Ratings Report: “The Exit List” Debuts to 2.4 Million Viewers
We’ve got a lot of various ratings from across the broadcast world to share with you today. Let’s start with our major focus that we’ve been excited for recently: ITV’s The Exit List. The new quiz show hosted by Matt Allwright, which achieved critical acclaim and high praise from its viewers after its debut last night at 8:00PM, bowed to 2.4 million viewers. After adding ITV+1 it totalled 2.5. million. It also saw a 10.5% share. The Exit List scored a higher rating than High Stakes did in the same time slot late last year in this treaded Tuesday ITV slot. It’s known for being not-the-best slot for new shows on the network. We’ll see if that’s enough to keep it around. Our fingers are crossed for it. It was a fun, suspenseful show with massive play-along.
The news isn’t good for NBC’s Who’s Still Standing? which week in and week out continues to confuse by changing the rules, starting with different segments without explanation, and just being an editing nightmare. The newest episode this past Monday saw a third place 6.19 million viewers and a third place 1.6/4 rating in the key demographic. It’s not looking good for its renewal. Fear Factor keeps getting damaged by a weak lead-in with a third place 5.53 million viewers. However, it always does well in the key demographic. It tied for first with 2.3/5, which makes NBC happy. NBC recently announced the show seems to be a pretty good utility player for the network in the future, so I imagine we’ll be seeing it for a bit.
Sources :
Zap2It Ratings: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/01/10/monday-final-ratings-fear-factor-adjusted-up-rock-center-with-brian-williams-adjusted-down/116089/
Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/11/mystery-of-edwin-drood-bbc2
I just watched the series premiere of The Exit List on YouTube (thanks to The Banker’s Nephew for posting it). It looks like a fantastic show, and it is quite fun to play along with. In addition, it is a great combination of skill and suspense. Here’s hoping it sticks around.
Regarding Who’s Still Standing?, the show is now officially a mess. The editing is some of the worst I’ve ever seen in a television show, and the constant rule changes and lack of explanation are highly confusing. In some episodes, correct answers in the Speed Round are worth $1,000, while in others, they’re worth $2,000. Also, the amounts for eliminating each stranger seem to have changed from $1,000 – $20,000 to $1 to $50,000. The second set of amounts seem to be based on the payouts used on the Israeli show that WSS? is based on, Laouf al ha Million (2x each of 1, 5,000, 10,000, 25,000 & 50,000 Israeli shekels).
Speaking of, I just watched an episode of Laouf al ha Million online, and despite not being able to understand much Hebrew, I find that the Israeli version is far superior. The NBC version is yet another example of what happens when a strong overseas format is developed for North American audiences, and becomes highly Americanized in the process, which basically kills it. Based on these reasons alone, it’s probably doomed to fail, and it most likely won’t be renewed as a result.
The problem with Who’s Still Standing is obvious. NBC should not have hired the same producers who created Minute to Win It, to also create Who’s Still Standing. They just don’t seem to understand what makes a good game show. These producers “think” that a good game show consists of having rap music, commercial breaks in the middle of gameplay, and constant rule changes.
If I wanted to hear rap music, I’d just turn on the radio. The commercial breaks during gameplay cause frustration, not suspense. And changing the rules from episode to episode just confuses the heck out of everyone trying to watch the show. (Stop airing the episodes out of production order.)
Fire these producers and get people who actually know how to produce a game show!
Bring back Scott St. John as a producer, and not only because I share the same first name as him. He was the executive producer of Deal or No Deal and 1 VS 100, two game shows that had major success. He knows how to produce game shows, unlike the Minute guys.
That’s supposed to be rap music? I thought it was a looped audio recording of pigs being butchered.
“Boom, boom, boom-boom… SQUEEEEEAL!!! Boom, boom, boom-boom… SQUEEEEEAL!!!”
I could be wrong, that ear-piercing squeal could also be nails on a chalkboard. Or Ashlee Simpson trying to quit Auto-Tune cold turkey.
“In some episodes”? This Monday, they STARTED the show with a $2,000/Q Speed Round, and ended with a $1,000/Q Speed Round.
I tuned in about 3 minutes late to Monday’s episode, so I actually thought the Hero had lost the match already and they were doing a Speed Round because of that.
This might be why the show is returning in 2 weeks. Maybe because they need the time to fix the bad editing of the episodes?
To be honest though, Who’s Still Standing does have more trivia questions in a single episode than we’ve seen in a long history of recent primetime trivia game shows (Million Dollar Money Drop, 1 VS 100, etc.). For this reason, I do have to praise the show.
The Speed Rounds are more exciting because they move at a faster pace, but NBC often cuts them out of an episode due to prolonging the main game (and preventing the contestant from crossing over into next week’s episode). Could explain why they aired 2 Speed Rounds in Monday’s episode. One from last week’s episode, and another from this week’s episode.
Still, bad editing nonetheless. The winner of a Speed Round often earns more money in 10 minutes than the Hero does in the entire main game itself. That itself is a problem. At most, the Speed Rounds should pay out $10 or $20k total.
I’ve honestly never understood this aversion to letting games straddle. The first contestant on one episode only won two rounds before dropping out. So why did his game take 35 minutes to play out? Obviously, you can’t control how long a round goes, heck, that’s one of the few plus points the show has. So why the stretch and chop job to MAKE it fit? That’s why it feels especially awkward to me. Most of what they keep is just idle chit-chat that doesn’t add anything.