Ten banks on ‘decent, large’ sampling for Game of Games
Ten is hoping to attract a “decent, large” audience this Sunday, with the launch of its newest game show, Game of Games.
The program, which is built off games previously run on the Ellen De Generes show, will be hosted by former Family Feud host Grant Denyer, in a move by Ten to provide viewers with something outside of ‘renovating, dating and cooking’.
The show will premiere this Sunday at 7:30pm
Hilary Innes, Ten’s executive producer behind The Bachelor franchise and Game of Games, told Mumbrella the show was a “premium” look-forward-to-at-the-end-of-the-week style program, and would hopefully attract a “decent, large sampling” on its first night.
“If we’ve got our marketing strategy and promos all right and out there then we’ve got a good crack at that because it’s a real point of difference at the moment,” Innes said.
“It’s not cooking, renovation, dating it’s just good old fashioned entertainment and I think it’s something that we’ve really been waiting to embrace at the network on Sunday’s again and I think we’ve got a great crack at getting a good audience.“
Her comments echoed Rod Prosser, Ten’s chief sales officer, who said the new show would be “huge”, filled with opportunities for advertisers.
“In the US, it was the highest in-season premiere for an alternative series since 2016. With our local touch and Gold Logie award winning host Grant Denyer, Game of Games has all the ingredients to be a smash entertainment hit,” Prosser said.’
Ten secured the local rights from Warner Brothers following just eight episodes of the show in the US. But the immediate success of the program in the US, was enough to get the attention of the CBS-owned network.
“It was a genius idea, simple but genius, to convert the games from her show into a prime time game show of its own – a grown up show if you like,” Innes said.
“We’ve got a great working relationship with Warner Brothers. And we obviously did a Bachelor franchise with them. An this is a no brainer for us in terms of it being broad family friendly funny silly, great alternative Sunday night viewing.
“It’s just very addictive and as soon as you start watching it and you have to keep watching to see what happens,” she added.
The show will have eight games each episode, each with a different personality and structure to it. The move away from a linear-style game show is a first for the network, which has previously relied on game shows such as Family Feud and most recently for Pointless, to engage audiences.
In the last couple of months, Ten has failed to attract viewers on a Sunday, with its share often falling below 8%. In early August, Ten premiered a new season of Russell Coight: All Aussie Adventures which pulled an audience of 881,000 for the first episode. Despite the success of the show, Ten’s Sunday night share remained on 8%. The following Sunday, the channel’s share dipped to 7.5%. When Ten launched Pilot Week – a week’s worth of one-off shows – Ten’s share was 7.7%. Following the finale of Russell Coight’s All Aussie Adventures, the share fell back to 7.5%.
Described as a “sizeable investment” by Innes, the new show is the latest attempt by Ten to grow Sunday night audiences.
Innes said while the games are the same as the US, Game of Games Australia will have its own unique flavour. With an “adept presenter” in Denyer, Innes hopes it will be enough to get audiences over the line.
“There’s lots of cultural references in the show as well,” she said. “Whilst the games are generic we obviously built our own questions and questions of relevance to the Australian audience. For instance you either get splattered on, bumped, dumped, bungee corded up or down, dropped through trap doors.“
“The questions get us to those points are very tailored to Australian audiences. While some are generic and very pop culture there are questions about iconic brands. If you get dumped into something it’s likely to be something like Pavlova or Vegemite or something iconically Australian. We use created an Australian flavour around those sorts of elements.”
The show will run against the back end of Nine latest season of The Block. Seven will premiere All Together Now this Sunday, at 7pm. But Innes is confident the show is a great alternative.
“Families watch The Block as well and obviously that’s a fantastic show, but it is very different and people do like an alternative, and old fashioned entertainment is a great alternative at the moment in this environment.”
Hello out there.
Another game show on offer. Let’s hope it’s better than another of Ten’s duds, Pointless.
And what about the line from Ten saying they wanted to offer viewers alternatives to cooking and dating shows.
Can someone switch on the lights here. Don’t they flog Masterchef and The Bachelor Franchise!
The viewers aren’t stupid.
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That pic looks terrifying… looks like an escaped rampaging member of an aged care facility juiced up to the gills on ayahuasca at burning man.
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Pointless is a funny, smart show with a fantastic host. This looks like utter crap.
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“the show a “premium” look-forward-to-at-the-end-of-the-week style program”,
Maybe week commencing days are a little different at TEN…programming Game of Games in a Sunday slot at 7.30pm…isn’t this the start of the week?
Maybe it will end-up in the Saturday 10.30pm slot very soon.
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