Recalling when the late Chuck Woolery hosted a game show called
Scrabble in the late 1980's, based on the popular crossword game came this news from Dylan Byers at the online subscription site Puck in his Wednesday private email:
"NBC has announced that Savannah Guthrie will helm a new game show based on The New York Times’s
Wordle—yet another diversification of the Times’s revenue lines and vindication of its ballpark $1 million acquisition of the word game. For NBC, it’s as good a play as any to expand the game-show slate with established I.P. and a beloved host who already anchors their flagship morning show.
The big question is how much NBC paid the Times to license the rights. Sources at both NBC and the Times either can’t or won’t answer that question, but my sense is that this was priced comparably to other deals for well-established I.P., which means the Times extracted a meaningful upfront licensing fee plus back-end participation tied to domestic production, international formats, sponsorships, etcetera. Not a ton of money, sure, but helpful marketing that moves the Times beyond the liberal reputation of its Opinion section."
My take is that it will provide Savannah with a much needed emotional release since the last night in January in actually doing something positive.
The question becomes how will longtime fans watching her in the morning, and viewers that watch in primetime treat the show is another matter.
But if history tells us that a veteran comedian/one-time actor like Howie Mandel hosted a game show on NBC that was popular in 2006 that
Deal Or No Deal outrated that year's NCAA men's basketball championship when Florida beat UCLA that aired on CBS--it's a totally different landscape thanks to streaming.
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