News In A Flash!: Quick Game Show Updates #48

Today's article will be highlighting some of the latest game show news this week in 200 characters or less from the latest GSN news concerning renewals and new developments to the debut of the very first Bitcoin-exclusive game show. All ratings for syndicated game shows are from the week ending March 9.

Stay tuned for the 2nd and 10th season premieres of Deal With It and Whose Line?. The former will air tonight at 10:30pm ET on TBS and the latter will air March 21 at 8 and 8:30pm ET on The CW.

The Chase has been renewed by GSN for a third season, which will consist of 13 episodes. GSN has opened the casting call for potential contestants who are interested in competing on the show.

GSN has ordered 40 30-minute episodes of Idiot Test, a game show with rivaling contestants answering questions on a variety of specialty subjects to find out who knows more.

To Be Continued: GSN has also ordered two new pilots: App Wars and Say What. App Wars resembles The X Factor, where judges also act as the app creators’ mentors to help them win the grand cash prize.

Part 3: Say What (working title) test two teams’ ability to memorize a phrase. The series is based on a Nippon Television format. Other developments include The Tunnel and Heavy Betters (WTs).

Streamin’ Garage is producing the first live online bitcoin-only game show called Take My Bitcoins. The show will debut April 3 at 8pm PT and challenges online players in games of knowledge and skill.

Host Andrew O’Keefe has confirmed that the Aussie version of Deal or No Deal is “finished” and “dead”. Channel Seven further confirmed that “there were no current plans to produce new episodes”.

With Katie Couric’s talk show ending after this season, ABC affiliate stations in New York, L.A., Philadelphia and Raleigh-Durham, NC will be running double runs of Jeopardy! to fill the time slot.

Syndicated game shows were mixed this week. Wheel of Fortune dropped 3% down to a 7.3 and Jeopardy! remained unchanged at a 7.1. 

Wheel ranked #3 overall among all syndicated shows for the week with 11.63 million total viewers and Jeopardy! was close behind with the #4 ranking with 11.025 million total viewers. 

Family Feud declined 2% to a 5.8 and Disney/ABC’s Millionaire saw a much needed 4% bump up to a 2.4 after suffering a double-digit percentage ratings loss the previous week. 

Confused.com will be sponsoring ITV’s Catch Phrase, which has been renewed for a second series by the network. The site’s marketing director sees the deal as an “exciting brand” opportunity.

Source: ATV Today, Broadcasting & Cable, Broadway World, C21 Media, GSNTV.com, The Sydney Morning Herald, TV By The Numbers