GSN's Got Game

by Terry Borst
Fall 2001

Playing along with your favorite television game show used to mean trying to blurt out the answer before the on-screen contestant did or playing the game's typically cheesy home version board-game.
Now, if the Game Show Network (GSN) is in your channel line-up, you can really play along, competing with other viewers for real prizes. If you've got AOLTV, UltimateTV, WebTV Plus or a Liberate set-top box (part of the enhanced digital programming package offered by numerous cable and satellite operators), you can access it all exclusively on your television set.
True to its motto "Play All Day," GSN offers round-the-clock game-show programming, and according to Vice President of Programming Kristin Peace, "Fully a quarter of that programming is original game-show content." In addition, she said a growing number of the shows offer viewers real-time interactivity.
"What's unique about GSN is that interactivity is so completely organic to game shows," Peace said. "Everyone already understands how it works. Everyone likes to play along.
GSN's Hollywood Showdown is a perfect example of how it all works. Todd Newton (a regular on the E! Channel) hosts the brisk half-hour show, which focuses on entertainment and pop culture topics. Contestants answer multiple-choice questions, score points and add cash to a jackpot that builds throughout the episode.

Getting into the Game

While you can enjoy the broadcast solely as a spectator (and many do), those with either one-screen or two-screen interactive connectivity can answer the same questions at the same time as their on-screen counterparts. (See sidebar One-screen vs. Two-screen Interactivity.)
On WebTV Plus, AOLTV, UltimateTV or Liberate, this means selecting the translucent "i" that appears in the upper-right corner of the screen, and then selecting Go Interactive from the menu. Instructions then appear at the bottom of the screen, and when you're ready, you can select OK to begin playing the game.
Interactive players earn their own points, which appear on-screen. At the end of the show, they submit their scores along with other at-home participants. Each night, GSN ranks the high scores nationally and by state, and players can check those scores via the Internet. Players with the best at-home scores enter a sweepstakes for cash and vacation prizes.

Brand-new Games and Old Favorites

Mall Masters is an original game show offering real-time interactivity. The show polls shoppers at Minnesota's Mall of America, asking them everything from their favorite pizza toppings to their worst embarrassments on a date. On-air contestants then try to guess shoppers' answers in a multiple-choice format, and the interactive viewer gets a crack at the same questions, competing against other home viewers for points and prizes.
For some of us, relationship-driven shows were always the most entertaining. If you ever watched The Dating Game, there were a couple of things you probably did: guess which bachelorette would get picked and wonder what planet the contestants came from.
While GSN has not updated The Dating Game yet, it has revived an old favorite. Game-show legend Chuck Barris's original Three's a Crowd asked whether a wife or a secretary really knew a man better. GSN's All New Three's a Crowd (hosted by Alan Thicke), pushes the concept further, combining a woman with an ex-boyfriend and current boyfriend, or a guy with his wife and mother, exploring intimate relationships and seeing who knows what.
This time, interactive viewers compete against each other in prediction games, where they rack up points and vie for prizes. Which threesome will score the most points before the commercial break? Which threesome will win the game?
You might think that classic episodes of The $100,000 Pyramid (hosted by Dick Clark) would give your game-playing thumb a rest. After all, this game show actually flashed the answers on-screen to the home-viewing audience. So a game where you guess those answers would not provide much of a challenge.
But GSN has again added a prediction game for real-time viewer interactivity. Will it be Hal Linden's team or Bea Arthur's team that advances to the pyramid? Will Linden's team answer this question correctly or not?
Only one viewer at a time can play on an individual television. However, many of GSN's shows allow you to register multiple user-names within a household. This lets the kids (or your significant other) compete under their own names.
In addition, compulsive channel-surfers should know that the point counter will re-set itself if you click to another network between questions. If you're truly competing for more than the sheer glory and fun of it, be sure to stay with the game for the full half-hour.
GSN has not yet outfitted every show with full, real-time digital interactivity, but Peace said that is its ultimate goal.
An example of partial, real-time interactivity is WinTV, a repackaging of To Tell the Truth and The Price is Right episodes that GSN couples with an interactive multiple-choice trivia game. Viewers again compete with other simultaneous viewers for high scores and sweepstakes prizes.
At other times, the interactivity has no direct connection at all with the show. For example, when GSN airs classic episodes of The Match Game and Beat the Clock, digitally-enabled players can select some other sort of game play: trivia games, word games, on-screen blackjack and more.

Looking Ahead

With GSN now entering over 30 million homes, and digital set-top devices proliferating, the network's future programming emphasis is almost exclusively on original game shows built from the ground-up with real-time, viewer-involving, interactive game play never before possible.
"Our current programming push reflects our desire to expand the genre of game shows," Peace said. One example is an interactive dating show GSN is developing with match.com. Viewer interactivity will likely include some kind of Love Connection-type audience votes and predictions, as well as the ability to view video bios of potential daters and a chance to vote on who will win the next date. The show might also incorporate live match.com chats.
Other planned shows include storytelling contests, hip-hop microphone showdowns and a Survivor-like reality game, pitting contestants against each other as they live for weeks on top of billboards.

What Are You Waiting For?

All of these shows should integrate home-audience interactive competitions. How long before we take for granted full, two-way interactive game shows that fully incorporate at-home contestants into the structure of the on-air game show entertainment?
For those of you sitting on the interactive TV fence, wondering if an investment in AOLTV, UltimateTV or other digitally-enhanced broadcast services is worth it, this may be reason enough to make the plunge; it's a great new way to involve the entire family in an evening's fun.
For those of you who already have the Game Show Network but haven't delved into it why are you standing on the sidelines? Go on out there and get in the game!