News In A Flash!: Quick Game Show Updates #83

This week's brief update article will cover some of the latest game show news headlines from the past few days in 200 characters or less including a few updates featured on the TBIR Facebook page. News updates include Jeopardy! set to kickoff this year's College Championship this week, a Monopoly Millionaires' Club highlight clip, an author seeking to publish his book centering around the history and impact of U.K. game shows through a crowdfunding site and some of the latest game show ratings.

Veteran broadcaster Sir Terry Wogan died today at the age of 77 after battling cancer. In the game show world, Wogan was the host of Blankety Blank (1979-83) and the Irish game show Jackpot (1964-5).

Jeopardy’s 2016 College Championship Quarterfinals begin this Monday. At the end of the two-week tourney on February 12, one of the 15 college contestants will win $100,000.

This week’s Celebrity Name Game guest stars include Tom Arnold, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Holly Robinson Peete, Bill Engvall and Nicole Sullivan. New episodes air beginning this week.

Sports Jeopardy’s biggest-winning contestant, Vinny Varadarajan from Fords, NJ, has won 14 games and $70,000 and counting.

VIDEO REPLAY: On this weekend’s episode of Monopoly Millionaires’ Club, Cynthia Jordan from Glendale, AZ won $100,000 playing “Community Chest”. Check it out in the clip below!

ANOTHER VIDEO REPLAY: Take a look at this time-lapsed video of the Family Feud stage set being built at the Civic Center in Atlanta, GA.

On February 3-5, CBS Studios International is holding an “intense” workshop for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune licensees from around the world at the Sony Studios in Culver City, CA.

Author Louis Barfe is currently crowdfunding to publish his book, “Open The Box: A history of TV gameshows by Louis Barfe”. You can send your donation(s) to Unbound.com.

Tuesday’s episode of NBC’s Hollywood Game Night averaged 4.54 million total viewers (-2% to last week) and a 1.20 rating among Adults 18-49 (-4% to last week).

On Thursday’s episode of MTV’s Broke Ass Game Show averaged 286,000 total viewers and a 0.16 A18-49 rating (65th among the Top 150 original cable telecasts).

Celebrity Name Game is currently holding casting call auditions for the third season of the Craig Ferguson-hosted game show. Go to casting.celebnamegame.com  for more information.

Sources: BBC, Crackle, Inside Film, Jeopardy.com, ShowBuzz Daily, TV Series Finale, Unbound, Vimeo