View From the Phlipside - Hot Family Feud

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

It may surprise you to discover that there's a TV show that's been around for 35 years that has suddenly gotten a jolt of new life.  I've been watching TV long enough to remember Family Feud back in the days when it was on ABC with its original host Richard "Dickie" Dawson.  The show has been a success both as a daytime and evening show, on network TV and in syndication and has 6 hosts down through the years with comedian Steve Harvey stepping into that role this past year.

What's really surprising are the numbers.  This is a 35 year old game show whose basic format has changed very little over the years.  Yet it's current ratings are not only very solid they show strength from an interesting group.  First of all let's note that it is the ONLY syndicated game show that showed ratings growth over the previous year.   In fact in the crucial advertising demographic of women 25-54 the growth is a rather astounding 71%.  Even more amazing may be the growth in the younger 18-49 demographic among women which showed a 48% increase in the same time period.  In a time when all the competition is either flat or down these numbers are just mind boggling.

New host Steve Harvey deserves some of the credit.  Harvey has the same comfortable but edgy approach that made Dawson such a hit.  Harvey's edge is certainly much sharper than you could get away with in 1976 but the basics of success are still the same.  There is another aspect that may have something to do with it as well and it comes from that edge that Harvey brings.  It seems the answers continue to be rather stunning at times from the contestants.  What makes the difference is that those great hysterically funny answers now get repeated exposure through YouTube.  I recently came across on where the question was "Name something that gets passed around" and the answer came back about a small home made cigarette filled with a decidedly illegal herb.  There's another about what part of a man's body is bigger now than it was at 16 that resulted in an answer that I have no intention of sharing with you today.

Suddenly here is the new media taking the best of the old and benefiting everyone.  Buzz is generated about a show that the average 20 something or even 30 something might never have thought about sampling.  At 35 years old that's the kind of show your grandma likes watching.  Now it looks like you may need to watch it with Grandma just in case she needs some of the answers explained.

Or you may discover Grandma knows a lot more than you think.  It's the media offering a chance to bridge the generation gap.  Survey Says - sounds like a winner to me.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011