Back in the 90’s, it would have been difficult to fathom the possibility of multiple poker shows appearing on TV at the same time. Poker wasn’t the big phenomenon it is today, and your average person didn’t have access to the game since Internet poker didn’t really take off until the 2000’s. But times have definitely changed, and more people are playing poker now than they ever did. Seeing as how this is the case, there are more poker shows on TV now than ever.
The introduction of Face the Ace on NBC is a good example of this growing trend. Face the Ace airs at 9 pm ET on Saturdays and features a single contestant trying to wade their way through 3 rounds of heads-up poker against professional players. $40,000 is the prize for winning the first round, $200,000 is the prize for the second round, and $1 million is the third round prize for beating a poker pro in heads-up play. However, a person can also walk away at any time in the first or second round and not risk losing their money.
And while this sounds like a cool format, Face the Ace is struggling mightily. In fact, Face the Ace finished dead last out of the network shows in terms of ratings with a 1.54 million viewer audience. This has me wondering if Face the Ace is in a completely wrong time slot.
Sure Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker have been really successful shows and set the bar for what is possible, but they’re also on networks and time slots better suited for a poker show. Saturday night is typically when old people tune into TV because they don’t go out as frequently as younger people. And with poker having such a young audience, I really don’t see Saturday night as a good time slot for a poker show. Unless Face the Ace gets moved to another slot, I don’t think it will survive too much longer.