What does Wheel need to do to stay fresh? (from Buzzerblog)

I'd really like it if Wheel simply uses phrases we use today, such as "TAKING A SELFIE" or "OR NAH" (but the latter is definitely unlikely to happen) and if they could just use way better puzzles for the Prize Puzzle round instead of brochure stuff.

Is it really that much more difficult to type "of" instead of "o/"? It's just as many characters, and way less confusing!

I'd be scared of Changing Keys (the good ones from late 1983 to early 1994) not being the most recognized theme. I know TPIR recently made remixes of their old prize music packages, even though they could've sounded way better. Wheel can certainly do better than that.

I remember first hearing the 1994 theme when I was just 4 1/2 years old. I was like, "Huh?" My mom agrees with how I feel about the 1994 theme. I'm not about to quit ranting about how much I want the good theme musics back until they bring them back.

Gameplay-wise, I don't think there's anything they CAN do to attract more viewers. Look at Feud--it's exactly the same game as it was back in 1976, and don't bother trying the argument that they upped the prize money, so it must be doing better. The Fast Money top prize has been $20,000 since...2001? It's all Steve.

Now I'm not saying to give Pat and/or Vanna the boot--not by a longshot. Bring back some of the players who went viral for one reason or another, if they want ratings. The audience wants to see if emilburp will pull another solve out of thin air, to see if Julian's going to make another on-the-spot dicespin, to see Trent spread his infectious love of the game all over again. I think now, more than any other time in the past, they want to see personalities, not minor gameplay tweaks.

Wheel will coast, because on Pat & Vanna alone they can, until they retire, which I think could happen at the end of this decade. (I think two most likely dates if they want to set it - end of S35, end of S40. Maybe S40 is a decent stopping point, but it feels a bit long to me - that's June 2023...) If Harry continues to coast after they retire and ratings do sag, then we could finally see some major changes.

And to be fair, this isn't surprising or necessarily bad behavior - Price essentially did the same. The real difference has been that Wheel has stubbornly not adjusted to inflation (and even worse, submitted to a "primetime gimmick", as Dan has aptly described, although I sure bet Harry never expected it to cost him 3mil in just over 6 seasons when mapping it out), and now that the puzzle quality is in a staggering decline, no aspect of the show is particularly good right now on a day-to-day basis.

I think the one well-considered retroactive move I would make would have been to raise the entire wheel substantially instead of introducing the prize puzzle. I am pretty sure the PP was created to raise the maingame winner's total to a minimum that looked more acceptable as the 2000s went on (in particular, I remember one old lady who ended up winning 100 on POWER WINDOWS (while calling WMDO or something amazingly clutch) only winning 61xx in the maingame, which was frustratingly cheap to me). But the same could have been accomplished by simply doubling every wheel value (except big money, of course... 3500, 5000, 7500 anyone?).

Every once in awhile, it's BANKRUPTs galore or someone fails a couple rounds at the end and it's a bad game, but I mean still today there are a few games a year with four-digit maingame winners, even in a couple cases 8xxx. I don't think the difference would have been that much, and you could have maybe kept Jackpot this season too. And think of the 30-45 seconds saved from the PP description going towards 3-4 more spins of gameplay.

I bet this thread doesn't exist right now if they just went with my move instead of the PP.

The "lack" of $5000 can be attributed to a few factors:

-BANKRUPT added next to it permanently
-Pat's weakening final spin nearly killing off full R4 6k speed-ups
-The staff manipulating the final dings when 5k is about to potentially be in position for Pat on the next spin (based on spin pattern), or it is in position and stretching the round to one more spin. This has happened too many times to be a coincidence. The budget is probably already somewhat shot this season due to the million, but by no means is this a trend isolated to just this season.

I am, and I figure I'm not alone, if only because of publicly available statements of financial position, since it's a publicly traded company. You need some accounting and/or finance background to understand them, but thankfully, I have that. One of things that is notable is they just reported a $2.1 billion annual loss on their mobile phone division on Tuesday, because of the iPhone 6, which is about 10% of their current company overall money, before taxes or anything. But to the big numbers, and this is really alarming how badly things have been fouled up in Sony's Headquarters, in Minato-ku, Tokyo (which you might know as Minato City, meaning port, due to its proximity from the seaside).

Of 75.421B in total revenue for the financial year 3/31/13 to 3/31/14, it came at a cost of 57.836B, which is 76.68% percent of revenue, which is far too high; especially for an electronics company, on the whole. Also, Sony has 5.01% more accounts receivable (cash owed that they haven't gotten owed yet), compared with physical cash. They need to have more on hand. There's also the concern about their current liabilites (stuff due <1 year), with that at 46.35B on this front. Remember, gross profit (Total Revenue-Cost of Revenue) is only 17.586B. This means a given one million dollar winner for Wheel only takes out 1/17,586th of Sony's entire gross profit; nearly immaterial (irrelevant, financially) to the corporation, on the whole. To say otherwise is laughable.

Here's something else disturbing about Sony: the money they made the last financial year is only 37.94% of what they owe in the coming year, which isn't remotely sustainable. Sure, they have a lot of great long term funds invested, in the amount of 76.895B but since those aren't divulged, for obvious trade reasons, who knows how they'll turn out? Well, there's history, if we look at the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis: Cash flows from investing activities has not been all that great of a strong suit for Sony-it lost money 144M on these ventures in 2011, and shrunk to 38.45% of the growth it had in 2012, to 1.15B this year, which, given how much is spent on these fronts, that's terrible, with only a 1.48% return on its research this year.

Also, receivables are at 10.698B, as mentioned. General accounts payable with in the year? 30.56B, nearly triple (285.66%, for those who like the precision). Sony is too focused on the long term, with many uncertain ideas. Last but not least, the purpose of a company or a corporation is to appease shareholders, nothing else. They've been absolutely awful on shareholder equity (what you get from investing in their stocks, bonds, etc.): It's gone down the past few years, and there's no sign to say that it should increase anytime soon, even with its signature PS4 or Wheel/J!/etc, which shows this mismangement of the company. Wheel isn't the problem here. Not thinking of the here and now IS.

Last but not least is the, in this case unfortunate, trickle down effect. Sony's money and financial holders pass down, unsurprisingly, to its subsidiaries and shows. Because the big, parent company is hurting, and not using its funds wisely for shareholders, Wheel is going to trickle down from that (as is Jeopardy!), and take a big blow in its budget. Don't blame Harry for this, blame Osamu Nagayama (the chairman), Kazuo Hirai (CEO, President, Director), and Kinichiro Yoshida (Chief Financial Officer, Director, and Executive VP). This is on them managing the company really poorly. All Harry can do is make with what he's got. As a television Executive Producer, he's got less than no say in this mess. Be careful, my fellow fans, budget mode is going to hit more early AND often as years pass by, based on this information.

Fair enough.


That still doesn't excuse his personal preference for cars and trips...unless "That's his personal preference." is the kind way of saying "Our budget can't afford things contestants are more likely to actually take."


...To the point where the whole season is in budget mode? Because that's a scary thought.


I'm sure it does, given how poorly WWTBAM? does ratings-wise and them losing that lawsuit against Disney around the time the Shuffle format debuted.

Bumping (a bit) for two reasons:

One, I felt my meager response of "Fair enough." to the whole Sony being mismanaged thing was a crap way to respond. It's obviously not a good thing, and furthermore I owe Harry an apology for misblaming him for the show's budget problems.

Second, and more importantly on the whole budget issue, because Jeopardy! might be getting a major change soon:

Jeopardy! may be eliminating the "tie creates co-champs" rule.

Fair point, but Chad Mosher claims he's heard some rumblings as well. Further, the guy being quoted in the Facebook link (Ryan Alley) was involved in the most recent tie back on October 30, and I think he's in the current TOC brackets as well (or at the very least an alternate).

Even then, I don't think a contestant would hypothesize something like that without good reason, and given the wording of his statement he may have been deliberately vague to say things without actually saying things. (To give an example of what I mean, this might be akin to Buzzerblog saying "I strongly suggest you watch Wheel this week." for a week that has a $100,000 win or me saying "I strongly think we're gonna have a really bad Trip Puzzle." on...well, most nights, actually. )