral for the past decade for the most part, allowing as many female hosts as male. However, announcers have typically always been men. Not necessarily anymore. Lora Cain will be stepping behind the microphone for a week of shows, becoming the first woman in Wheel's history to take the announcer position. Wheel of Fortune has been using guest announcers after the passing of Charlie O'Donnell. Rich Fields and Jim Thornton have already taken turns. Lora's run will start the week of January 10th. Click here to read more and learn about Lora.
Read MoreView Comments (20)04Jan2011
“Wheel of Fortune” Giving a Viewer a Chance to be “Vanna For A Day”
Have you ever watched Wheel of Fortune and thought that you could do Vanna White's job? The show is giving you a chance to stand in front of the iconic puzzle board. Wheel has announced the "Vanna For A Day" contest, where one lucky (female) home viewer will get a chance to reveal letters on the puzzle board during an episode. Click here to read about it.
Read MoreView Comments (12)22Dec2010
Ratings Report: “Million Dollar Money Drop” Stays Level; “Family Feud” Continues to Impress
We've got lots of ratings for broadcast, syndicated, and cable shows, not to mention results of how the black and white shows GSN added for a two week trial period are doing. But first, Million Dollar Money Drop had its first winner last night, giving away $80,000 to a couple. The ratings stayed relatively level due to a weak lead-in. Next, GSN recently added black and white game shows to the overnight 3:00AM hour for a two week period. If classic fans wanted them to stick around then people needed to watch. They're apparently doing so. And in syndication, for the week ending December 12th, Family Feud continues to be in the forefront this season. Click here to read more about the ratings.
Read MoreView Comments (12)17Dec2010
Hillary Light Wins $100,000 on “Wheel of Fortune”
While robots will soon be taking over Jeopardy!, I feel like IBM developed a different kind of robot for Wheel of Fortune yesterday. Contestant Hillary Light won one of the show's biggest prizes, $100,000, after solving the puzzle BRAINS AND BRAWN with some lucky letter picking in the bonus round. What would normally be a moment of screaming, jumping around, crying, and any other huge emotion you can think of, Hillary remained pretty motionless and calm. It was like she won a coffee at Starbucks. The press release said she was so excited they had to bring out chairs for her to sit down. I'd hate to see what she's do if something huge happened. She may have been in complete shock, too. Who knows. Very weird moment. Click here to watch the video.
Read MoreView Comments (26)03Dec2010
Ratings Report: “Family Feud” Hits Season High
New ratings for the the week ending November 21st are in, and the sweeps period was very good to games. In particular, Family Feud is riding a high wave of critical praise and increased ratings since Steve Harvey took over as host. The week ending the 21st saw Feud increase by 6% to a new season high of a 1.7. It's slowly marching towards the 2.0 rating and I don't know when the last time that's happened for the show. Most impressively Feud has increased by 31% season to date. Looks like we'll be seeing Family Feud for some time to come. Click here to see the rest of the ratings for the week and see what shows are in danger.
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