Wheel Falls to #3 in Ratings

- Agreed.
- Maybe, but probably not specifically that. I feel like the increase in cars and apparent decrease of $40-50K envelopes does that job.
- It is dumb, but that won't turn off most people from watching.
- They are, but the general public wouldn't know that he does the "first robin of spring" joke every year, or does the "nickname in high school" joke every few weeks.




Sure, not all wins will be for the $35K, but many, many of them will be. Last season, only 15 Bonus Rounds were won for a value higher than $34,000. If you take away cars, of which the highest won (but not offered) was only a little over $40K, only 11 were won for $40/45/50/100K. And with the way things are going now, that number will likely be a single digit this season.


Remember Secret Santa Sweepstakes, which matches all winnings for two weeks to a WWC member, and it even gave us a $100K win last year. Thankfully, it is still being done this season, per the annual press release. We'll see how it compares to J! in ratings then, but if it coincides with Austin in the TOC... 


The Mystery $10K was only won 11 times last season. The most wins it ever had in one season since permanently being $10K was 18 in Season 27.

How though?

Do I really need to be the first one in this thread to point out Harry Friedman's obvious favoritism for Jeopardy!? There are so many examples from this past decade, but most recently, in BUZZR's "Game Changers" documentary, Harry's entire screen time was talking only about J!. His work on Wheel was only mentioned on the chyron, plus his footage was shot in J!'s Hall of Fame in front of their Emmys display. Harry was waiting for the season where J! would consistently tie or beat Wheel most every week, and it's finally happened.

During Wheel's segments, Alex talked about how Merv Griffin favored Wheel and how it was "his baby" and rarely even visited the J! set and never even wrote material for J! unlike Wheel. Seems Harry has been spending the past few years giving J! the love Merv never gave it, but at least Harry actually shows up to the Wheel set every taping.


Anyway, to provide some more, less-opinionated insights on Wheel's decline compared to the other guys...

- Wheel is the only syndicated half-hour game show that only has one daily airing nationwide. Jeopardy! and Millionaire have double runs in some markets, and Feud has three or four airings per day, if not more. The now-cancelled Celebrity Name Game had a double run, too.

- The Thursday Night Football pre-emptions on CBS are not helping Wheel's case. Wheel is affected in way more markets than J! because of this, because outside the Eastern Time Zone, J! airs in the afternoon in some markets and not always right before or after Wheel. Additionally, in some markets like Boston, J! is moved up to air in Wheel's unaffected time slot, pushing Wheel to overnight airings, likely because of J!'s continuity whereas every episode of Wheel is self-contained.

- Wheel Watchers Club members have quickly caught on this season that $5K Every Day is no more and many of them can't be bothered to keep watch for a gameplay event that only happens about a dozen times per season in the middle of the show.

- Wheel has no way of maintaining and building upon hype like J! is able to do with people like Austin. Wheel can have an amazing episode that gets talked about on the news and social media and such, but then if someone were to tune into Wheel the night they heard about it, it would be some other run-on-the-mill episode. Whereas, for quite a while, anyone reading about Austin could turn to J! that night to see what he would do next. Wheel's self-containedness is hurting them more than it's helping them.

- The Price is Right is "self-contained" like Wheel, but they remedy any potential rating losses from this by having several special weeks with increased stakes, celebrities, etc. Every episode of Wheel has been the same for the past few years in terms of what's being offered, and making the trips five digits all week doesn't count. Price also still does a great job appealing to younger generations in the social media age, something Jeopardy! is improving on in the tracks of Family Feud whereas Wheel has shown no effort in this regard.

- Although J! has not done it since 1990, it should also be noted that Wheel is the only major game show that has never aired in network primetime in any way. There was a bit of discussion about the idea a few years ago in leaked Emails, though.

A possible double run of Wheel was actually discussed a few years ago, according to the Sony Email leak. However, it was mentioned that if it was offered, stations would not be permitted to pair it with the double run of Jeopardy! if they carried it.

If there was a double run of Wheel, stations might have a hard time scheduling it, especially under that condition. It couldn't air back-to-back with the primary unless the station was willing to bump the primary Jeopardy! to another slot if that wasn't the case already, and then of course people would freak out like "OMG WTF WHY DID U MOVE JEOPARDY FOR AN HOUR OF STUPID WHEEL OF FORTUNE?!".

My station and a few others air the double run of Millionaire at 1:37 AM. There probably isn't a lot of room in daytime TV for a double run of Wheel without getting rid of another show. My station only carried the double run of Jeopardy! for the 2014-15 season at 2:30 PM, following the primary Millionaire. It was replaced with RightThisMinute the following season.

^ Funny You Should Ask is also offered as a double run. My market airs it on my CBS affiliate's independent sister station at 4:00 and 4:30 PM. Per its episode guide, the first five weeks contained all new episodes during both airings. As of this Friday, FYSA will have premiered 70 new episodes already.

Wheel is still a solid performer, mostly due to the institutional status it has achieved much like J! and of course TPIR.

To give a little history, here is a list of the top Nielsen syndication shows 30 years ago, from the week ending October 11, 1987:



First off, people watch less TV obviously due to newer tech and Wheel and J!'s ratings are comparable with the Davidson HS audience and Entertainment Tonight back then. 
That said, WWTBAM is obviously on life support as my local markets have dropped the show from its prime midday slot and I can't seem to find it on the listings, and although people have been seeing this for years, this is probably the final season of the show. At the very least, I have Wheel on as background music during dinner, and it still amazes me that a syndicated show back then that would be #1 would blow away at primetime these days, where the top-rated show averages around a 10. 30 years ago, the top primetime shows averaged in the low 30s, and like today, with Wheel around half of the top primetime series on the air today (Big Bang/Game Of Thrones), is still doing commendably well. Let's not forget those who DVR or watch online, whether via stream or a video sharing site. Like TPIR, the big test will come upon if/when a new host comes about, and more importantly, how good of a job the staff for the shows can keep things up without alienating viewers. It felt funny watching Carey Price for the first couple years, but by Season 39 I had settled down and have held sway with the show as it is now, despite less on-air time due to commercials that limits some of the contestant interaction. 

I'm not surprised. If anything, I'm surprised J! dropped by that much. When J! gets that much coverage, it just draws more general interest, as if the internet crowd tuning in for Austin felt "Hm, I should start watching this show more often. It's interesting!" J! has been raking in the millenials lately, something Wheel doesn't seem to care about for the most part, and when millenials do show a care for Wheel, it's usually either for the wrong reason or for something that the show probably didn't want to get attention for.

And Millionaire finally budged!