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Wheel of Fortune
1983 · TV series · 25 min episodes · 44 seasons
Created by Merv Griffin
This game show sees contestants solve word puzzles, similar to those used in Hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a giant carnival wheel.
3 neutralfrom 3 commenters
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3 comments on Hacker News
To be fair, tons of TV shows have been wiped from history as well. I learned recently that many game shows from the 60s and 70s are mostly gone, including early episodes of Wheel of Fortune!
The promise of streaming was releasing us from bundled cable TV contracts and letting us pick exactly what we wanted to watch, paying for it and nothing else.
We came close for a time, but I think everyone realised it wasn’t what they wanted after all. You could buy standalone episodes of a ton of shows on iTunes, but the calculus changed: sure, you enjoy watching Wheel of Fortune, but are you really going to pay a dollar for every episode?
The app typically shows 350k - 500k participants in their nightly shows. They're giving away usually $5000.
Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune have around 10 million viewers each with over 30 years of history. Jeopardy gives away around $23k each day, I believe WoF rings in a little higher. They air 5 days a week and clock in around 200-230 episodes per season. Back of the napkin math puts that at $0.53 per viewer per year.
HQ is still at $4.29 per viewer per year. At their current rate they still need about 10x growth to match J! or WoF. But HQ is also only 2 years old on a somewhat new media format (live interactive entertainment).
Those numbers are just for the prize money. Pat Sajak and Alex Trebek each earn north of $10 million per year (and Vanna White somewhat less, but still in the millions), and the shows almost certainly have larger staffs. The actual value difference is probably closer to a 3-4x multiplier rather than 10x.
That said, since HQ is phone based there's a good chance the viewers are more valuable to advertisers since they can collect more information than on broadcast television.
I don't think HQ would/could have a path to profitability (setting aside internal business politics), but it's a matter of 1) convincing businesses that a new media format is worth their advertising dollars, 2) keeping players long-term, 3) finding effective ways to advertise in the more limited format that the game affords.