QUIZ-SHOW SPECIAL SAPS NBC’S RATINGS

Critics have called NBC’s new quiz show The Million Second Quiz confusing. Conceived as event programming that the network hoped would lift its generally dreadful ratings (except for football, The Voice, and America’s Got Talent) the show’s ratings have slumped deeper by the second. Commented New York Times TV writer Brian Stelter (who called the show “befuddling”): “NBC wanted a national event; what it got instead was a national shrug.” It now appears that the confusion surrounding the show is not limited to its myriad rules. On his blog, Ken Jennings, who set a winning record on Jeopardy in 2004, describes how he was contacted on Saturday by a producer of the show, who offered to fly him to New York to appear on it today (Monday). He accepted, he said, but then, he adds, “an hour later … my phone rang again. It was casting. There had been a ‘miscommunication.’ The network, for unspecified reasons, was not willing to fly ‘trivia champions’ in for the show. … I could fly myself to New York if I like, they said. I wouldn’t even have to wait in line.” Jennings declined.