The doomsayers were at it again this week, opining that too much television coverage was making poker programs less popular and impacting the continued growth of the game.
Quoting Nielsen Media Research numbers, the New York Post postulated that poker’s downward spiral has already begun.
The audience for Bravo’s “Celebrity Poker Showdown” has fallen to an average of 134,000 viewers this year from a high of 364,000 viewers in 2003, the publication revealed.
ESPN’s “Poker” has lost 193,000 viewers in the two years it been on the air, with the Travel Channel’s marquee “World Series of Poker” seeing its average audience drop to 464,000 this year from a peak of 583,000 in 2004.
“When too many people jump on the bandwagon, it reduces the value of the programming and diminishes the game’s buzz,” Marc Ganis, president of SportsCorp Ltd. is quoted as saying. “Poker does have some life left in it, but at some point it is going to have to be recast in a new light so it doesn’t become old news.”