Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Who Do You Think You Are? Future Is Bright

While genealogists have been enjoying the much anticipated return of fave TV family history show Who Do You Think You Are?, the folks at NBC have been mulling over whether it has a future on their network.  Thankfully all of that TV watching we've been doing has paid off:  Who Do You Think You Are? has been renewed for the 2011-2012 season!  Who knows maybe the series will follow the CSI path:  WDYTYA Miami, WDYTYA L.A., WDYTYA Kansas City! 

Genealogists and non-genealogists alike have been breaking the rules about Friday night TV watching and made it a priority to tune in to watch the mysteries of celebrity's heritages unfold.  This has made season two (though at just over a 1/2 dozen episodes it's more like a quarter season...moan...whine...) the #1 Friday series on NBC  averaging a 1.4 rating, 5 share in adults 18-49 and 7.0 million viewers overall over its first two weeks.

Not surprising, over those two opening weeks, Who Do You Think You Are? was #1 in the time period in all key female demographics while scoring NBC's highest 18-49 (a coveted group) and total-viewer results in the Friday 8-9 p.m. (ET) slot since October 8.  Keep up the good work ladies!

While we have much to look forward to next year, the current season is just ramping up.  We can look forward to episodes featuring Kim Cattrall, Gwyneth Paltrow, Lionel Richie, Ashley Judd and Steve Buscemi.  Tune in to the Genealogy Gems Podcast to hear what Rosie O'Donnell had to say about her experience on the show, and take a trip back into the episode archives (episode 81) to hear from Executive Producer Lisa Kudrow.


And to learn more about how to discover your own family history, tune in to my other free podcast Family History: Genealogy Made Easy at http://www.genealogygems.com/ .  Both podcasts are also available through iTunes.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Friday Night is usually death for shows lately. I wonder if the ratings would be even better if they put it in a "better" time slot? Not that it really matters, we get our show for at least another season, but just a musing I had.

ironhide781 said...

Hooray for season 3!! I love how they're showing more of the how-to of genealogy research this season, without going into the potentially boring details. (Boring to non-genealogists, that is).

ironhide781 said...

Hooray for season three!! I love how they're showing more of the how-to of genealogy research this season, without going into the potentially boring details (boring for the non-genealogist that is).

Travis LeMaster said...

Would like to see them go the CSI path with WDYTYA in different cities. Our local NBC anchor did a tie-in with her own ancestry search. http://www.wthr.com/story/14144547/who-do-you-think-you-are

Kevin D Babiuk said...

I think the number of episodes/season may have something to do with the over 400 hours of research (at professional genealogist rates) that it takes for just one episode.