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EDIT AT 9:38 PM. Publicity Photo! Aaron Crumbaugh (Season 6); Brennan Swain (Season 1); Rebecca Cardon (Season 5); Rich Cronin (GSN's CEO and President); Erika Shay (Season 5); Dennis Frentsos (Season 5); Joe Baldassare (Season 1); Bill Bartek (Season 1) and Guido (Season 1)

June 8 @ 2:48 PM: GSN, as of today, has officially acquired the hit reality show from TV’s most popular network (CBS), The Amazing Race. The panel consisted of Brennan Swain, the season 1 winner, Rich Cronin, and Ian Valentine.

Ian Valentine kicked the conference off by officially announcing The Amazing Race is joining GSN’s lineup. As of now, they have picked up seasons 1-5. In September, seasons 6 and 7 will acquired. Finally, in a year, season 8 and future seasons will be taken. This means 110 episodes of The Amazing Race will be on the network, which is around 3 run-throughs a year.

Ian stated that the show will debut July 11th at 9PM EST. It will air 7 days a week, with a repeat at midnight. He stated that this will be a game changer for GSN because “The executives have done an excellent job of setting the game up” and it is the first acquisition for the network of a primetime show currently running on TV.

Mr. Valentine stated “The show is a relatively stand-alone episode. In other words, you can come in addition and lock in half way fairly quickly and enjoy it. It will play extremely well in second run on GSN.” He states that the show expresses the wonders of the world through the eyes of the contestants. There are wonderful contestants and it is a two-time Emmy winner. Ian Valentine also said that when it starts in the summer, they will air all episodes and all additions consecutively. It will start with season one and run through the end.

Rich Cronin then came in and addressed the crowd. Cronin said that The Amazing Race “is really key for us. Everything we do is game relative, and this clearly falls within our brand. We feel it is the best reality show in TV history.” This show is also important because it will be the lead in for their big original summer programming, such as “the new poker shows, Dodgeball, and Ballbreakers”, quoted by Rich Cronin. With a difference of around 2 million viewers between the first and seventh season, he feels that the show “has fantastic potential in repeats.” Finally, Mr. Cronin stated “Having this big network hit on cable not only brings more viewers to cable but also allows local ad sales people to bring in more advertisers.”

Dena Kaplan, the marketing manager for GSN, said that this is the biggest marketing campaign in GSN history. “We are getting the word out in a big way. We will be buying national media in the top 20 markets.”

More information was then given. GSN could not disclose the cost per episode. Rich Cronin stated that “It was more expensive than expected but worth every cent.” All agreed that this brought up a great relationship between GSN, CBS, and Kingworld. No cross promotion is known as of now.

For future acquisitions, Ian Valentine said that they are always looking on the market. “We’re not ready today to make any announcements, but at any given point, we’re having significant acquisition meetings.”

For the ratings, Ian Valentine also said that their goal is to appeal to the 25-54 demographic, as is their more recent goal. “Why would we buy the show if it didn’t [get good ratings]?”
The license of the show runs through 2009, and can be expanded at any time. There is also talks of interactive with CBS, but no more information could be given at that point. Also stated by Ian Valentine was that this show should provide more security with reality shows on GSN. “We’re very proud of American Dream Derby. I have nothing against The Mole or our variety shows. Amazing Race is huge on CBS. The episodes are stand alone relatively to other reality shows.”

posted by Alex Davis * Permalink

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