Wednesday, December 2, 2009

GSN's 15th Anniversary

I would have posted this sooner but I’ve been having a hard time trying to word this exactly. I didn't want to sound too negative, but I guess that didn't work out all too well...

You wouldn’t know it from watching GSN on December 1st alone, but this day marks a big milestone for the channel, it’s 15th anniversary. The network first started in December 1, 1994; and signed on with this amazing montage.

As I scanned through the tape I have to answer Oodle questions, I notice that there has been no mention of this whatsoever, NONE. 15 years is a pretty big milestone, especially for a smallish cable network, and I can’t believe nothing was said at all. I think 2004 had to be one of the worst years of the channel yet, with reality programming in place and it being obvious they were trying hard to distance themselves from traditional game shows, and even then there was a little 30 second ad marking the 10th anniversary. That wasn’t much at all but at least it was still something. Not just that, but we’re also talking about a network that ran a marathon of shows when they turned 2. GSN dropped the ball on this.

This and with the many bad decisions that have been made this year, it’s a bit awkward for this fan to be overly enthusiastic or celebratory when it comes to this network. I’ve had it at home since 2003, and the first show I saw was Dawson’s Family Feud. After that would be two other classic shows: $100,000 Pyramid and Match Game ‘74... and I soon became hooked. I haven’t had it as long as other fans, but I’ve seen things like the 2004 changeover and the resurgence of classics on the weekdays in 2005; shows like Bill Rafferty’s Card Sharks were new to me. And it was fun seeing Super Password and Password Plus on a regular basis. There were also some downs like Without Prejudice and Starface, but it seems to me in spite of the negative aspects to the channel, between 2005-early 2009 it was pretty much a good thing to look forward to. I wish I could say the same thing now… with little to look forward to, I wish I could be happier about the network now but hopefully fans like myself will be happier for the 16th anniversary.

1 comment:

johnnytuffguy said...

I agree with you! It's bad enough GSN does not exist, to me, on Sunday nights with all of their poker shows, now the rest of the weekend schedule is classic-free!! The weekday schedule is great although like everyone else I'd love for them to put on some of the hard to get
shows we all would like to see. Maybe the weekend schedule will change for the new year. We can all hope for it.
John