GSN Drops DWTS Reruns from Lineup
I realize this is super, super late, but I think we all got so swept up in the hustle & bustle of season 14 that no one really even noticed this – plus, it happened rather quietly, so I myself didn’t even notice until I was cleaning up my DVR yesterday and saw that there was nothing set up to record on GSN…but it piqued my interest, so I’m sharing it now, and thought I’d get your thoughts on it 🙂
According to Buzzerblog, GSN dropped reruns of DWTS from its lineup starting April 16:
That didn’t last long, did it? GSN’s most recent attempt at reality shows, exclusive off-network reruns of Dancing With the Stars, are on their way out. The reruns of ABC’s popular dancing game show, which have proved to be anything but popular for GSN, are leaving the network’s schedule starting the week of April 16th. GSN debuted the show on Saturday, January 21st. The debut failed to crack the top 15 most watched shows. First-run reruns averaged 304,000 viewers and has gone down hill since. Most recent figures had the show down to 173,000 viewers on average. Reruns of shows like Family Feud take its place.
I have to say, I’m a little surprised – granted, I was not expecting the reruns to get even a fraction of the ratings that the current seasons get, but with all the publicity they did back in January (and all the hype surrounding GSN buying the rights), I would have thought they would have at least gotten some bang for their buck in terms of ratings, from fans of the show…but 173k is downright meager, especially when you take into account that reruns of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and Family Feud pull in upwards of 500k in viewers for GSN. And when you take into account that DWTS was the lowest-rated show in a primetime slot on GSN the last week it aired (all the shows below it were in early AM slots, which aren’t expected to pull in a ton of viewers), that’s…pretty bad. I have to wonder if it was just PureDWTS fans that were tuning in, after all the free publicity we gave GSN during the big launch 😉
So I guess my big question is, “What went wrong?” It did seem a little strange that they started off airing season 4, but then skipped ahead to season 12 – did the fact that season 12 only happened a year ago deter some viewers, who would have rather seen an older season? Or were the odds just stacked against them when they aired reruns concurrent with a new season? Or was there just never really a huge demand for DWTS reruns from the get-go? Who knows. But I have to wonder if reruns might fare better now that they’ve announced that they’re doing an all-star season – perhaps there might be more a demand for reruns, so fans can relive the magic from the first time around? I do think it will be interesting to see what GSN’s next move is – they still own the rights to seasons 4-13, so if they wanted to start airing them again, they could – hell, I think they’d have better luck in a summer slot, anyway, plus they have the boon of the all-star season looming. But will they even bother, given how much of a failure their first attempts at reruns were? I don’t know that there’s really a demand on any other network for DWTS reruns, so I doubt they’d have an easy time selling off the rights to another network, other than BBC America (they own the rights to seasons 1-3, but have yet to actually do anything with them). I’m just hoping we get at least some of the seasons back on Hulu, so I don’t have to scavenge & beg for pictures everytime I want to do an edition of “Who Wore It Better”? 🙂
So what do you guys think of the whole situation? Are you upset that you won’t catch the reruns…or do you not really care? Do you think GSN should give it another shot…or try and sell the rights to the reruns as fast as they can?
I figured when they put on Season 12 that things weren’t going well. I’m sad. I was looking forward to seeing the old eps again – Hulu not being an option here in Canada. Yeah, there’s youtube, but the vids are bad and I like the whole show.
I loved watching the old episodes. I was really disappointed when they jumped from Ssn 4 to 12.
I think part of the problem is the availability of GSN. I know that my friends and family who are regular DWTS viewers, did not get GSN on their cable. And, after seeing some of the “game” shows that are airing, perhaps not the right viewership. I don’t know why they didn’t air DWTS on ABCFamily. The viewers on that channel might be the better demographics.
Watching season 4 was an eye opener. When Derek said there is a big difference from season 4 to 14 (when Mario Lopez questioned the long rehearsal hours), he wasn’t kidding! Today’s stars are more prepared with better choreography. Everything in season 4 seemed so slow and careful.
I still hope someone will air Season 5 to 11.
They did it wrong, IMO. I am one fan who was super-stoked about this – and got GSN added to my cable package specifically to watch – but the airing times were all wrong for me. Starting it at 6 pm on Saturday, running 2 weeks’ worth of shows together? It was overload. But you had to watch all of it if you wanted to keep up – if you didn’t, you lost the thread of the season, which kind of made me lose interest. Then, for S12, they dropped the results shows altogether, which PO’d me majorly as that meant we didn’t get to see any of the Troupe dances with Tristan et al. Combined with them skipping S5 with Mel and Maks (what I really was looking forward to), and they lost me as a viewer.
I still think if they put one week’s performance show + results show on per night, starting at 7pm ET, then repeated then for the west, then THAT would work.
I think they blew it with airing Season 12 after Season 4. It just happened so who really wanted to see it again? Unlike Season 4, which I watched every week, I didn’t tune in once to Season 12.
Also, they were over saturating with running it so often. Who was really going to watch it more than once a week? I understand running it a few times for people with different viewing habits, but it seemed like it was on way too much.
@Linz – I think you’re on to something with the viewership – if you look at a lot of the shows that GSN airs, they’re all 30 to 60-minute, free-standing episodes. You can tune in and not worry about whether you’ve missed episodes or don’t know what’s going on…it’s very convenient, a la carte programming that doesn’t require a lot of brain cells or a long attention span. DWTS is really the only show they had that had continuity from episode to episode – you couldn’t just tune in and feel like you didn’t see the previous week’s episode to really get a feel for what was happening. Plus it requires a fairly long attention span – the performance shows were 2 hours long, and then the hour-long results show required that you had seen the 2-hour long performance show in order to really make sense. Not exactly the single-serving, instant gratitude programming that Family Feud and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? offers. 🙂 I did a little nosing around in the GSN forums, and the regulars there were all relieved that DWTS was gone – like “Thank god they got rid of that nonsense!” and “Good! More time for Feud!!!”, so I guess it probably did alienate GSN’s core audience a bit.
@Donna – I still wonder what prompted them to make the jump from season 4 to season 12 – I think Heidi & I wondered if they didn’t want to burn through a “good” season while the new season was airing, so they opted to air one that they didn’t think would do as well so they didn’t waste a season while competing with season 14. Who knows…regardless, it was a bad idea.
I do think there may be one glimmer of hope on the horizon, though – they dropped DWTS BEFORE Tom made the announcement about the all-star season, so maybe they’ll consider giving it another shot, just to see if they can ride the coattails of the all-star hype. I think it’s also worth noting that GSN really didn’t do a formal press release saying “We’re dropping DWTS!!!” – they just posted their summer schedule, and DWTS wasn’t on it. Very quiet and subtle – which makes me wonder if they haven’t completely passed on the show.
Word, Twickenham. And frankly, I had no interest in watching Derek-free seasons a second time.
Believe it or not, GSN DID lose viewer numbers in the hours when DWTS was airing, when compared to what had been running in those time slots – hard to believe, but silly assed game shows were getting better numbers than DWTS re-runs.
Now, if they would just put it back on Hulu.
I also thought that they jumped from season 4 to season 12 because the new season was starting so that kind of made sense. BUT….when they didn’t start again after the show I started looking into it and saw that they weren’t going to air any more seasons, I was ticked off!! I was so looking forward to season 5! It was kind of overload to have so many episodes on one night which is probably a big part of their regular viewers angst. They didn’t get to see any of their shows on Saturday night! I really hope they reconsider their decision since the all-star season is coming up……could be a big win win for them.
I figured something was amiss at GSN when they aired Season 12 right after season 4. I’ve been watching the show since season one, and it was enjoyable light entertainment, but when Derek arrived in season 5, wow, it became a whole different show, imo. New heights of excellence, excitement, energy, fun, humor, inventiveness and the thing he has that you can’t earn or learn: charisma and star power. I agree with Heidi; i have no interest in watching Derek-free seasons a second time. But, I would’ve loved seeing the seasons he was on one more time.
I didn’t have cable when it was announced, but got it at the end of March and tried to find DWTS on the GSN. This explains why I couldn’t! I would love to see old episodes, ESPECIALLY before an All-Stars season because I am a late-comer, I only started watching at season 11. All-stars will be fun, but won’t mean as much cuz I didn’t see them the first time around. Please ABC, put them back on Hulu at least! ABCFamily was also a good suggestion.
@Courtney, I agree. I think also since it was a recent season, maybe they figured those who were only going to watch the current season wouldn’t care so much about missing a season they’d just seen.
I was very surprised to see them jump from Season Four all the way to Season 12 when I thought they were going to run from Season Four to the present. I watched the reruns faithfully. It was the only thing pretty much that I had to watch on Sat nights. If GSN isn’t going to air the reruns, I wouid want the rights sold to another station that would air them. My sister and I wouod welcome the reruns back somewhere.
i loved watching the DWTS re-runs on GSN, as I had watched since Season 3 and was really looking forward to seeing all my old favorites again. IMO, GSN overloaded by televising a performance show/results show in back to back 3-hour blocks – had they just shown a three hour block on Saturday night and then the rebroadcast of the same three hour block on Sunday afternoon, perhaps they could have had better ratings. Had also had a funny conspiracy theory that ABC asked GSN to drop the shows since the old seasons would show just how much the newer seasons have been scripted and manipulated and some fans would wonder what was up. But bad ratings sound a lot more feasible.
I noticed that GSN stopped airing DWTS but I just thought they would start again. I haven’t seen all of the old seasons and was wanting to see them. I was irritated at the constant picture problems I had watching DWTS on GSN. I kept thinking the problems were because of GSN or Comcast but other shows on GSN seemed okay. The picture issues were in the same location on the repeats so I’m not sure what the problem was. I wasn’t necessarily as mad that GSN skipped to season 12 as much as I was that they didn’t bother to air the results shows. If I hadn’t seen season 12 and tuned in to watch GSN I think I would’ve stopped watching if I couldn’t see the results shows.
ABC would never be able to do that, Deena – GSN paid a butt load of money for those episode (hence the reason they were pulled from Hulu), if I remember correctly, and when you buy the rights to air, I don’t think they can yank it back without a big refund.
I know I read somewhere how much GSN paid – I seem to recall it was a WHOLE lot of money.
That’s a pity, was dying to see it all again, youtube quality of the earlier shows isn’t quite as good. Also, have been DYING to see Derek & Nicole’s final jive, quickstep, samba and waltzes again, they’re all gone from youtube!! Sniff sniff! I hate when youtube does that!
why not sell them to MTV or 0xygen? IThey are on all providers and air reality show repeats all the time (The glee project, antm, abdc, jersey shore, agt, etc)
@vin – Probably no to MTV, but I’d say “maybe!” to Oxygen or Lifetime – some channel that really caters to DWTS’ core demographic: middle-aged women. And something that is part of most basic cable packages.
@Heidi – I know it was in the several millions of dollars rage – $40-something mil, maybe? A big chunk of change, especially for such a “niche” network like GSN. I would think they’re probably trying to find a buyer to recoup at least some of their losses…otherwise, they’ve just flushed a ton of money down the toilet, since DWTS did them no favors in the ratings department. I don’t think they can afford to let all the DWTS reruns just sit in a vault, unaired.
True mtv pretty much caters to people who want to watch jersey shore, punked, and teen mom and shows like that (I remember as a kid watching TRL in the 1990s every single day and being introduced to new singers and badns like nysinc, bsb, britney spears, etc) and now they don’t even play music smh.
i was really disappointed that GSN decided not to air DWTS….i tweeted them after Season 12 finished up and i saw it was no longer in their line up (but of course got no reply)….i think they should have aired the Seasons in order AND i don’t think they should have aired “double” episodes on the same night – i think that was a big chunk of time that turned the game show junkies against the show—-as they felt DWTS was not a game show.
ALSO ….i think they should air the show again only not in the double episodes and probably late at night so we can all just DVR them and then watch them at our leasure…
I was real excited to about getting to see earlier seasons, but they started on season 4, only showed them on weekends when I don’t watch a lot of tv, then jumped to a recent season. This might be a stupid question, but why didn’t they start with season 1?
@nansan – BBC America owns the rights to seasons 1-3. Season 4 was the earliest season GSN could even buy.