Ratings Report: “Money Drop” Finishes Where it Started
Million Dollar Money Drop had its season finale last night and it doesn’t seem to be able to gain or lose viewers. It finished pretty close to where it’s been the entire time: a 3.3/5 rating. I’ve got no idea if it’s coming back or not. It needed to get closer to a 4.0 rating last night to seem likely to me, but it’s in the in-between world right now. I’ve said it repeatedly, though, Minute to Win It gets hailed as some sort of phenomenon and it doesn’t do any better than Money Drop, so I won’t be shocked to see it come back.
It was a shame about last night’s online game not working for the east coast, though. I think I realized that’s one of the ways that you don’t tell how badly the British version drags on. When you’re actually playing the game the time goes by a bit quicker. When you’re forced to sit there and you have no stake in it, it gets pretty boring. Luckily, as I’ve said, they have considerably sped up the show recently.
Syndication for the week ending January 18th wasn’t too great for anyone. Wheel of Fortune sunk back to an 8.0 rating. Poor Wheel. Jeopardy! went back to a 6.5. Good news for Who Wants to be a Millionaire: it was frozen at a season high 2.4. Family Feud slid to 1.8, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? dropped to a 1.0 (goodbye) and Don’t Forget The Lyrics actually rose for a change to a 0.9. But still, goodbye.
Hey Alex from what i read through facebook they are coming back
Off topic, but anyone in LA wanting to play Lingo, check out
http://www.realitywanted.com/call/9868-casting-game-show-contestants
Get in the studio, see any new changes, and play LINGO :)
The difference between the two networks’ reactions to nearly identical ratings for “Minute To Win It” (NBC) and “Million Dollar Money Drop” (Fox) has much to do with each network’s expectations.
NBC is at a particularly low ebb right about now. Indeed, it would look even worse than it is if it were not for NFL Football. But now that is over for the season, and NBC has some Sunday night hours to fill, and we’ll just have to see what they choose for that purpose.
Fox, on the other hand, expected better from “Million Dollar Money Drop”. The Fox web is doing respectably well. Further, Fox was hoping for better numbers following one of its more successful shows (“Glee”).
I did watch last night’ s episode. (No,I did not try to play along on my computer–I’m not that sophisticated yet!) The pace has gotten faster, and Kevin Pollak is getting more used to the show.
If Fox does renew M$MD, it may use it to fill in a time slot that would otherwise not get a decent rating anyway.
Your theory about Fox expectations vs. NBC expectations sounds interesting, but the numbers tell a different story.
Of the Top 20 shows so far this season, Fox and NBC both have only two entries. Yes, NBC is nothing without the NFL, but Fox is nothing without Idol. The remaining 16 shows belong to ABC and CBS. So for the first two months of the year, Fox isn’t doing that much better than NBC.
For the week, the top 3 shows were Idol, Idol and (ironically) Pro Bowl football on Fox. The next highest-rated show belonged to NBC (The Office). So of all the networks, NBC has the highest non-Idol non-football program.
Fox had the 5th and 6th highest-rated shows of the weel with Bones and House… but NBC snagged the 8th and 10th highest-rated show of the week with Biggest Loser and Parks & Recreation. (all demo numbers) ABC and CBS didn’t crack the Top 10.
So NBC isn’t doing all that poorly and Fox isn’t doing all that great (with the exception of Idol, of course). Taking that into consideration, it wouldn’t seem like Fox’s expectations for Money Drop should be higher than NBC’s for Minute. Especially in a time slot that put it up against Biggest Loser and Wipeout.
Also, Money Drop *did* air after Glee, but only for some episodes, and mostly it was *reruns* of Glee. I seriously doubt Fox was expecting fantastic numbers for a show with reruns as its lead-in.
But maybe I’m wrong — it sounds like you know people at Fox?
*correction — ABC didn’t crack the Top 10 for the week. CBS had Criminal Minds and 2 1/2 Men.
Let’s not forget that Fox will do even better this week with them airing the Super Bowl. But, with that being said, I hope it does get renewed, hopefully airing it during the summertime when all the other shows are in reruns. And as far as NBC goes, we’ll see what the new regime at Comcast will do with the network. Prediction is that we probably likely seen the last of MITWI, or, we might be seeing another season of it.
I hope FOX renews Million Dollar Money Drop for another season. They haven’t had a good game show in a long time and this one could be the next Greed that we’ve all been waiting so patiently for since 2000.
If MDMD does get renewed, I hope that the online game comes back AND the East Coast, where I live, gets a decent chance to play. And Fox, if you’re reading this message, three suggestions:
1. Make the game a little faster
2. Straddle some episodes
3. Do NOT put this show on Fridays.