More Buzzr musings

Looks like even Game Show Paradise has now heard about the exec shake-up at Buzzr. So I might as well ramble through some more thoughts on our little oldies diginet.

Back when Ron Garfield was still the general manager of Buzzr, he told USA Today that the diginet really wasn't a competitor to GSN. Buzzr's "look and feel is completely different from" cable's Game Show Network (GSN), which Garfield says no longer focuses on the older shows.

Well, that was then and this is now. I never really bought this party line that Buzzr didn't want to compete with our other game show network. Come on, Fremantle execs had to look at GSN ascending to a top-30 cable net and think: They're doing this on our shows, mostly. Family Feud in particular. Why should they have all the fun?

So right from the start, I think the sneaking hope at Fremantle was that Buzzr would give GSN a serious run for its money. So far things haven't work out so well. TV distribution seems to have stalled, and the audience has always been confined to the hardest core of the hardcore oldies fans.

That explains the exec shake-up and the sudden switch in direction to newer shows - see the picture for the one thing that isn't like the others - and soon, according to the new general manager, non-Fremantle shows on the diginet.

But this is where things get dicey. GSN has been a very good customer for Fremantle product for literally decades now. Do you want to p.o. one of your best customers by building up a direct competitor to them? Is it even possible to compete with GSN, given its decades-old first mover advantage as a game show network? I'm glad I don't have to manage that balancing act.

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