Ratings: “Wipeout” Returns High, “Downfall” Debuts Medium

ABC debuted the new game show Downfall last night as well as the return of summer favorite Wipeout.  Ratings are in for both and it’s a mixed bag.  Wipeout continues to entertain people (and rightfully show) during the hot summer nights.  The show averaged 9.5 million viewers and peaked at 10.03 million during the final half hour.  The key demographic of adults 18-49 rated a first place 3.1/10, so 10% of the people watching TV at that time were checking out Wipeout.  ABC is smart to not throw this thing all over the schedule and keep it just a summer show.  It’s got a long future if it keeps doing this.

Downfall‘s debut was middling at best.  The show lost a little less than half of Wipeout‘s viewers, dropping to 5.86 million viewers.  Frankly that’s not that bad for summer and for how cheap this show has to be, but it obviously could be better.  Comparatively, the more expensive Who Wants to be a Millionaire scored at least a million more viewers each night.  The troubling thing is Downfall lost more than a million viewers through the hour, so next week should be interesting.

I really want Downfall to do well.  It’s a good game with a few issues that I’m really confident the talented people at Fremantle can iron out if they had more time.  Part of it is because no one’s really tried a game show like this before so it’s a trial-and-error sort of thing.  They found error.  They just need time to fix it.  Hopefully ratings can stay at a decent level so they have time.

There’s no confirmation just yet but we can probably be expecting ABC’s other summer game show Six Minds to come out later this summer, probably closer to August.