Are You Smarter Than an Amazon Publishing Manager?

A few months after making his first big foray into game shows hosted by Patton Oswald 1% ClubPrime Video is poised to quadruple the genre. The Amazon-owned streamer plans to launch four new game shows hosted by Travis Kelce over a seven-week period starting next month. Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? One Danger! spinoff focused on popular culture and hosted SNLColin Jost. While Prime’s focus on game shows is interesting in itself, what’s even more notable is How the broadcaster plans to broadcast and market these programs.

Taking a page from the days when broadcast networks drew millions “Must Watch Television” Thursday and “TGIF” Buffering has learned that Prime will air new episodes of three of its new game shows at the same time each week and will call the virtual programming block “Winning Wednesdays.” Goal: To create a weekly opportunity for viewers, especially families, to open the Prime Video app and enjoy a night of thematically similar entertainment.

This is pretty much Linear TV 101, though major broadcasters have mostly resisted such overt attempts to create weekly lineups. But Amazon executive Lauren Anderson, who oversees Prime’s game show, argues there should be no shame in borrowing from the traditional TV playbook. “The line between broadcast and streamed is becoming increasingly blurred,” says Anderson, whose official title is head of brand and content innovation for Amazon MGM Studios. “Many customers like some of the models developed on the broadcast side, even if they like the convenience of broadcast.”

This isn’t the first time Amazon has shown a desire to diverge from the streaming herd when it comes to release patterns and programming strategies. With the above mentioned 1% Clubstreamer agreement reached With Fox Broadcasting, this resulted in episodes of the series (originally conceived as a Prime-only show) premiering on linear TV and then airing only hours later on Prime (but not Hulu, where all other Fox prime time shows are live). Prime sister streamer Freevee releases new episodes of Judge Judy Sheindlin Judy Justice five days a weekIt mimics the Monday through Friday weather pattern of the decades-old syndicated show.

“As we looked at Judy and said, ‘Yes, we can do daily programming,’ the same thought came about, ‘Okay, we’re doing game shows, and this is an opportunity to give customers something great that they want the way they want it,'” Anderson says, and broadcast programmers are very He adds that he needs to be open to a variety of publishing strategies: “The question I like to ask myself, and the question I want the team to ask, is: ‘Why?’”

Since this programming block approach is new for Prime — like game shows — Prime will be facilitating the launch of Winning Wednesdays, giving each of the new games their own moment in the sun and doing some experimenting with how many of them will be available on the show. Episodes are cut every week. Here’s how the rollout will work (check out a promo for the new cast, including a first look). Popular Culture Danger!under):

➽ Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? It will be first out of the gate on Wednesday, October 16th with a mini version of its first three episodes. Thereafter, a new episode will air every Wednesday until mid-February (there will be 20 episodes in total). The series offers a different take on Fox’s successful middle grade quiz show. Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? by placing a contestant in a “class” of five famous people from the worlds of comedy, sports and entertainment, including Nikki Glaser, Nicole Byer, Chad Ochcocinco and Lala Kent.

➽ Premieres on Prime two weeks later, on October 30 buy nowA Shark Tank-like hybrid reality/game show hosted by JB Smoove where various entrepreneurs get a chance to pitch their products first to a studio audience and then to a rotating panel of Amazon executives and celebrity business owners like Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Anderson and Christian Siriano. The winning entrepreneurs are added to the “Buy Now” store on Amazon (synergy!), while one contestant in each episode also receives a $20,000 cash prize. Following the three-episode premiere, new episodes will be released weekly until January 8.

➽ Coming up on November 20, just before Thanksgiving Wishlist GamesA half-hour hosted by Masked SingerIn Nick Cannon, contestants compete against each other in a series of over-the-top games and challenges. Prize: Everything on the contestant’s Amazon Wish List (up to $25,000). Unlike other games in the Prime game show, Wishlist Games It will air all five episodes simultaneously and serve as a holiday event of sorts.

➽ The final and arguably biggest piece of the “Winning Wednesdays” puzzle drops with its premiere on December 4th. Popular Culture Danger! In the continuation of the long-running common knowledge competition, teams of three will compete tournament style and will be hosted by Jost. Prime orders 40 episodes of new series Danger!It allows three new episodes to be released weekly through February.

Once a new incarnation Danger! From their debut, Prime’s Winner Wednesdays will be fully loaded with five episodes of three different game/game shows airing weekly, essentially recreating the feel of a broadcast network’s prime time series, but for broadcast viewers. Interestingly, Anderson says he and his team didn’t agree on the idea of ​​creating a game show block until long after the shows were ordered to go into production. “It wasn’t intentional,” he says. “They were all produced in different cycles and schedules. But when we got them in we said: ‘Oh, that would be great.’ “We really wanted to plant a flag.”

Anderson, who credits Prime’s scheduling team with taking a backwards approach to airing the show, said he thought airing them under the broad banner of “Winning Wednesdays” could help them stand out. It also helps that game shows can still produce a large number of episodes at an affordable price, unlike scripted series where eight or ten episodes have become the norm. “When you have enough parts to play with, you can do fun, interesting, different things,” says Anderson.

Although Prime’s ability to produce large numbers of episodes relatively inexpensively played a part in Prime’s decision to branch out into quiz shows, Anderson says the quizzers’ historical popularity among TV viewers was a bigger motivation. “One of these genres has been around for a while and persists because people love it,” he says, noting that older game shows perform well on Amazon’s Freevee platform, which includes content from the Buzzr and GSN game show networks. . Games are often family-friendly, making it easier to bring larger audiences together and watch together across generations; It’s now more important than ever that Prime Video is an ad-supported service by default. “Game shows are huge,” Anderson explains. “People love them and they are fun for the whole family. All the choices I make I always consider first, ‘What are audiences responding to?’ “I will guide you according to the question.”

While it’s too early to tell whether the Winning Wednesdays block will continue with a new series of game shows once these first four series reach the end of their first seasons in February, Anderson hints that it’s possible, at least in theory. “There will be other things going on besides what we’ve already announced,” he says. “But at the same time we don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves. We want to see how audiences react to it, and then we want that to inform the planning of other content adjacent to the game. restarting American Gladiators It was announced in June. With that project Are you smarter?It’s a direct result of Amazon’s acquisition of MGM, and Anderson says there are other gaming and gaming-related shows at the storied studio that the company is considering developing. “We are really excited about the library coming to us with MGM,” he says.

Anderson’s excitement about game shows is also a bit personal: The executive says he still frequently watches old episodes of classic games, especially those featuring celebrities of the era, like the one below. $25,000 Pyramid. “I really enjoy looking at past guests and the conversations they have,” he says. “I love living in that area.” Indeed, when asked by a game show-obsessed reporter if he’s exploring reviving other classic formats, Anderson admits he’s done just that, referencing the 1990s hit movie. Shop ’til you drop as an example.

Unfortunately, the realities of the TV business mean it’s not always easy to revive long-dormant productions. “Some of these are a little complicated,” he says. “There are layers to rights that even I have learned. It is difficult most of the time. Even some of the shows we did like that It takes persistence to do – to push these things over the line. But I am nothing if not persistent.”