Program Partners Bringing Back Merv Griffin's Crosswords

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Program Partners will bring Merv Griffin's Crosswords back for season two, with the company securing renewals in 40 of the top 50 markets.

Those markets include WNBC in New York, as well as stations from the NBC, Belo, Four Points Media Group, Gannett, Gray Television, Guardian Television Network, Hubbard Broadcasting, McGraw-Hill, New Age Media, Raycom Media, Sarkes Tarzian and Sagamorehill Broadcasting station groups.

Over the past 14 weeks, the show is averaging a 0.9 rating/2 share in the metered markets, down 18% from both its lead-in and January year-ago time period averages. In New York -- the top market and a pivotal one for the show -- Crosswords is averaging a 0.7/2, down 50% from its Judge Joe Brown lead-in and off 65% from what Warner Bros.' Ellen DeGeneres was doing in the time period last year.

Nationally, the show is averaging a 0.8 live-plus-same-day household rating, making it the fifth-ranked of this year's seven new shows.

Crosswords is a half-hour game show hosted by Ty Treadway and developed by Merv Griffin himself.

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.