Goodbye, “Catch a Game”

On August 17th, GSN is reporting that the summertime slogan “Catch a Game” will be retired and will be replaced with a new slogan, and to that I say “Good riddance.”

It’s too bad too. I could have easily seen myself loving this campaign if the song wasn’t played during every freakin’ break. Then there’s the fact that there were only 3 or 4 promos made for the slogan. One big gripe I have with GSN is how they promote things these days. Seriously, how hard is it to diversify the ads so that the viewer sees more than the same few over and over? How about promoting some of the daytime line-up individually? Why was there no promotion for Pyramid coming to the schedule? I know that if I shelled out big bucks to Sony to get rights to air a show (especially an entire series), I’d be letting my viewers know about it. Now it just reminds me of the time of no matter when I watched, I couldn’t escape the same Without Prejudice? promo during every break or the ad with Shandi Finnessey squealing, “YAY! ONE FOR MEEEEEEEE!“ in the most shrill voice ever imaginable during the Playmania days.

And it’s not just the promos that got really grating overtime. Also the pop-up ads on the screen were even larger than they were before. I don’t want to see a fake wave or surfboard wash over the screen when I’m trying to watch a show. To GSN and every other network, I’m not an idiot; I know what I’m watching and I don’t need some giant banner on the screen telling me. Not to mention GSN is one of those networks that with many of its shows, you really don’t need extra clutter on the screen since the game shows that are shown have words, phrases, and categories that you’d need to see if you want to play along with them at home.

This campaign I think did have potential, but at the same time it wasn’t executed properly. I ask that with for the next campaign, for the love of GOD, please come up with something that doesn’t make me want to hurl something at my television screen in a fit of annoyance.