Syndicated “Fifth Grader” Clears 80% of Country
Hey, there’s some actual news about the syndicated edition of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? which doesn’t include the producers trying to tear Deal or No Deal to pieces! The half-hour version of the apparently gone primetime edition, set to debut Fall 2009, has cleared in 80% of the country. This includes 29 of the top 30 markets. So if you’re living in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, or San Francisco, you’re definitely going to see the show. Syndicated Fifth Grader will also be hosted by primetime host Jeff Foxworthy.
Stations the shows has cleared on include the groups Tribune, FOX, Sinclair, Cox, McKinnon, and Local TV. If one of those is yours, you’ll probably be seeing it. You excitement level may vary. Especially because there’s no details about the show except they are apparently keeping the rules of the primetime edition intact with no changes, which is a bit of a mistake since people got really tired of the primetime version. They said they want to keep the top prize at $1,000,000 but I’ll believe that when I see it. They also said they want to make it tougher. It’ll be fun to see how they can make Fifth Grader tougher.
Still no word on an official second season of Deal or No Deal, but I can’t see it not coming back.
We get it–Deal is great in syndie, Fifth Grader is bad. We get it, really. Point made.
I love the “People got really tired of it” line. Based on…what solid criteria, exactly? Your level of interest?
Moving the show to the significantly lower HUT level Fridays had an impact, and any ratings comparison year-over-year has to include that distinction to have any validity.
It was going down on Thursday nights as well. Moving it to Fridays made it even more evident. If people really cared about the show they’d move with it. Shows have done well on Friday. Fifth Grader didn’t. Ratings were down all across the board. Plus the fact that they are promoting this show pretty poorly and I’m just not a big fan. I don’t think it’s *that* bad, no. But they aren’t doing a single thing to convince anyone that the new edition will be good.
I assume that it got sold to WTXF, the Fox O&O here in Philly, and that they’ll pair it with Family Feud at 4 or 4:30 AM. Bummer, really. I wish I could see some of these new game shows, but they always air in the wee hours of the night or at noon when I’m either asleep or watching other things.
Although, I never liked Fifth Grader…so…no skin off my back.
They want to make it tougher? I can just see it now…
“Okay, you’ve answered the ten regular questions. But this final one will be unbeleiveably tough. This is your SIXTH GRADE QUESTION!”
My money is that it will air on either KMSS or KSHV here in Shreveport (Fox and My Network TV respectively although neither one is a Fox O&O station). I just wish we can see some more new game shows in the fall, like a revival of The Joker’s Wild or Match Game. Anyhow, great to see 5th Grader (or, as I call it Millionaire For Dummies) clear.
As for the Big Red Machine known as Deal or No Deal, I see a second season coming.
While we can criticize 5th Grader for its faults, I do give it credit for getting cleared for syndication this fall. Several proposed syndicated shows for this fall had to pull back over the last few months due to the economy and lack of open slots, and it was feared that 5th Grader would suffer the same fate. Good to hear that they are a go.
As for the show itself, it would not surprise me to see changes to the format between now and the premiere. Given its current format on FOX, we would probably see only 5-6 questions per 30-minute episode. The show has to find a way to speed things up.
I also see the show keeping the $1,000,000 grand prize, if only to continue its “feud” with syndie DoND. I could, again, see them tweak the format and/or question difficulty to make it harder to win the grand prize (Yes, I know there has only been one $1,000,000 winner on the Fox version).
As far as syndie DoND goes, I have no doubt it will be renewed for a second season, as it’s been one of the top 2 new syndie shows this season (along with The Doctors). What may be holding back an official announcement could be…
1) Time slot/affiliate issues. Daytime WWTBAM got bumped around several time slots and stations between seasons 1 and 2. I have a feeling NBC Universal is still working on guaranteeing decent time slots in major markets.
2) New syndie threats? The big syndie show for next fall is the Oprah spinoff Dr. Oz. There’s no doubt that its syndicator is pushing stations to give it a prime daytime slot (9a-11a ET, or 2p-4p ET), and DoND could be affected by stations picking up that show.
3) Mandel. I’m curious if Howie Mandel agreed to host the syndie version of DoND provided that NBC greenlight his other projects for the network (Howie Do It, the proposed TV version of Would You Rather…). The former has bombed in the ratings, while the latter may never see the light of day. In addition, we don’t know the fate of the network version of the show. Mandel may try and play hardball to stay as host of the daytime version, and since several station groups agreed to pick up the show on the assurance that Mandel was host, we could see some boardroom issues, so to say.
Interstingly, it was sold to WPHL in Philly (given some of the other stations, it looks like a group buy), not WTXF. So that means, probably, if WTXF holds Feud for next year (last time they had it, they dumped it after one year), it may be a double run from 4-5 am…or paired with something like COPS.
Not everyone follows shows across nights. There are scads of examples of shows that suffered as a result of moves, and with Friday HUT levels (not counting “movie nights” with DVDs or on-demand type services) plunging, it’s not a shock it went down.