Buzzr numbers

Speaking of Game Show Paradise (see the previous post) Zach Horan has posted a comment on this blog that Buzzr will run Jack Narz Concentration. This syndie version of the rebus epic lasted from 1973 to 1978, which is sort of the front end of the Buzzr era. According to the diginet's Facebook page, the show gets the 7:30 PM weekday slot starting March 30.

As I've written before, Concentration is a little too placid and slow for me. But it's nice that the show's fans will now see both the Narz and Trebek versions on Buzzr. A few of Jack Narz's eps are available on YouTube, but our little game show diginet will no doubt offer many more.

Frankly, my own Buzzr viewing tends to be limited to occasional eps of Password Plus and Super Password. GSN still runs a lot of Match Game, so I can always check in there for the greatest game show ever.

I'm a retired actuary who still retains my number mania, and one thing that kinda gripes me is that I've never been able to find much hard data on the size of Buzzr's audience. Ratings for diginets in general are hard to come by on the Interwebs, unlike broadcast and cable networks. A now defunct site called Media Life Magazine used to post viewer averages for a few of the bigger diginets but never anything on Buzzr. Variety posted overall 2019 averages for a long list of networks that included a few diginets like Bounce and Laff, but again Buzzr didn't make the roll call.

Ron Garfield, Buzzr's first general manager, once said that the diginet gets an "entry level package" of Nielsen ratings. His successor Mark Deetjen has made a few very general references to demo data that seems to come from Nielsen. But the only actual numbers I've seen were for Buzzr's now dead Twitch feed. That outlet was drawing literally a few dozen viewers by the time the diginet closed it down.

Of course, Fremantle shook things up at Buzzr and replaced Ron Garfield, which indicates to me that the linear ratings weren't huge even by niche diginet standards. The switch to a more online-centric strategy was a similar hint. My guess is that the only oldie which could really goose the numbers would be Bob Barker's The Price is Right. But I'd like to see any real data. Just like oldies fans want to see Narz Concentration.

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