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The CW may be having second thoughts about canceling The Game and getting out of the comedy business. The return of The Game on BET, which resurrected Mara Brock Akil’s series months after the CW axed it, drew a massive audience of 7.7 million viewers last night for the sitcom’s fourth season premiere. That is the most watched series telecast on the network, and No. 2 overall, behind the 2009 BET Awards, which drew 10.2 million viewers days after the death of Michael Jackson. BET’s other new scripted comedy, Let’s Stay Together, did solid business too, attracting 4.4 million for its debut.
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WOW. Congrats to all involved. I watched the show a couple times back when it first started out and it wasn’t horrible. It had a lot of potential actually, nice to see it finally has an appropriate home and is seeing success. The cast and crew are a great group of people, so, kudos.
You are so right…I agree..BET has taken a really good quality show and threw out everything that made us want it back!…I also heard that Jason and Kelly are signed on as ‘special guest’ what’s up with that. They are just as much a part of the show as any of the others. Please get it together. Go back to your roots. We all know that BET is ‘BLACK Entertainment Television’ but can we bring the class back to the show… Somebody HELP!!
I’m glad they were able to bring the show back- to great numbers, no less- but too bad it was awful. They need to return to season one’s roots; the characters are unrecognizable and all they did was fight throughout the entire episode.
Let’s Stay Together was even worse. RonReaco Lee deserves sooooo much better.
I agree with you c4x. I thought the characters were way, way, way over the top. Malik and Jason are just arrogant s.o.b.s. Just too much for me. I loved the show when it was on the CW. I think BET wants to keep the show in the same vein as their music videos.
I completely agree.
The excellent recipe the writers/directors put into The Game from CW is longer there. Nobody seemed to mesh together this time. It’s as if the story was written in a make believe land…way over the top and just unbelievable. CW had it right before. Also, did you notice there was no background music whatsoever throughout the entire show? It was like a dry soap opera. More so, the camera shots looked a bit low budget and overall, just didn’t feel right to me. Me and my fiance noticed all of this after the first 5 or 10 minutes…the show just didn’t seem right.
We are on the fence about watching the next episode…we just didn’t enjoy the way BET handled the production of the show. Perhaps they should consider hiring the writers/directors/video crew as well….the whole dang production set!
Malik and Jason have ALWAYS been arrogant s.o.b’s
ok people….yall need 2 understand that this season is 2 YEARS LATER..so they cant pick up where they left off.in actuality professional players retire,blow up,and have down spirals and all the stuff that went down this season. it WAS actually realistic. nobody wants 2 c tha same stuff over again….but i c where yall comin from…i do miss season 1-3′s vibe but they had 2 switch it up
Great for the Game but I wouldn’t say its the CW’s fault. It probably didn’t have the same audience on the CW. BET harvested their viewers for it. BET has a bigger audience. People just don’t know about the CW as much as they do networks like ABC Family and BET. I’m sure if you put the Game on a bigger network its gonna get bigger ratings. Same thing if MAD MEN or BREAKING BAD was put on CBS.
The masses werent aware that AMC had great programming until they were forced to find it with a very commercial, broad and entertaining project like The Walking Dead. The CW needs something bigger and broader if they ever want to get out of their niche and move beyond 3 million viewers.
If the year of GREY’S ANATOMY, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and LOST is any indication and last season’s MODERN FAMILY and GLEE, its that u can’t be niche if you want big ratings.
Too bad they didn’t keep it as The WB because The WB had audience awareness.
The WB and UPN in their nascent stages relied heavily on Black programming. The fact of the matter that as the CW shifted to Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill, it basically abandoned Girlfriends and The Game. The audience was there, but it lacked network support. The marketing was lackluster.
7.7million people don’t watch BET everyday. I actually know very few people who do watch BET these days. Fact is that BET for the first time put some money behind their programming and marketing dollar and created this hit.
actually. UPN relied heavily on black programming. The WB when it ended had shows like Gilmore Girls, 7th heaven, Smallville, Veronica Mars Reba What I Like About You One Tree Hill. so and so forth none really geared towards the african american community. Just saying.
Right on the mark, great post.
I’ve only seen the show in passing….it’s okay, great cast though….but wow. Amazing number. Congrats to the cast and crew.
How does it go from less than 2 million viewers on the CW to nearly 8 million on BET? Heads should roll at CW.
I will state the obvious: A BLACK SHOW will typically do better on a BLACK NETWORK than it will do on non-ethnic networks. Why is this causing any confusion? Of course it would do better on BET.
Not true… I am black and do not watch BET and several of my black friends who also do not watch BET tuned in for The Game… CW lost one of the best shows due to their lack of effort to promote and market this show. It had a bad time slot on the CW,8pm on a Friday night? Come on… People watched it on BET not because it was a black show on a black network but because it is a good show that CW dropped the ball on.
Also not only was the Friday time slot horrible, it got flip flopped around to different nights/time of the week without notice…really who does that to a show that’s appreciated? Let’s take Cold Case for example…Cold Case was in my opinion a GREAT show that was canceled. It lost ratings because people were expecting it to come on at 7 and it wouldnt come on until 9ish 10ish. Some Sundays it would not come on at all…that’s what happened to the ratings.
DUH — ANY show will do better on ANY network with the proper development, the proper scheduling and the prope promotion REGARDLESS as to whether or not it is a black show, a white show, a show with Native Americans, a show with Asians, a show with gays.
Your comment is just the exact problem with today’s head-in-the-sand TV development.
Cause you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…
The CW was quick to axe the show without giving it a fair shot and they moved it all around the network to different nights without warning.
I give credit to BET. I may take issue with how the majority of their programming revolves around music videos and direct to DVD movies. But in their efforts to revamp their image, they really ensured this show reached a huge audience by scheduling marathons of the previous seasons for almost a year now. They helped grow the show’s audience. And now it’s paid off.
Hopefully the drop off won’t be so severe next week. I also hope this changes the network for the better.
Interesting. Very interesting. The broadcast networks should take notice. Newsflash: people watch black people on TV!!!!
I would be interested in knowing what percentage of that audience was non-black households.
How many “non-black households” do you know that watch BET?
I don’t know. That’s why I asked. And if you think that only black people watch black shows on black networks, then you are just as out of touch with reality as the broadcast networks.
I am Hispanic and don’t watch BET too much, but I do love “The Game”, and will be watching it from now on.
May be having second thoughts? More like are having second thoughts. There isn’t a single show on the CW right now with ratings that good. Hell, some NBC shows would kill for those ratings.
Granted that’s a premiere so they will go down, but that’s still amazing.
Not surprising since it is the only GOOD show on the air about and starring black people. Had they re-launched GIRLFRIENDS the number would have been twice that.
Hopefully, Hollywood is watching. Though somehow I doubt they are.
Great News! Good for Mara and the Cast of THE GAME! It’s a well written show with a wonderful cast! It’s fantastic that the series was resurrected and the ratings prove why!
Keep up the good work!
CW wishes one of its shows could rake in 7.7 million viewers on their shows. Way to go CW! Smart move by BET!
WOW – Those are HUGE numbers. It also had a 3.6 in the 18-49 which means it had the 3rd highest ratings in the demo for any network last night. Pretty sure this is the highest rated sitcom premiere in cable history. If I remember correctly it was averaging less then 2 million viewers on the CW.
Any idea how The Game’s BET numbers compare to its CW numbers? On the surface, it seems like a massive jump which would be really impressive for a show that’s been off the air for two years.
Yes!!! That will definitely “sell some soap”…
Im sure the CW wishes they never cancelled The Game…They could only wish 7.7 million people would watch ANYTHING on there network…
I don’t think it was working on CW. Someone above just mentioned that they moved it to different nights and no one would watch.
I’ve never watched THE GAME, but that’s wonderful news! GOSSIP GIRL can’t even touch a 7.7! Great work, BET, Mara, & everyone at THE GAME.
The CW will fold. The network has no longevity.
What the hell are you talking about?! How does BET, which is cable network, have a bigger audience than CW, which is a broadcast network? Of course it’s CW’s fault. It was one of the best shows on the air when it was on, but CW promoted it poorly while BET promoted the hell out of it and ran marathons regularly. CW marketed it terribly.
More like CW’s audience just didn’t want to watch, I’d bet.
The CW’s marketing for the Game was terrible. Ultimately, the network just didn’t care about it’s programs w/ large African-American casts.
Gossip Girl and 90210 get only a couple of million viewers. Big deal.
The reality is that the CW’s niche is young women but ABC Family blows them out of the water. Compare Pretty Little Liars’ ratings to the CW’s similar soaps. PLL’s ratings are stronger.
It’s obvious why The Game failed on the CW. It has nothing to do with the audience couldn’t find the show. The CW could have cared less about any programming inherited from the UPN days. They clearly wanted to whitewash their image. They didn’t market the shows with predominantly black casts because they had no interest in them. I don’t think it was a racist decision, but there was an obvious decision that they wanted to remake the network with a different demographic. Fox did it as well when it first started out with many shows featuring black casts, then dropped them when they were no longer needed.
All network shows currently feature predominantly white casts with a few people of color sprinkled here and there on some shows. African-Americans and Latinos are huge demographics that are basically ignored by mainstream network TV. It’s no wonder why Univision rakes in the number it does, just like The Game did well on BET.
Congratulations to BET. Hopefully you will continue with more original programming with positive images of African Americans, instead of the junk you used to show. And The CW should be embarrassed and deserves to fail.
It’s not rocket science. If you build it, they will come.
HA!
Take THAT bigoted, narrow thinking programming & development Execs! Maybe if NBC had promoted “Undercovers” & given the characters a basis in reality & decent storytelling, they might have gotten similar #’s.
Obviously the audience exists.
I wouldn’t call “the walking dead” commercial or broad as much as benefitting from timing (halloween) and marketing.
The cw shot themselves in the foot by erroneously targeting such a narrow demographic as a broadcast network.
As B said, BET has been running reruns of “the game” for almost two years and have a built-in audience for the show. It was smart for them to pick it back up as a launching pad for what could be an investment in more new programming outside of their reality offerings.
I’m so glad The Game is doing so well.It’s a terrific show and deserves the ratings it’s getting.
Question – Are there ANY African American sitcoms on ANY networks? If not why?
Seriously People need to have a clue about the subject they are talking about.
The best ratings the Game ever received on the CW was 2.96 million views during it’s first season. It average viewers total was third lowest of eighteen programs, it’s adults 18-49 average was tied for third worse of eighteen shows. The CW keep it. In fact they kept it for three seasons, where it’s average decreased each and every year.
The only reason CW moved away from it’s first two years general audience is due to th fact that the only shows that hit any demo well was the shows that were geared to women, and even still the year people say they jumped on the women 18-34 boat with Gossip Girls they also produced Reaper and Aliens in America two shows that had great reviews as well but failed to find any demo audience by it men 18-34, men 18-49 pr adults in those two demos.
As for those who can’t grasp the basic concept that some programs fit some networks better then other, you really need to do some more research. BET full lineup is geared closer to the demo breakdown of the Game, it also produces very little scripted original fair and thus can put the cable networks full ad campaign behind it. The CW, or for that matter any real network can’t. They have to pick and choose which shows get the lion share of media attention. And simple put that isn’t goi to be a show that averages sixtieth out of eighteenth. That just isn’t going to happen.
Not to mention some shows find life after being in dailysyndication. I mean just look at the most successful show in syndication the original Star Trek. It was a flop tht eked out three years barely and yet turned into a daily juggernaut generating billions and billions for paramount.