Ten to axe Family Feud after four years
Ten will axe its nightly game show Family Feud, with host Grant Denyer admitting the network accelerated the program’s demise by running it too frequently.
“It did good things but we are probably guilty of driving it into the ground a bit too early, we gave it a bit too much. It’s six days a week, twice a day, plus All Star episodes,” he said on the radio this morning.
Ten was the third network Family Feud had appeared on. It ran on Nine from 1977 to 1984 and on Seven from 1989 to 1996, with previous hosts including Tony Barber, Daryl Somers, Sandy Scott, Rob Brough and John Deeks. There was also a a brief spinoff version, Bert’s Family Feud, which ran from 2006 and 2007.
The most recent iteration was hosted by former Sunrise weatherman and Million-Dollar Minute host Denyer, and produced by Fremantle Media.
At the time of launch, the show received some scrutiny from the industry, with commentator David Knox, publisher of TV Tonight, saying: “This news reeks of a lack of imagination. If this is the best Ten’s brains trust can come up with for 6:00 then it’s probably time to hoist the white flag.”
Some of the scrutiny Ten suffered from, upon the 2014 announcement
So far, Denyer’s appointment to the station appears to have helped lift its ratings, with survey two handing the Sydney-based station 4.4% share in breakfast – its highest since the departure of former 2Day FM breakfast hosts Kyle Sandilands and Jackie ‘O’ Henderson.
On 2Day FM Breakfast this morning, Denyer said the program had been a success.
“I have a big announcement, guys. Family Feud is wrapping up,” he said.
“It’s a bit sad. It’s been a huge success for Network Ten, it obviously reinvigorated that 6pm time slot, which was dead for about five years and it increased all the night-time programming.”
Since the first year of launch, the show’s average audience has declined by more than 50%. In 2014 it averaged an audience of 581,177. This year, Family Feud’s average audience, based on OzTAM data, sits at 281,483.
Denyer added they were resting the show to allow him to work on “big new projects”. Yesterday The Sydney Morning Herald reported Ten would announce a new ‘big-budget studio game show’ within the next week. Denyer would not confirm the new program.
A spokesperson for Ten confirmed the news: “Family Feud has been an important part of our schedule for the past four years, but we feel it is time to rest the show.
“It will be put on hold later this year and we will be announcing an exciting new game show very soon. We will also have some exciting news about Grant Denyer’s new show on Ten soon.”
It amazes me that the programmers at ten have learned nothing over the past 10 years. The four years audience graph shows a slight and then sudden decline, followed by a free fall, eased only in the last year when there was so much crap swimming with it, that it managed to almost achieve a float.
Ratings greed will shoot you in the feet every time, the right move for programming ( and the survival of free to air) is to be bold and brave and actually lift the programming to a level that the thinking public can have a chance of growing to like, and perhaps even love.
Theatre worked best, when there were three levels working concurrently, not a lot of inflated and tinseled sameness, most of it absolute moronic crap coated in bright colours and glitter.
The presenter is the least of your worries, a good script department nourished by public information and social awareness can feed anyone who can play the part. Not everything is about money, either incoming or outgoing.
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Grant Denyer makes that show. He gets the best out of people and he does an amazing job. Truly hilarious. Do not understand why a good show goes when there are some horrible ones on 10. Give me Family Fued over The Project any day!! So biased always!
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Grant: We polled our new owners at CBS and asked them this question – “What do we now own that is worth anything after we spent $41M in our takeover of Channel 10?”
Contestant: Masterchef
Grant: And with only one answer on the board let’s check and see if it’s Masterchef……………….
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I coincidently watched the show for the first time ever last week and
was wondering how it managed to stay on the box. Pretty basic and hard to get enthused despite the host making a major effort to sound excited.
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How will Grant fund his weekly teeth whitening trips now?
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Good it was garbage….problem will be what will they do to replace it…
It’s going up against the two major networks nightly news.
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I don’t think that would be a problem mate as Grant saves lots of money going to his low budget hairdresser sponsor “Just Cuts” for his daily hair cut LOL
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It was sooner going to happen than later.i would not be surprised if ten uses will and grace or Roseanne reruns to fill the gaps for now.the biggest mistake was running it across three channels of theirs.i loved the old reruns of early years Beverley hills 90210 on 11 and was disappointed they would drop that for family feud in 2014.but I hope whatever they come up with is in the fresh and new category.
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Not funny Grant. How many shows has he been dumped from or walked out on over time? Big opinion of himself.
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It was a very overdone game show.10 HAS NOT had anything stable at 6pm for god knows how long now.Blind Date/Studs in the Nineties,Simpsons,Echo Point,Friends,Will and Grace,Ned and Stacey and the short lived Taken Out plus for a year George Negus tonight.what we want is something all new and fresh that is not a concept from the sixties and isn’t a milked to death sitcom or cartoon or a boring old biddies current affairs show is that too much to ask for.If it had survived maybe a cut down to four nights a week and the rest of the time they put on the latest versions of Roseanne or something like that.
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His new show will fail.
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