Ratings Report: “Figure It Out” and “Pointless Celebrities” are Last Week’s Winners
We’ve had a few new game shows pop up recently and I wanted to be sure to share the nice success stories we’ve had for the genre. The biggest recent success is Nick’s revival of Figure It Out. It seems the new series left off where the old one did…it’s a big hit. The show has been averaging over 2.5 million viewers for its debut week. Specifically, on Thursday’s episode, the Jeff Sutphen-hosted game saw 2.956 million viewers at 7:00PM ET. It was Nick’s second most watched show of the evening and was in the top 40 most-watched cable shows of the night. By comparison it’s doing better in total viewers than Fox’s (sadly) failing dating game show Take Me Out, which only got 2.63 million viewers on the same night. If Figure It Out can keep this up be expecting a nice future for it.
Over in the United Kingdom, BBC’s Saturday special Pointless Celebrities scored big for the network. The celebrity special of BBC’s hit daytime quiz show scored 3.47 million viewers and a 19.2% share. It nicely beat ITV’s popular returning drama Primeval with 2.93 million viewers and a 16.1% share. Congratulations to them. The Million Pound Drop’s return on Channel 4 saw over a million viewers combined with 4+1. The debut episode was going up against the Euro 2012 match-up of England VS Scotland so I think, all things considered, that’s not too bad.
We haven’t done syndicated ratings in a while, so let’s close out the report correctly. With the season winding down and people heading outside to enjoy the days, as always, the ratings start to dwindle a bit. Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! still sit at the top with 6.1 and 5.2, respectively. Each was down 5% from the previous week. Family Feud and Millionaire stayed the same, though, with 3.1 and 2.4, which is good news for them.
Sources :
B&C: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/485821-Syndication_Ratings_Syndies_Fall_Off_as_Summer_Gets_Started.php
TV By the Numbers: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2012/06/15/thursday-cable-ratings-swamp-people-wins-night-burn-notice-suits-men-at-work-mountain-men-dont-be-tardy-for-the-wedding-more/138300/
Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/18/primeval-pointless-celebrities?CMP=twt_gu
This is great news! I watched the first episode of Figure It Out and loved it! And my current favorite game show on the air, in any country, is Pointless. Nice to see both of them doing well.
Figure it Out…or should I say the ALL NEW Figure It Out (word of honor, 45 seconds in the last two rounds of questions, funky new set) takes the spirit of original run and gives it a modern makeover. Glad to know the sound effects are still there (even the slime alarm and clue whistle). And of course more slime than humanly possible. For once a good job from Nick and they have a capable host in Jeff Sutphen. I think Summer Sanders would approve.
I guess Nickelodeon is about to finally wave the white flag on SpongeBob if Figure It Out keeps performing at this level. If it skyrockets in the ratings, they may consider other game show revivals.
One I’d like to see come back is Guts. Maybe pair it with an anti-obesity campaign?
It can be called “You Still Got Guts.” The events will be made to be contemporary for any athlete. Still: three kids, four different events, the crag still in play.
It amazes me how well Pointless is doing. Such a simple format, but the play along makes it engaging.
Jeff Sutphen is an amazing host. ABC should have continued with him hosting a second season of 101 Ways to Leave a Game Show. He’s like Todd Newton, but a little bit funnier.
As far as Take Me Out is concerned, I can’t see it lasting too much longer. The ratings are dying because it’s a boring program. Good theme music though, but a really boring program.
To show you how bad Take Me Out is, up here in Canada, after only 2 episodes, CTV has already moved Take Me Out off their main channel and to CTV Two, the channel that CTV uses for all programs that don’t get as high of a rating as programs on their main CTV channel.
FOX will probably stop airing Take Me Out within a few weeks, if this ratings drop continues.
Agreed! If nothing else, it should be 30 minutes and NOT an hour.
Nick had reruns of Legends of the Hidden Temple a few years ago. They should look back into this show too… it was fun to watch yet educational at the same time.
Legends could be called educational but not entirely accurate. And it is good that this show focuses on the contestants’ skills and achievements, it’s very encouraging for young people.
What I’d like to see brought back is Think Fast. It could work if they made the game go faster and smoother, and got a decent host. Make the Grade, well the Fire Drill was a nearly fatal flaw in the gameplay and can be done without.
If only there was a way they could get Christine McGlade as a special guest on Figure It Out.
Then again, she’s probably been slimed enough…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JAKHBdd5Ko
That’s her on the left…
Or better yet, have Betty White as a special guest panelist on the show. She’s been on some game shows for years including Match Game, Password, etc.
Very glad to see Figure it Out did well. I had my doubts; it’s a show made for an entirely different generation of kids and there hasn’t been a show quite like it since the original ended 12 years ago. Now if only this could lead to a Double Dare revival… *crosses fingers*
The only thing I don’t like about the new Figure it Out is that is seems way too busy/loud with more distraction. I’m not sure what was gained in cutting 15 seconds of the clock in the second and third rounds…the episode I watched today ended about 5 minutes before the half hour… But otherwise, I appreciate that the format is the same and that they used the same sound effects as before. Jeff Sutphen seems like a pretty capable host thus far, which is another plus.
Maybe we’ll see some further revivals. If so, they have to do it right like the FIO people have–don’t mess much with the format and keep true to the original while livening it up. Double Dare, Guts, and Legends of the Hidden Temple would be my votes for revival.
If all goes well and it is picked up for another season, gameplay should be kept the same, but the seasons will have titles like this:
Season 2: That Figures!
Season 3: Go Figure!
Season 4: 4 Yourself
Season 5: Figure of Speech
Season 6: Figurative Language
Season 7: Check It Out
Figure this out, Nick! I hope that GSN will hope do a revival version of the game show Get The Picture with Bill Engavall as the host and the top grand prize in the bonus round is $5,000 of the game show that will air in 2013.