Syndies prosper after turkey week

Once America got finished digesting those turkey dinners, it went back to watching syndicated game shows. Most of the shows got nice bounces in the November 28-December 4 week following the holiday. TVNewsCheck gobbles about the numbers...

Wheel of Fortune 7.6 - up a dozen ticks - holy letters, Vanna!
Jeopardy 6.2 - not to be outdone by the soulmate, up eleven ticks
Family Feud 3.1 - up five ticks, Steve smiles
Millionaire 2.5 - flat, the party-pooper

As always, when TV by the Numbers puts up the viewership averages, I'll repost them. Well, the TVBTN guys delivered: Wheel of Fortune 12.0 million, Jeopardy 9.6 million, Family Feud 4.6 million. Good numbers all around. Meredith missed the top 25 list but not by much, just two-tenths of a ratings point.

Meanwhile, Fear Factor grossed out some very nice numbers in its return on Monday: a 3.5 18-49 rating and 8.7 million total viewers. Downright explosive by NBC standards. Look for even more WOW OH BOY stunts if anything like this story continues.

On the downbeat side You Deserve It proceeds tearfully toward the exits: a series low 0.9 18-49 rating and 3.4 million viewers. Chris Harrison loves the show. He's part of a dwindling group.

And Real Deal bounced back in its third week to 1.9 million viewers. Fine by cable standards and probably good enough for a renewal on History. No, it ain't Pawn Stars but it ain't no flop. And I ain't no grammarian.

UPDATE: Douglas posts the GSN numbers for December 5-11, and I blather about them on the GSN schedule board...

The prime time/total day averages were 305/227 (thousands of viewers) for the week. Not so great but not a disaster.

The 7:00PM-12:00AM marathon averages: Mon 240, Tue 345, Wed 251, Thu 230, Fri 250, Sat 321, Sun 373. Pretty blah except for Sherri on Tuesday, Karn and O'Hurley on Saturday, and Foxworthy on Sunday.

As pointed out in the post above [on the GSN board], the pre-3:00PM weekday schedule remains quite poor and pulls down the total day average. I've already made my suggestion to get recent seasons of the syndie game shows for the daytime window, and I'll make the suggestion again. Not only would the syndies get better numbers in the window, but they would feed a bigger audience into the later afternoon shows.

The schedule gets bashed around next week. We'll see what happens. Do we start another thread?