Bible-thumping ratings

A thread on the GSN board chews over the latest numbers for American Bible Challenge. The biblical quizzer keeps on romping and stomping in downright divine ways for GSN. Total viewer numbers consistently rise above 900K. In fact, the top five shows in total viewers in GSN's entire history are the Press Your Luck doc with the Michael Larson episodes, and the four eps so far of American Bible Challenge.

The Nielsen news makes all those predictions of apocalypse seem silly. "American Bible Challenge is not the vehicle that is going to make great things happen for [GSN]." Uh, no. Really great things, by GSN standards, are happening every Thursday night.

The news isn't nearly as bright for the other originals, Pyramid and Beat the Chefs. Oh, they still get decent 300K+ viewer numbers. But Foxworthy and his Bible-thumpers make those numbers look weak. We might be seeing a revolution of rising expectations here. American Bible Challenge could just be an incredibly lucky one-off for GSN.

I like the Bible show. It's clever and funny and Foxworthy is a hopelessly likable host. But lots of funny and clever quizzers with good hosts have crashed and burned over the decades. The Bible quizzer is succeeding exactly because of the subject material, which I also thought might be too specialized or unappealing for many viewers. Just shows what I know.