The Price Is Right, Family Feud (Family Fortunes) and Press Your Luck are among the best-known game show properties in the
world, and FremantleMedia Enterprises is rejuvenating the genre by taking them onto new platforms—with the added effect of
widening its traditional audiences to take in young digital gamers in the 16 to 25 age group.
With digital entertainment becoming an increasingly important area for consumers, an entertainment business such as FME has
to have a grip on the market. At the same time, FME also is ramping up its activity on live events also based on the classic
game shows.
The Price Is Right, Family Feud (Family Fortunes) and Press Your Luck are key among the properties being taken from television
onto new digital platforms, such as Nintendo Wii and DS, Xbox 360 and Playstation, onto mobile, onto Web download and into
live events.
FME is not the first licensor to take its classic family licensing business and shake it up on new platforms, but the resonance
of its brands and size of its game show business is significant.
The digital strategy came to the fore last spring, and as Olivier Delfosse, FME's director of interactive in the Americas,
says: "In tough times, people latch onto familiar things. Our classic game shows are a great launching pad for new and current
technologies that enable us to offer new products to our existing audience and reach a new demographic."
FME at Licensing International Expo
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The strategy covers all digital formats, from consoles and Web downloading through mobile and iPhone downloading to the latest
development: social network or connected gaming.
Delfosse says: "We are pushing the boundaries on these categories. Television game shows have always had a place in family
entertainment, and our games retain those core values, but by extending the franchise to casual gamers, it takes the property
outside the family dynamic with younger players."
As part of its focus on the digital market, FME took a minority stake in multi-platform developer Ludia earlier this year.
Delfosse says: "Ludia has been our partner for several years on all three of the game shows. It has been our philosophy to
develop for multi-platforms because it allows the developer to collateralize their R&D and minimize risk." Ludia is working
on revamping the Price is Right, Family Feud and Press Your Luck franchises for the video game space, due to launch in September.
The Price Is Right Web site has been revamped to become highly interactive. Fans now are able chat with presenter Drew Carey
and win prizes offered on the show.
FME claims that its digital game show strategy is already reaping rewards. For example, it says that sales of The Price is
Right are increasing on Apple apps, as well as on mobile, online and console game units, and the Price is Right mobile game
has sold more than a million units. For Family Feud's mobile game with Glu Mobile, there have been consistent high-ranking
sales results.
Delfosse says the new platforms mean that FME is creating "many new touch points with consumers." Among these are live audiences—not
only through interactivity with the television shows, but with live events.
The Price is Right Play at Home is live streamed, enabling consumers to interact with the game show in real time from their
living rooms by calling in to win prizes offered on the show and to hear about deals on consumer offers.
And among the live events, FME is taking Family Feud in the footsteps of the Price Is Right Bally Casino Las Vegas show and
U.S. tour with a college campus tour across the country via a Family Feud College Tour planned to launch in September.
FME U.S. Digital Launch Timeline
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Jeff Palmer, executive producer of live events at FME, says: "Price Is Right in Las Vegas is performing amazingly well. It
speaks to audiences, and you see every age group in the theater. There is something about the show that is comforting. It's
part of our culture."
