No Joy In Mudville
2008-05-15 10:26:50
By:
Gene Bromberg
The greatest poker show of all time,
High Stakes Poker, is apparently
going off the air. There have been rumors floating about that
HSP would not return for a 5th season, and as the usual springtime filming period came and went without news the outlook was bleak. A.J. Benza, who announced the show along with Gabe Kaplan, had this to say the other day about the show's future:
Far as Gabe and I know….the show isnt coming back. Apparently…the network is going to go in a different direction and that aint good news for our show, especially since we skew a higher-aged audiuence. Never mind that we're the network's No. 1 show. Still and all, no one calls us from the network to say squat. Only Kevin Bellincoff checks in periodically, but it just don't seem like good news. If you ask me…they're treating us like shit. All we ever did was make them a bunch of money.
It wasn't hard to imagine a course change when GSN's former president, Rick Cronin, either quit or was pushed out a few months after he helped negotiate the arrival of the
World Poker Tour to the network. With GSN pulling the plug on
High Stakes Poker and having just a one-year deal with the WPT, it's not hard to imagine that Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patton will soon be looking for a new home as well.
While it might seem odd that GSN would cancel its highest-rated show, one that was universally admired by poker fans, and seemingly pull the rug out from under it's highest-profile acquisition, it does leave more time for additional episodes of
Match Game '74. And if you watched
HSP you might've noticed that the demographic GSN appeals to didn't quite jibe with it's poker programming. All those ads for Playtex bras and Amaretto di Saronno did seem rather odd, yes?
Already speculation is rampant about who, if anyone, will resurrect
High Stakes Poker (and possibly take on the WPT in a year's time). The usual suspects are rolled out--ESPN, Fox Sports, Spike--but it's anybody's guess. It's possible that the new format for the WSOP Main Event final table could spark new interest in televised poker, and some savvy programming executive could pick up some very valuable content for a good price. Poker players everywhere are hoping that someone in the biz steps up to the plate and resurrects a show its fans truly love.
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