Syndicated ‘Monopoly’ Ready To Roll Again

Monopoly Millionaires’ Club has passed “Go” and will begin its second trip around the board — its second season in weekly broadcast syndication, that is — on Sept. 12.

Basically a promotion for the multi-state scratch-off lottery game of the same name, the Monopoly-themed show is set to air on Saturdays and Sundays in 95% of the markets in the 44 states that permit lotteries, says Barry Wallach, the former NBCU executive who is handling distribution.

Promotion of lotteries is prohibited in the six states that don’t have them (Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, Alabama and Mississippi).

Wallach said he has been able to secure the necessary clearances because broadcasters quickly understood the value.

“It’s very straightforward,” he said. “You are combining these two industries [state lotteries and TV], you are putting a lot of [production] money behind it, it’s got a lot of marketing muscle and it’s something unique and different on the weekend.”

“This a primetime, network-quality game show,” he added, estimating the weekly production budget at between $1 million and $2 million.

Groups airing the show include CBS, Tegna, Media General, Graham Media, Sinclair and Hearst.

The big change this season is a switch from an hour to half-hour format.

The move was made to give affiliates running the show in prime access the flexibility to work around sports overruns, Wallach said. “A half hour is also a more natural time for a game show.”

About half the stations will be running the show in prime access, he said. Most others are scheduling it after the late news while some CW affils and independents may pair it with a sitcom in prime.

The show is owned and produced by Scientific Games, the lottery and casino vendor that came with the Monopoly lottery and TV marketing strategy. So far, Wallach said, around two dozen states participate in the lottery.

The show works even in states that are not participating in the lottery, he added. “It’s Monopoly and everybody knows how to play Monopoly.”

The show averaged a 1.0 or 2.0 household rating in the first season with some markets like Memphis topping 5.0, Wallach said.

The show is offered on a barter basis, with the stations getting half the ad inventory, three-and-a-half minutes.

“The stations are very happy,” Wallach said. “It’s doing better than what they had. The quarter hours are good; it’s holding its audience.”

The show gives players of the scratch-off a second chance to win. Tickets typically cost $5, but run as high as $20 in Pennsylvania.

Losers of the scratch-off enter the second-chance drawing online. The winners of that drawing are awarded a five-day, four night trip to Las Vegas and seats at a taping of the show. And it’s from the studio audience that contestants are randomly selected to play the game.

Game play, like the lottery, requires no skill. It’s more on the level of Let’s Make a Deal than The Price Is Right.

Contestants can win up to $1 million on the show. In the first 12-episode season, the show gave away more than $5 million, including two of the $1 million prizes.

The show is produced on its own sound stage near Bally’s on the Vegas Strip.

Shows are produced five at a time, Wallach said. The first batch was produced earlier this month. The second will be shot in mid-September, he said.

This season, plans call for producing at least 20 episodes, Wallach said, noting that the actual number will depend on how long lottery ticket sales are run.

Syndicators have been trying to figure out how to build a high-quality show around the state lotteries as far back as the 1980s, said Wallach.

But it never made sense given the usual economics of the broadcast syndication. “In this case, the reason it succeeded is it was a lottery company that drove it forward.”