Exclusive: 'Celebrity Name Game' Renewed for Season Two

Updated, Thursday, January 8, 2014, 1:30 pm PT.

Debmar-Mercury’s Celebrity Name Game, starring Craig Ferguson, has been renewed for a second season, according to sources, with pick ups from Tribune, Sinclair and other groups.

As part of the renewal, the show is expected to move out of access time slots in many top markets next fall. The syndicated, half-hour weekday strip is currently cleared in more than 93% of the country, including the top 50 U.S. markets, and is averaging a 1.2 season to date household rating, according to Nielsen Media Research.  

An official announcement is expected shortly. Debmar-Mercury declined to comment.

Lionsgate-owned Debmar-Mercury, in partnership with Tribune, also has been shopping a talk show starring Ferguson for access time periods in fall 2015, but that show will not go forward.

Celebrity Name Game is co-produced by FremantleMedia North America (FMNA) and Debmar-Mercury and is distributed domestically by Debmar-Mercury and internationally by FremantleMedia. The show was developed by Courteney Cox and David Arquette’s Coquette Productions and is based on the popular board game Identity Crisis, created by Laura Robinson and Richard Gerrits of North 44 Productions. In addition to Coquette’s Cox and Arquette, executive producers include FMNA’s Thom Beers and Jennifer Mullin, and veteran show runner Scott St. John.

Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.