Show gets poor ratings, Internet earns it second run

Don Day July 10th, 2007

ABC’s “National Bingo Night” has wrapped up its run - but the Nielsen numbers weren’t exactly stellar. But the show will come back for a week-long run this December. Why? The show had HUGE downloads for its online bingo cards - that allowed folks to play along at home. The donwloads helped fuel a surge of traffic at ABC.com - and more than 22 million cards were downloaded over the show’s six week run. “You get a rating no one is jumping up and down about, but then you get these other metrics showing great interactivity, and you’re not sure what to believe. It just shows there are metrics other than the ratings to gauge success in television,” show creator Andrew Glassman told Broadcasting & Cable.