Face the Ace Continues to Struggle in Ratings
In poker tournaments, they say all you need is a chip and a chair to have a chance to win. It is beginning to appear that NBC's Face the Ace may already be shortstacked two weeks into its run. Though highly anticipated by poker fans and features some of the top poker professionals in the world, it has not yet captured the attention of the mainstream viewing public as for the second consecutive week, the show finished dead last in its Saturday 9PM time slot. Historically, that particular time slot is not chock full of ratings juggernauts so the poor showing is sure to be setting off alarms among the show's creators.
This is somewhat surprising given the success for other poker shows such as ESPN's annual World Series of Poker coverage and other poker related content. Even casual game show fans did not seem to enticed by the possibility of someone winning up to $1 million in the first two episodes.
In its premiere episode, a contestant named Don Topel won $200,000 and was set to risk it all in a match against another still unknown opponent with the lure of winning $1 million. The rating for the first episode were quite low with just a 0.4 rating for a 2% share which equates to 1.59 million viewers. In perhaps an ominous sign, the second episode actually did worse than the premiere, drawing just 1.46 million viewers for a 0.3/1 (rating/share) with adults aged 18 to 49, the prime demographic for television advertisers and the basis for ratings. This would seem to indicate a virtually non-existent level of buzz for new viewers to tune in. In fact, coming off it's dismal week one performance, several NBC affiliates already abandoned the show opting for local programming instead. Quite alarming considering the first contestant would be Topel gunning for a million dollar payday.
With the fall season just around the corner, it seems as though the show faces a steep uphill battle to remain on the airwaves.
Face the Ace TV Air Dates
August 8th, 2009 - 9:00pm ET September 12th, 2009 - 2:00pm ET October 31st, 2009 - 3:30pm ET November 14th, 2009 - 3:00pm ET December 12th, 2009 - 3:00pm ET January 2nd, 2010 - 2:30pm ET
Source: www.aintluck.com
