Liberty Media

Liberty Media

The Liberty Media Corporation is an American media conglomerate and the control is exercised by engineer Dr. John C. Malone, with a majority of the voting shares.

On September 3, 2008 Liberty Media decided to initiate the process of spinning off Liberty Entertainment to Liberty Media shareholders (leaving Malone with a majority ownership of the new company).

Liberty Media took over TCI assets considered to have little value, but Barton completed "a deal every ten days for six years" and made the company a big success. Liberty was merged back into TCI in the mid-1990s.

On March 13, 1998, Liberty Media Group and TCI Group announced the merger of Encore and STARZ! into a single company--Encore Media Group, owned by Liberty. Encore was taking advantage of the growth of digital cable, while TCI, which had previously owned 20 percent of Encore, was more interested in traditional cable.

After United States Department of Justice approval that required TCI to sell its 23.5 percent interest in Sprint Corporation PSC, TCI merged with AT&T on March 9, 1999 for approximately $48 billion. Liberty Media merged with TCI Ventures Group LLC (TCIVA), TCI's telephone and Internet businesses, and the resulting company became part of AT&T, giving Liberty Media $5.5 billion for use to repurchase stock or buy other companies. Liberty Media also could borrow $6 billion without lowering AT&T's debt rating.

AT&T bought the other TCI businesses--@Home Corp., National Digital Television Center and Western Tele-Communications Inc.--for $2.5 billion in cash. TCI chairman Malone, who became head of the new company, said buyers would not want all of TCI, but they would be interested in Liberty Media. Malone wanted to start a finance unit similar to GE Capital, which could start new cable or Internet services. TCI had already planned digital cable set-top boxes.

On December 17, 1999, TCI Satellite Entertainment Inc. (TSAT), based in Englewood, Colorado, announced that Liberty Media was trading its interest in Sprint PCS for $300 million in TCI Satellite preferred stock. A new company, 90 percent owned by Liberty Media and 10 percent owned by TCI Satellite, would combine the satellite-related businesses and take advantage of the growing area of Internet content. Liberty Media president and CEO Robert R. Bennett said the deal would benefit stockholders of both companies.

Another new company was Liberty Livewire, formed from Todd-AO and two other companies by Liberty Media, which provided audio and video post-production services. David Beddow of TCI became CEO.

Liberty Media's Discovery Channel, News Corpopration and QVC continued to do well, but the company's newer projects had problems, and the company's stock price dropped by half. Malone no longer had the "Malone halo" he once did. Among the companies that were not doing well after the end of the technology boom: ICG, Priceline.com, Cendant, Emmis Communications, and Teligent. If AT&T agreed to spin off Liberty Media, new deals such as a possible News Corp. purchase of DirecTV would be easier because AT&T would no longer require federal approval to complete such deals.

Soon after the AT&T deal, Liberty Media Group created a new company called Liberty Digital, trading under the name of TCI Music Inc. (NASDAQ symbol: TUNE), which CEO Lee Masters told The Wall Street Journal had a value of $1 billion, $650 million of that from the interactive unit of Liberty Media, which had also used the name Liberty Digital.

Liberty Media was spun-off from AT&T on August 10, 2001. This was one of three possible actions to ensure federal approval of AT&T's $54 billion acquisition of MediaOne Group--the others were selling its 25.5% share of Time Warner Entertainment and dropping 11.8 million cable customers subsequently spending $5 billion on nine German regional cable networks. Apart from television distribution it holds major interests in other groups. For example it was the largest shareholder in News Corporation (though the founding Murdoch family owns more voting shares), and had a 4% stake in Time Warner. As of December 2003 it had never paid a dividend.

Also in 2001, Liberty Media acquired the remainder of Liberty Digital and Liberty Satellite & Technology (formerly TCI Satellite). Both companies were independent spinoffs of TCI, though Liberty already owned 90 percent of both companies after the exchange for Sprint PCS stock. Being independent increased their asset values, but the stock prices of both dropped, negating any benefits.

In May 2006, Time Warner acquired Liberty Media's 50% stake in Court TV for $735 million.

On May 16, 2006, IDT sold its IDT Entertainment division to Liberty Media "for all of Liberty Media's interests in IDT, $186 million in cash and the assumption of existing indebtedness." IDT Entertainment's assets and Starz Entertainment Group's popular line of premium TV channels will combine to produce content for all distribution platforms .

Liberty negotiated an asset swap with News Corp. and Time Warner that would give it control of DirecTV and the Atlanta Braves baseball team. On February 12, 2007, the deal was completed with Time Warner wherein Liberty would receive the Atlanta Braves, a group of craft magazines and $1 billion in cash in exchange for 60 million shares of Time Warner stock (valued at $1.27 billion as of market close on February 12, 2007). The deal was approved by Major League Baseball on May 15, 2007.

Liberty has also purchased Green Bay, Wisconsin, television station WFRV-TV and its sister station in Escanaba, Michigan, WJMN-TV, from CBS estimated at about $234 million. CBS will swap the stations and $170 million in cash for 7.59 million shares of CBS common stock held by Liberty Media. The purchase was announced February 13, 2007. The sale was completed on April 18, 2007.

Members of the board of Liberty Media are: Robert R. Bennett, Donne Fisher, Paul Gould, Greg Maffei, John Malone, David Rapley, LaVoy Robison, and Larry Romrell.

Liberty Media agreed to buy the Atlanta Braves from Time Warner in February 2007 for US$1 billion. The deal needed 75% of owners and Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig for the deal to go through. The purchase was made official on May 16, 2007.

On February 17, 2009 Liberty announced that it would invest $530 million into the struggling Sirius XM Radio Inc., in a structured deal that would help the satellite radio provider avoid filing bankruptcy protection by meeting its obligations. The deal also provides for two Board seats for Liberty Media, and provides cash for operations and development, with a maturity date of December 2012.

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Starz, LLC

Starz, LLC is a holding company that operates Starz Entertainment and Starz Media. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Media that is attributed to Liberty Capital.

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WFRV-TV

WFRV-TV, channel 5 (PSIP, digital channel 39), is a CBS affiliate based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The station is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation The station's studios are located in Green Bay, and its transmitter is in De Pere, Wisconsin.

WFRV operates a semi-satellite station, WJMN-TV (channel 3) in Escanaba, Michigan. It serves the northwestern Upper Peninsula, including Marquette. Its transmitter is located in Masonville Township, Michigan.

WFRV transitioned to a digital-only schedule during a Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson commercial break around midnight on February 17, 2009, and is currently using their former analog channel to broadcast a loop of nightlight programming revolving around digital television setup and local hotline numbers. This programming will be discontinued in early March.

Meanwhile, WJMN will continue to broadcast in analog until June 12, 2009, due to it serving a more rural area..

The station began as WNAM-TV, channel 42 in Neenah on May 21, 1955 as a sister station to the radio station with the same calls. In the late 1950s it moved its license and studios to Green Bay, changed its frequency to channel 5 and adopted its present call letters, which stand for "Wisconsin's Fox River Valley" as known today as WFRV-TV. It started as an ABC affiliate before switching to NBC in 1959. As an NBC affiliate, it became the first station in Northeast Wisconsin to broadcast in color.

Among the station's claims is that it was the first to cover a live lunar eclipse, in 1959, when a studio camera was wheeled into the parking lot and aimed at the moon. WNAM began broadcasting network programming in color in 1959. Local newscasts were broadcast in color starting in 1965.

The station changed affiliations again in 1983, when it became an ABC affiliate for the second time, with NBC going to WLUK-TV (Channel 11).

The station's original owners sold the station to the Norton family of Kentucky, owners of Louisville, Kentucky's WAVE, in the mid-1960s.

In 1969, a satellite station, WJMN-TV, began operation on Channel 3, bringing a second programming choice for the Upper Peninsula alongside WLUC-TV. WJMN airs Channel 5's entire schedule, except for UP-specific weather and news cut-ins, ads and differing promotions identifying the station as Channel 3, time-adjusted for the Eastern Time Zone, as well as some regional programming pertinent only to Michigan viewers, such as pre-season football and weekly shows from The Detroit Lions Television Network. The transmitter for WJMN is located in Masonville Township, 26 miles north of Escanaba and 4 miles south of the town of Trenary. WJMN's antenna is 1310 feet high, which made it the second tallest TV transmitter in the state of Michigan after WWTV in Cadillac upon its completion.

WJMN-TV is the result of an agreement between the WFRV and the FCC. In the days before cable and satellite distribution of terrestrial broadcast signals, the other Green Bay/Fox Cities stations located their transmitters on Scrays Hill, which is southwest of Green Bay in the Town of Glenmore. This is one of the highest points of land in the area. However, WFRV had its transmitter further south, a legacy of its original days in Neenah. Since antennas had to be turned to the southwest instead of the southeast to receive Channel 5, this put the station at a disadvantage, and the station asked the Commission to relocate their transmitter to Glenmore. Concerns for short-spacing of WMAQ-TV in Chicago also had to be addressed; every channel allocation in the Green Bay and Wausau markets is also shared by a Chicago television station.

As part of the agreement to transmit from Glenmore, it launched WJMN in Escanaba to serve Michigan's underserved Upper Peninsula, which at that time only had WLUC from Marquette (a then sister station to WLUK) as the only commercial station serving the western part of the UP. In turn, WJMN has affected WLUC's affiliation as well. Channel 6 dropped NBC in 1969 after WJMN's sign-on, and took ABC in 1992 with Channel 5/3's purchase by CBS. The station's current NBC affiliation resulted from WLUK switching to Fox in 1995.

WJMN-TV is not related to the Clear Channel-owned WJMN (FM) in Boston, Massachusetts. However, the radio station did receive permission from CBS in 1993 (pre-Telecommunications Act of 1996 before Clear Channel's rise) to use the WJMN call sign.

Orion Broadcasting, the Mortons' company, merged with Cosmos Broadcasting (a subsidiary of The Liberty Corporation) in 1981. A few years later, WFRV/WJMN were sold to the Murphy and McNally families, owners of WCCO-AM-TV in Minneapolis-St. Paul. CBS then acquired all four stations in 1992 when the families sold the stations. New FCC rules had allowed networks to own more stations, so CBS decided to keep WFRV/WJMN and convert them to CBS stations, which in 2005 were in the No. 69 market nationally. With this move, it swapped affiliations with the area's longtime CBS affiliate,WBAY-TV (Channel 2). The move also made WFRV/WJMN among the few stations in the U.S. to have been an affiliate of all of the "Big Three" television networks - ABC, NBC and CBS.

The station no longer follows the CBS Mandate branding due to its breaking off from CBS Corporation, although their graphics remain the same. Previously, the graphics used on its newscasts were green and gold, as a connection to the Green Bay Packers. On July 10, 2006, it unveiled a blue and yellow graphic scheme as well as new sets to coincide with the return of former anchor Tammy Elliott. In the summer of 2007, the station slowly transitioned from branding as CBS 5 and CBS 3, and began to go back to identifying as Channel 5 and Channel 3 as they had done previously before 2003.

In 2002, the stations became the first in the Green Bay market to broadcast digitally. In September 2008, the station became the first Green Bay/UP operation to upgrade their master control to allow the stations to air and record high definition programming from the network and syndication; the station currently carries Oprah, Ellen, and Entertainment Tonight in HD, and a character generator that allows the station to place 16:9 weather and news crawls over their programming .

On February 13, 2007, CBS Corporation announced that they would sell WFRV and WJMN to Liberty Media for $170 million .

The sale was completed on April 18, 2007, , however the station's site continued to be maintained by CBS Television Stations Digital Media Group until May 14, 2007, when Liberty launched a redesigned website for the station powered by Inergize Digital Media (then a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, now a division of Newport Television). The site also incorporates an expanded page for WJMN, focused on UP-specific weather and news; previously the page had only contained the Michigan Associated Press wire service section and weather, and was not highlighted on the CBSTVSDMG version of the site.

WJMN-TV is an affiliate of The Detroit Lions Television Network, which airs pre-season games as well as the weekly syndicated show The Ford Lions Report during the regular season. However, WFRV is not part of the network since it is in the Green Bay Packers' television market (and the official station for the team; WJMN also airs Packers-related programming), and decisions as to Lions regular season home games against AFC opponents as part of the NFL on CBS contract airing on WJMN are made on a case by case basis, depending on how the Packers and Lions are scheduled.

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Starz Media

Starz Media (formerly IDT Entertainment) is the motion picture, animation, television, and home video division of Starz, LLC, a subsidiary of Liberty Media.

Starz Media was formed in August 2006 after Liberty Media purchased IDT Entertainment for $186 million.

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Starz Entertainment

Starz Entertainment, LLC is a wholly owned television programming subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp. It is part of the holding company Starz, LLC.

The company is headquartered at Meridian, Colorado, though the postal designation of nearby Englewood is commonly listed as the company's location in corporate filings and news accounts. It consists of 16 American cable and satellite TV channels or services.

Starz also owns speciality services such as Starz HD, Starz On Demand, and Vongo.

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Vongo

Vongo was a video on demand service, owned by Liberty Media's Starz Entertainment, parent company of the Starz network, that allowed users to download and view movies for a fixed price per month. As of August 1, 2008, Vongo stopped accepting new subscribers and was discontinued on September 30, 2008.

In October 2007, Starz Entertainment acquired Internet distribution rights for more than 100 feature films from Screen Media Ventures including films starring Will Ferrel, Angelina Jolie, Peter O'Toole and Mariel Hemingway.

StarzPlay from Liberty Media (by way of Verizon) is the replacement for Vongo; it currently costs $5.99(USD) per month and basically works the same way as their former Vongo service. If you are Verizon Broadband subscriber, Starzplay is free.

Vongo used Adobe/Macromedia Flash software. The software was compatible with PCs running Windows XP or Vista and now supports Windows XP X64 and Vista X64 edition. Movies could be transferred and played on up to three devices but could not be transferred to external drives or other storage media.

Movies downloaded through Vongo were viewable within the confines of a certain time period; most newer movies were available for 4-6 months, while other programming could be as long as 12-24 months. Once a movie expires, it was automatically deleted from the user's hard drive. There was an average download time of 30 to 40 minutes on a 90-minute movie.

Vongo also ran inside Windows Media Center. Vongo films were then available on Microsoft's Xbox 360 and other Windows Media Center Extenders.

Vongo had a tiered support structure. Initial support was provided through the website through "Ask Vongo" which provided answers from the support knowledge base.

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Request TV

Request TV is a defunct pay-per-view service which was owned by Liberty Media and Twentieth Century Fox that was launched in 1985. One of their logos while they operated consisted of the letter "q" in Request as a film reel with a film strip coming out. Request TV offered first run movies and specials such as concerts, wrestling, boxing, etc. Request TV ended broadcasting on June 30, 1998.

One of the major highlights of Request TV was that it was the first national television outlet to run Extreme Championship Wrestling programming, as documented by Paul Heyman in the DVD The Rise and Fall of ECW.

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Liberty Global

Liberty Global (NASDAQ: LBTYA) is an international media company and one of the largest broadband providers outside the United States of America. The company is born from a fusion of Liberty Media and UGC (UnitedGlobalCom).

Liberty Global Europe (formerly UGC Europe, and previously United Pan-Europe Communications or UPC, and still usually primarily trading under that brand) is Europe's biggest cable TV provider. It also provides internet access, telephony and other related services. It is an operation (100% ownership since early 2004) of the US-based company Liberty Global, which is the world's leading Cable TV provider. Liberty Global is listed on NASDAQ, but is ultimately controlled by John C. Malone. Liberty Global is based at Denver, Colorado.

It serves about 6.6 million analogue subscribers in 12 countries of Europe, and is the absolutely dominant provider in countries like the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary and Czech Republic.

In Chile, VTR a subsidiary of Liberty Global have approximately 941,000 customers, counting over 1.7 million of services (between tv-cable,internet and telephony.

In 2005, UGC Europe bought the Romanian communications company Astral Telecom for $420 million, the Swiss communications company Cablecom for CHF2.8 billion, and the Slovenian communications company Telemach for EUR71 million. In 2007 Telemach also bought 66.7% of Ljubljanski kabel (major competition in Ljubljana) and grew its market share to 40% in Slovenia.

Liberty Global's operations in the Americas consists of Liberty Cablevision, a provider of pay TV, internet, and telephone services in Puerto Rico; and VTR, a Chilean cable provider of television, telephone and internet services.

Liberty Global's portfolio also includes a controlling 54% interest in AUSTAR and a controlling 34% stake of J:COM, a Japanese cable company operating television, telephone, and internet services.

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Game Show Network

GSN (formerly known on-air as Game Show Network) is an American cable television and direct broadcast satellite channel dedicated to game shows and casino game shows. The channel was launched on December 1, 1994. Its slogan is "Play Every Day". The network is currently available in approximately 68 million homes, and is jointly-owned by Liberty Media and Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Game Show Network started up at 7:00 PM on December, 1, 1994. From 1994 to about 1997, it aired not just post-1972 game shows, but aired pre-1972 classics too. Most shows were from the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman library. It aired them in a 24-hour cycle.

From October 11, 1997 - April 18, 1998, Game Show Network's Goodson-Todman library rights expired, with the exceptions of The Price Is Right and the 1994-1995 season of Family Feud, which were both on a separate contract. This was referred to by fans as the "Dark Period".

With the other Goodson-Todman shows gone, lesser-known Sony properties such as Juvenile Jury, The Diamond Head Game, the 1976 Break The Bank, and the Bill Cullen-hosted Chain Reaction all found their ways onto the schedule. Game Show Network also aired a kids' game show block at this time, highlighted by Jep! and Wheel of Fortune 2000—kids' adaptations of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! Some of the shows that premiered during the dark period remained on the schedule even after the Goodson-Todman shows returned.

On March 15, 2004, at 10:00 p.m. ET, GSN stopped using the name "Game Show Network" on-air and introduced the tagline "The Network for Games," a move in line with the network expanding its programming to include the genre of reality television and various other competitions. (However, the entity's corporate name remained Game Show Network, LLC.) The newly renamed GSN also introduced the original series World Series of Blackjack, Celebrity Blackjack, Extreme Dodgeball, Poker Royale, and the short-lived Fake-a-Date, Vegas Weddings Unveiled and Ballbreakers. GSN also added reruns of The Mole, Average Joe, Arsenio Hall's Star Search, Kenny vs. Spenny, and Spy TV--all of which were eventually removed from the schedule (though Kenny vs. Spenny was picked up for new episodes by Comedy Central in 2007). Traditional game shows Win Ben Stein's Money and Street Smarts were also acquired around this time and aired in various time slots, though neither was regularly programmed as of mid-March 2008.

Blackjack and Poker Royale signified the beginnings of GSN's attempts to cash in on the TV poker-craze at the time. In 2006, GSN introduced High Stakes Poker, a poker show with a private-game format among professional players, and also programmed additional series of World Series of Blackjack and a spinoff, Celebrity Blackjack. One of the most popular shows from the initial TV poker boom, the World Poker Tour, was slated to move from the Travel Channel to GSN on March 24, 2008.

Within a year after GSN's revamp, GSN has primarly began returning its focus to studio-based game shows.

On February 25,2008, GSN debuted a brand new live interactive call-in show called GSN Live, hosted by actress Heidi Bohay and KNBC Channel 4 Los Angeles, sports anchor/director, Fred Roggin. The show was formatted to be like the old Game Show Network show Club A.M., and aired weekdays from 12pm-3pm Eastern/9am-12pm Pacific between the current GSN classic line-up. The show took calls from viewers, interviewed classic game-show hosts, took viewers behind the scenes of game shows, and played 3 interactive games during the show. People who successfully got through to the games were enabled to win anything from jewelry to GSN merchandise. In March, every contestant who got through to the show was entered to win a brand new car.

In October, a second season of Bingo America premiered with former Family Feud host Richard Karn as the new host, replacing Patrick Duffy, and Diane Mizota as the co-host.

On November 6, GSN updated its logo for the first time in four and a half years since its 2004 revamp, and began using a new slogan "Play every day".

On November 10, GSN began airing the syndicated version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? hosted by Meredith Vieira.

On November 15, a new game show entitled Think Like a Cat, sponsored by Meow Mix cat food, debuted on GSN. The host is Chuck Woolery.

On April 6, 2009, A new version of The Newlywed Game will premiere with former Wilson Phillips singer Carnie Wilson as the host.

Also on April 6, 2009, a second season of Catch 21 premieres with new episodes with a new time at 6:30 PM E/T and 5:30 PM C/T, instead of 7:30 PM E/T and 6:30 PM C/T. It was hosted by Alfonso Ribeiro with the card dealer Mikki Padilla.

Coupled with some of these changes is an aggressive marketing campaign; GSN sent Ribiero on a promotional tour to local television stations to promote Catch 21, while they partnered with the ABC Television Network to create Play It Again! Game Show Reunion Week, a series of one-off episodes of classic game shows for the network's morning show, Good Morning America, in exchange for promotion of the September 2008 Play It Back programming blocks, which will feature marathons of game shows from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

GSN has also been using its old name "Game Show Network" in the past year. On press releases and on their new GSN Radio, the network is referred to as "GSN, The Game Show Network". It is not known if GSN will start using the name on television any time soon.

Despite the forays into reality series, made-for-TV sports, and documentaries, GSN's programming has always remained mostly game shows. As the only U.S. cable/satellite network largely devoted to game shows for adults, GSN is a prototypical niche operation. It remains to be seen whether such a concentrated focus is commercially viable in the long run. Currently, GSN is available in slightly over half of all U.S. households; it also is available from most Canadian cable and satellite providers. The network's financial performance and household availability have improved in recent years, although it suffered setbacks in 2007 when major cable provider Comcast moved GSN from basic cable to digital packages in many markets. As of January, 2008, GSN primetime (8-11pm) was placed at #47 of the top 50 cable networks, up from 50th in the previous survey.

In July, 2007, GSN President Rich Cronin announced his departure from the network. In a statement he said: "I am honored to have led a great team of creative business people in pioneering interactive television games and in growing GSN so dramatically." During Cronin's six-year tenure, the network expanded its U.S. household availability from 31 million to 64 million. However, ratings have dropped steadily for the network since 2004. David Goldhill, former president of Universal Television Group, was announced at the end of July as Cronin's replacement, effective August 1.

GSN has also produced several original series. In the channel's early days, Club A.M. was a three-hour block consisting of five classic game shows, surrounded by thirty minutes' worth of interstitial trivia, interviews with game show producers, personalities, contestants and fans, and interactive call-in games, all hosted by Laura Chambers and Steve Day (which was also rerun in late night, with some new segments, under the title Late Night Games). Prime Games was a similarly formatted show aired weeknights and hosted by Peter Tomarken. Wide World of Games was a Saturday night block of four shows built around a common theme.

After a few years, these shows were replaced by Game TV, a half-hour interview show hosted by Nancy Sullivan and Dave Nemeth; Game World, which showed highlights of current game shows from around the world; and standalone 30-minute call-in games like Super Decades and Trivia Track. Later, the channel attempted a Gong Show remake called Extreme Gong, hosted by George Gray, in which the viewers could phone in their votes as to whether to 'gong' acts off the air; and Throut And Neck, where viewers controlled video game characters with their phones. The network also programmed Burt Luddin's Love Buffet, a combination of scripted scenes and a "game show within the show." But all these efforts were eventually canceled and removed from the network's schedule.

Traditional game show offerings since 2000 have included Hollywood Showdown, All New 3's a Crowd, Mall Masters, Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck, Friend or Foe? (a game based around the Prisoner's Dilemma), Russian Roulette, WinTuition, Cram, and National Lampoon's Funny Money. The most successful GSN original game show was Lingo, a Chuck Woolery-hosted remake of a 1980s Canadian format in which teams guess five-letter words in a combination of Jotto/Mastermind and bingo. The network produced six seasons of the show from 2001-2008.

Originals debuting in 2006 included PlayMania, a late-night call-in game that expanded from two to (at one point) six nights per week but was cancelled on October 31, 2007, and a remake of Chain Reaction, which had long finished its second season and a renewal for a third season has not been announced as reruns from both seasons 1 and 2 currently air on the network. That's the Question, Starface, and a revival of I've Got a Secret also debuted in 2006. Also debuting in July 2007 were Camouflage, remade as a word game, and Without Prejudice?, a remake of a British show where five people decided which contestant would win $25,000 based in part on their responses to questioning. Debuting on August 4, 2007 was Grand Slam, a game show involving big winners from other shows, including Ken Jennings, John Carpenter and Brad Rutter.

For 2008, a US version of a BBC game called How Much Is Enough? debuted on January 8, hosted by actor Corbin Bernsen, and then in April, Bingo America made its debut with Patrick Duffy of Dallas and Step by Step fame as host, while on July 21, as somewhat of a tie-in with the movie 21, Merrill Heatter returned to quiz show producing with Catch 21 hosted by actor-singer-dancer Alfonso Ribeiro, with actress Mikki Padilla as the dealer. GSN also relaunched a live interactive call-in interstitial series by premiering GSN Live, which airs during commercial breaks between 12 PM and 6 PM Eastern Monday through Friday. Originally the series took place over a three hour span, with KNBC sports anchor and NBC Sports contributor Fred Roggin and actress Heidi Bohay hosting the interstitial segments. Later in the year GSN expanded the series to the six hours it has now, with Roggin moving to the 3 PM to 6 PM block with Kelly Packard while Alfonso Ribeiro replaced him earlier in the day. Packard was forced to leave her position shortly after taking it, and Roggin has hosted with a guest host since.

The network has run blocks of classic game shows on Saturday nights, and for the first few months of 2006 programmed back-to-back episodes of Match Game in a block billed as That '70s Hour (a pun on That '70s Show), which showed the clapperboard before each episode, including the original date of taping and production number, as well as Match Game trivia and brief clips of an interview with host Gene Rayburn produced shortly before his death.

During the Summer of 2006, the network began a special seven-week run of The 50 Greatest Game Shows of All Time.

In November 2006, GSN started a series of eight documentaries about game shows, beginning with a program on Match Game titled Match Game: Behind The Blanks. Other subjects included game show producer Chuck Barris, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, a "Top Ten" countdown of game show hosts, memorable game show moments, women who have featured prominently on game shows, celebrities and how they impacted game shows, and an insider's guide to winning on a TV game show. One particularly interesting subject was the installments of Press Your Luck in which Michael Larson won more than $100,000 in cash and prizes by memorizing the sequences of the board then used, which was the subject of Big Bucks: The "Press Your Luck" Scandal. Peter Tomarken, who had then hosted Press Your Luck, hosted and narrated this documentary in 2003. The documentary became Game Show Network's most watched show ever (a title it still holds) scoring a 1.7 at one time during the show.

In 2007, the network debuted two new specials: the National Vocabulary Championship, with a show airing on April 15, 2007 showcasing the first year of the event, and a broadcast of the Cat Fanciers' Association International Cat Show, Catminster.

In November 2008, GSN and Meow Mix presented a special entitled Think Like a Cat, hosted by Chuck Woolery, with a top prize of $1,000,000, one of the few times a game show on cable TV has $1,000,000 as a grand prize.

GSN's rerun programming comes primarily from two sources: FremantleMedia and GSN parent company Sony.

From Fremantle, the network licenses the Mark Goodson-Bill Todman game show library, which includes titles such as Match Game, Family Feud, Card Sharks, Trivia Trap, Now You See It, Double Dare, Body Language, Blockbusters, Password Plus and Super Password.

In the beginning of the network, GSN regularly showcased vintage Goodson-Todman game and panel shows from the 1950s and 1960s--many of which were either originally broadcast or only preserved in black-and-white--such as What's My Line?, I've Got a Secret, To Tell the Truth, Beat the Clock, and others. These classic shows made up much of the channel's lineup at the outset, but have been gradually cut back in prominence since the late '90s. On October 1, 2006, only What's My Line? had a regular spot on the schedule, late Sunday/early Monday at 3:00 AM Eastern; it was followed by a selection from various 1950s-1970s Goodson-Todman shows, usually another panel game. On December 31, GSN reinstated the Black and White Overnight to 7 days a week at 3am-4am, showcasing What's My Line? and I've Got a Secret in the block; other shows, including Choose Up Sides, The Name's the Same, and the Bud Collyer-hosted primetime version of To Tell The Truth have been featured, with the latter currently airing following What's My Line?.

GSN, in addition to its Goodson-Todman library, features other shows such as Press Your Luck, Let's Make a Deal (both of which are included in the Goodson-Todman license from FremantleMedia, although made by other companies), The Newlywed Game and Love Connection, Tic Tac Dough, Jeopardy!, and Wheel of Fortune, along with more recent fare such as the 2000 version of Twenty-One and Dog Eat Dog. In October 2003, GSN acquired the rerun rights to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and have added more episodes since, including the Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire spin-off in the spring of 2005 and the Meredith Vieira-hosted syndicated series beginning in fall 2008. Most of these shows are owned by Sony.

Among the most well-known classic game shows previously aired regularly on the network, other than Price - The Joker's Wild, Tattletales, Hollywood Squares, The Dating Game, and various versions of Pyramid. Some of these shows still continued to be aired occasionally as part of special events, such as Dick Clark's Pyramid in honor of New Year's Rockin' Eve on December 31.

The Price is Right, Goodson-Todman's longest-running game show, did not appear on GSN until December 1996. Episodes of TPiR that featured fur coats or other animal-related prizes were not aired, following Bob Barker's animal-rights wishes; therefore, the show's GSN premiere was delayed almost two years in order to remove such episodes from the rotation (however episodes with furs and puppies offered were aired, the former by mistake on three occasions). The show originally appeared on GSN in occasional preemptions of regularly scheduled series such as Match Game or Family Feud and earned a regular spot less than a year before the network's "dark period".

Various versions of the show were broadcast - specifically those hosted by Barker, Bill Cullen, and Tom Kennedy (plus one episode sub-hosted by 1972-77 nighttime host Dennis James that aired on the day of his death in 1997). In December 1996, Price began airing regularly on the schedule, with half-hour Barker eps in the morning and hour-long episodes in the afternoon and evening, Kennedy shows in late night, and the Cullen version as part of what was then billed as "Sentimental Sunday". No Doug Davidson or nighttime James/Barker episodes were ever aired - the latter due to both Barker's fur ban and an apparent dismay by GSN since less than 50 episodes could be legally aired due to many furs being offered throughout the eight-year run.

GSN's contract to air Price expired in April 2000 and has not been renewed as of today. Most Price reruns are held not entirely by FremantleMedia, but also through CBS Television Distribution, as CBS is currently a part owner of the American Price franchise; GSN would have to pay both CBS and Fremantle to gain the rights to the show.

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