Ratings Report: “Family Feud” Hits Another High; “Baggage” Debuts OK

For the holidays, fans of Family Feud should have been sending cards and presents to host Steve Harvey for saving the show.  The ratings for the week ending January 2nd, the final week of 2010 before the new year, are out.  It’s becoming a recurring theme around here, but yet again Family Feud hit a season high.  The show rose 6% from a week ago, making its way to a 1.9 rating.  I’m not sure last time the show had a rating that high.  It’s looking like the show will hit the 2.0 or higher rating by the end of the season, and it’s been years since I can remember that.

Jerry Springer, Host of Baggage

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.  The first two episodes scored an averaged 0.9/2 rating.  It’s down 10% from its lead in and down 25% from this time last year.  If nothing else, it’s tied with Don’t Forget The Lyrics!, which is also at a 0.9, and Baggage has had practically no promotion and is only airing in one top-ten market.  Not to mention the fact that Baggage has a very low budget, it’s cheap for them to do, and it’s giving GSN a lot of extra publicity.  I don’t know if it’s enough to keep it in syndication, but it’s not that bad.

The rest of syndication was generally up.  Wheel of Fortune and its sister show Jeopardy! bumped up 3% and 4%, respectively.  Wheel grew to 6.9 and Jeopardy! to 5.7.  Don’t forget that the show’s special IBM Challenge will air starting February 14th.  Who Wants to be a Millionaire gained 5% to 2.3.  They’ve still got the notoriously huge money Million Dollar Movie Week to look forward to, so maybe a $500,000 win (or more?) can get a bit more of an audience for them.  Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? has been rebounding the past few weeks.  It added 10% to a 1.1.  Don’t Forget The Lyrics! lost

Anna and Anthony on Million Dollar Money Drop

the same amount, down to a 0.9.

We’ll update this post with ratings for Wednesday and Thursday when they come in, but Tuesday’s edition of Million Dollar Money Drop had a very nice increase after last Tuesday’s slightly worrying total.  Tuesday’s 9:00PM edition of Money Drop, which memorably featured a couple losing a full $1,000,000 on the very first question, scored a 3.3/5 rating.  Most importantly it was up 38% in the adults 18-49 to a 1.8.

We’ll update when ratings for Minute to Win It come in.