Show History

Season 1

Early ratings for the show were extremely encouraging. According to Zap2it, "all five shows [during the week beginning 12/19/05 and ending 12/25/05 finished in the top 15 among total viewers, peaking with 14.1 million people watching the Wednesday, 12/21/05 installment. For the week, Deal or No Deal averaged about 12.7 million viewers and a solid 4.3 rating in the adults 18-49."

The show appeared again on NBC each night 2/27/06 through 3/3/06 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT with the top prize (and some of the higher-valued cases other than the top prize) escalating until the prize reached $3 million (and the lowest-valued case going up to $.03). As of 3/6/06, the show settled into regular time slots at 8:00 p.m. Mondays and Fridays, with the top prize returning to its original $1 million. Wednesday episodes were added at 8:00 p.m. due to the show's consistent ratings success. In something of a ratings coup, the 4/3/06 episode of the show, a two-hour special, out performed the NCAA basketball tournament final in a head-to-head competition. During both of the two-hour shows, the second hour scored even higher ratings than the first.

Since it became a regular series, Deal or No Deal consistently placed within the 20 most popular programs on television, at times attaining the top 10. The 6/5/06 two-hour season finale, which featured Celine Dion via satellite, marked a series-high rating for the program, bringing in over 18 million viewers and a strong 5.5 share in the 18-49 demographic. The episode was easily the highest-rated show on any network for the week of 6/5/06 through 6/11/06, outdistancing the number-two show, a repeat episode of CSI, by almost six million viewers. The finale experienced similar success in Canada, with 1.5 million viewers tuning in.

Season 2

The show returned with new episodes in September 2006, airing on Mondays and Fridays at 8:00 and Thursdays at 9:00 ’Äî the latter time slot being perhaps the most competitive in U.S. television, as Deal or No Deal faced a pair of big hit series in CBS's CSI and ABC Grey's Anatomy.

Deal 's Thursday time slot had initially been intended for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip when NBC announced its fall schedule. However, the need to protect the new series against stiff ratings competition caused repercussions throughout the network's primetime grid, including a move on May 25[49] of Deal from its announced Friday time slot to Thursdays. The drama Crossing Jordan, which had been planned for a mid-season run, was to be brought into the Friday lineup in what would have been Deal 's second weekly time slot. However, after Deal or No Deal completed airing special episodes in that time slot to success, NBC moved Crossing Jordan back to midseason and used Deal on Fridays as well to help launch a sister series, 1 vs. 100.

The show premiered with a two-hour edition on 9/18/06, and one-hour episodes that each aired on 9/19/06, 9/21/06 and 9/22/06. The show used a $21 million prize pot over the first week to kick off Season Two of the game, coupled with the at-home Lucky Case Game for $1 million. During the season premiere week in 2006, the main game had maximum amounts start at $1 million, and increased $1 million for each game, up to $6 million.

Season 3

Following a season-premiere episode on Monday, Deal vacated its stable Monday night home in a last-second decision by NBC to give the timeslot to a drama series, Chuck, for which it had high hopes. (This move contradicted earlier statements from the network that it planned to exclusively use unscripted programming in the 8 PM hour.) Deal moved to a Wednesday/Friday schedule, pushing 1 vs. 100 to midseason. Both airings tended to win their timeslot in total viewers, with the Friday edition also winning in Adults 18-49 and the Wednesday edition placing second in that demographic behind ABC's Pushing Daisies. In another surprising move, NBC replaced the Wednesday airings for five weeks with a short-run reality series, Phenomenon, starting in late October. The new series' initial ratings were lower than what Deal was delivering.

Due to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, Deal's Friday edition moved back to Monday in January 2008, at least temporarily replacing Chuck. The Friday time slot was filled by the returning 1 vs.100 for seven episodes. 1 vs. 100 has taken another hiatus as of February 22, 2008, and has been replaced in the same time slot by the game show Amnesia, which premiered after 1 vs. 100 on February 22, 2008.