GSN’s World Poker Tour Rights Expire

09 Jun

Posted by Alex Davis as Canceled, GSN, World Poker Tour

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 come because of cutting costs. Some also is dealing with going back to the roots of the network which were, in all honesty, much more successful in a ratings stance. Whammy five years ago wasn’t going to get renewed because of a 0.4 rating. Now that’s the network’s most popular show. While the rebranding of Game Show Network to GSN was successful in the beginning, it quickly subsided, and getting back to the routes of producing some young, fresh, interesting, and hip game shows like they used to do in 2002 might be what’s needed.

16 Responses

Marc Power
1
June 9th, 2008 at 11:13 am

world poker tour, IMO never really fit in on GSN, it’s a much more serious poker game and is the kind of thing that should be on ESPN or another sports channel. High stakes Poker however, works IMO, becuase the game comes across as more causual (despite the ridiculous amounts of money at stake) and plus, it usually comes on late nights like most poker shows.
devares
2
June 9th, 2008 at 11:56 am

I agree. It should be on a sports channel like ESPN, FSN, or Versus. It just didn’t exactly mesh with what GSN had expected from it. Another problem was that they invested too much money for its rights so I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually lost revenue from it. Hopfully, both parties will shake back from this.
Doug Morris
3
June 9th, 2008 at 12:38 pm

Another bummer for GSN. I’m just glad I actually got to see this with some degree of regularity. My (crummy excuse for a) cable provider doesn’t offer The Travel Channel. So until the WPT on GSN, the only way I got to see full episodes was whenever I took a vacation.
KBGUY09
4
June 9th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

I enjoyed every casino game except High Stakes Poker (because it was too relaxed and there was no consistent game play.) However, I am glad to see GSN going back to its roots and playing game shows. Hopefully we’ll get some version of PlayMania back and GSN will be back on regular cable someday in the future!
Chris Parsley
5
June 9th, 2008 at 1:44 pm

Actually GSN picked up WPT on a bargain, at about half of what the Travel channel was paying for the episodes. I think GSN just wants to pick em up EVEN cheaper now for the reason of not renewing the contract as it stood.
Mike B.
6
June 9th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

Am I reading this right? Whammy! is GSN’s most popular show? What is the world coming to? I guess it figures since we have similarly obnoxious shows in prime time right now, but I can’t hit the remote quickly enough after Russian Roulette ends. Suddenly I’m longing for 2002, when RR and Lingo deservedly got better ratings than Whammy!, and prime time game shows had some degree of dignity left in them.

As for the WPT - I’m not a huge fan of the show or televised poker in general (though I’ll take it over Whammy! any day), but I’m pretty shocked to see GSN possibly giving it up. I know they’re pinching pennies right now, but I figured maybe they were just saving money for the next season of WPT. But I guess I can’t complain if they go back to all traditional game shows.
Alex Davis
7
June 9th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

Sorry, Mike, just a small misunderstanding. Back in 2002, Whammy was getting 0.4s and almost not renewed. If it got that today, it would be renewed in a heartbeat. RR and Lingo were getting 0.6-0.8, each peaking at 0.9 some times.

No original has been as hip or interesting or exciting as that batch back then. They need some inspiration.
Greg
8
June 9th, 2008 at 9:11 pm

If GSN is looking to boost ratings, just pile on the classic shows. If any of you are interested, here’s what I would be doing now:

* “MDP” is a supposed hit, right? I’d be getting all the CBS primetime episodes of “Password” and airing them with “Password +” and “Super Password”.
* “TPIR: MDS” is another hit. So, I’d get a couple dozen Barker-approved episodes of the original “TPIR” and air them in primetime.

What do you think?
DENo1MatchGameFan
9
June 10th, 2008 at 1:20 am

As far as “TPIR” being shown on GSN, don’t count on it! Both Barker and Les Moonves have their claws into it, and with all of Barker’s issues (i.e. fur coats, people he don’t get along with from the past, his ego compared to other “TPIR” hosts), I don’t see it happening until he is long gone from this world.

Let’s hope GSN wakes up, and starts to spend money on actual game shows, and not more sports related programming (poker shows) or reality programs (i.e. “The Amazing Race.”)

Why not try to acquire “Scrabble”, “$ale Of The Century”, “The 25,000 Pyramid” and the rest of “Press Your Luck” for starters… Yes, I know how Fremantle is ‘holding the shows hostage’ with its outrageous asking prices (ditto for Sony and “Pyramid”), but just to think - USA showed all of these shows with no problems in the 80’s and 90’s - if GSN was a true game show network, they’d do everything in their power to obtain shows like this, and also show others gathering dust like “Tattletales” and “Match Game ‘90.”
Brandon
10
June 10th, 2008 at 8:30 am

Greg and DeNo1, I think the problem with both suggestions (Barker TPiR and Scrabble/$ale) is that it’s all in the ownership. In the 90s, I *believe* Grundy still owned his shows, so it might’ve been a bit easier to give USA the rerun rights. Could be wrong on that, and I’d have to go through ATGS archives to get the full story.

As for TPiR, I’m under the impression that it’s either CBS or Fremantle who doesn’t want the show airing anywhere other than CBS, with the exception of DVD sets. Whoever made the decision wanted a little too much money from GSN, which is why we’ve gone 8+ years without it on GSN.

Again, my memory is very fuzzy, and if I can find it in ATGS’s archives, I’ll post it…
Marc Power
11
June 10th, 2008 at 8:57 am

two words for gsn (well, technically one) TVLand, that’s a channel that is about 90% classics and they’re doing well enough to stay on the air.
Greg
12
June 10th, 2008 at 9:17 am

Marc, TV Land is going to show promos on top and squeeze the credits down on the bottom. They’ll probably just copy and paste the text and put it in their own windows (watch “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “Hogan’s Heroes” and you’ll see what I mean). Besides, they’re all about sitcoms and dramas.

I believe PYL was once distributed by Republic Pictures. GSN has the 1982-88 “The New $25,000 Pyramid”. The syndicated version of “SOTC” was distributed by Genesis Entertainment, which is now part of News Corp. Rupert Murdoch and Reg Grundy are both Aussies, so this might work out after all.

The last 2 Perry seasons of “SOTC” are still intact, as well as the 1985-86 version. “Scrabble” is owned by either Hasbro or Fremantle.

CBSTD owns the rights to the Cullen “$25K” and the Davidson “$100K”. “The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime” may still be owned by Warner Bros. (through Lorimar-Telepictures). If GSN can get “Love Connection”, they can get the other one, too.

What do you think about that?
devares
13
June 10th, 2008 at 9:56 am

Well said, DENo1MatchGameFan. For some strange reason, GSN has become NBC, IOW, not caring what their viewers think. If I were them, I would convince Les Moonves to just simply give GSN reruns of TPIR since they will be sitting in a storage room gathering dust. I would also ask NBC to do the same with all the Concentration (including Classic Concentration). Leave the casino shows to, as I said in a previous post, ESPN, FSN, or Versus, and give all the reality shows to Fox Reality since they’re doing a better job airing them.
Casey Abell
14
June 14th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

Actually, the ratings story for GSN is a little more complicated. Back in May, 2001 some brave soul defied Nielsen Media Research and published all the numbers for all the cable network prime time shows for two weeks.

GSN averaged about a 0.35 rating for those two weeks. That’s not far from the average prime time ratings the network chalked up in 2007, if the CableWorld charts are to be believed. So the network is probably getting about the same overall ratings as it did way back when it was supposedly “sticking to its roots.”

In between a few things happened. Millionaire was the biggest. The show was the the best and most consistent ratings-getter GSN ever had. Some (but by no means all) of the Boden originals also did well, Lingo and Russian Roulette in particular. Amazing Race also debuted to very good numbers, especially in 18-49 where the very old-skewing GSN has always struggled.

Those effects have now pretty well worn off, and GSN looks to be back to 2001-and-before ratings levels. You might say those levels are the hardcore game show audience (plus some other viewers for the poker shows). The difference is that the network is now available in almost twice as many households as it was in 2001. So the network has a much higher number of viewers. That growth plus severe cost-cutting have made the network profitable, if Variety is to be believed.

Just a few days ago Reuters published a story that High Stakes Poker and the World Poker Tour are among the top-rated 18-49 shows on GSN. In fact, Reuters says HSP is THE top-rated 18-49 show on the network. The story wondered why GSN would cancel its highest rated show in 18-49. That would normally be considered a suicidal move by any television operation. But the article noted that GSN has alerady apparently axed Lingo, its fourth-highest rated show in 18-49.

I think it’s mostly cost-cutting, plus an unwillingness to renew anything left over from the Rich Cronin era. Retuers considers these possibilities in the article, by the way.
Mike B.
15
June 16th, 2008 at 11:16 am

I’m no fan of televised poker, but I can sympathize with the fans. These shows are bringing in a strong following, and with poker shows gradually disappearing from larger networks, GSN could serve as their last refuge. Would it kill them to keep splurge a little on these shows? I’m glad Goldhill doesn’t seem poised to make a bunch of expensive, risky acquisitions like Cronin did, but certainly he could shell out the bucks for some proven winners.
CJ Varner
16
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:36 pm

I smell new Whammy!/PYL episodes!