On Monday night, the World Poker Tour’s Season VI Foxwood Poker Finals premiered on GSN, the Network for Games. It marked the 12th episode of Season VI of the WPT to air on GSN, which just began showing WPT programming in March. Previous seasons had been shown on (and will continue to be shown on) The Travel Channel. Just a few hours before the Foxwoods episode aired, GSN and WPT issued a joint press release stating that the network had elected not to pick up the option for exclusive television rights for Season VII, effectively leaving the WPT without a home for next season. PocketFives.com was privileged enough to sit down with Peter Hughes, the Chief Operating Officer of the World Poker Tour, to gauge the WPT’s next move.

Last week’s WPT episode that aired on GSN, the WPT Spanish Championship won by Markus Lehmann, logged a 0.57 rating, the best yet for any the poker tournament’s episodes that have aired on GSN. Hughes comments, “World Poker Tour programming has been trending upwards for the past five weeks. We’re encouraged by our ratings.” Hughes stopped short of saying that WPT was “shocked” by the news, but the company is now actively seeking other suitors: “We’ll move on it swiftly as we can. I don’t have any specific timeline right now, but we’re working on it.”

Season VII is about to begin filming. In fact, the first tournament is the Bellagio Cup, which will be held on July 11th in Las Vegas, just feet from the Main Event of the 2008 World Series of Poker. The first seasons of the WPT were shown on The Travel Channel. In Season VI, programming moved over to GSN, which owns the rights to broadcast Season VI programming for four years in re-runs. Rich Cronin, the former CEO of GSN, has since departed, and has been replaced by David Goldhill. A Reuters article speculates about reasons that GSN may decide to move away from poker programming in the new regime: “The poker series are too expensive, goes one [rumor]. Goldhill wants to steer GSN away from his predecessor's interest in the poker genre and toward traditional game shows, goes another.”

Whatever the reasons are, the fates of GSN’s World Poker Tour interests and High Stakes Poker programming are up in the air. Jennifer Minezaki, a press representative for GSN, stated that a meeting is expected in the near future to discuss the fates of HSP and the World Poker Tour. She stressed, however, that Goldhill is not anti-poker: “Poker is something that we continue to support on our network. For Fathers Day, we're doing eight hours of WPT programming leading into the debut of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Genuinely, we enjoy poker on our network.” Reuters notes that even a hallmark GSN game, Lingo, may be on the chopping block as well.

Possible suitors for the WPT would include ESPN, NBC (which airs Poker After Dark and the Heads Up Championship), Fox Sports, and even The Travel Channel. Hughes comments on the relationship with the network that was once the home for new WPT episodes: “The Travel Channel is still broadcasting our shows. We still have a relationship with them. Everyone we’ve spoken to is interested in the show. We just need to find the right partner.” When asked if World Series of Poker Programming airing on ESPN would cause any problems for the network being open to carrying the WPT, Hughes responded, “From our standpoint, no. I can’t really say from their standpoint; they’ll make their own decision. The Professional Poker Tour was actually slated to air on ESPN originally. There was an appetite for additional poker programming on ESPN besides the World Series of Poker.”

Another avenue that the WPT is exploring is approaching multiple networks to carry new episodes. This would be in a similar fashion to what the National Football League does: NFC games are carried on FOX, AFC games are carried on CBS, the Sunday night game is carried on NBC, and you can watch Monday Night Football live on ESPN. The NFL even shows games on its own broadcasting channel. Hughes comments on this possibility: “Having multiple networks showing your programming gives you diversification. It allows you to shape your program slightly differently for different audiences. It also signifies that you have a popular program that people want to watch. We’re open to doing it and it’s one of the things we’re looking at right now.”

According to Hughes, it is difficult to plan ahead long-term in the poker industry in the United States: “We can rattle off stats about how many people are playing online, watching poker on television, and going to live tournaments [like the World Series of Poker]. In actuality, poker is a strong and viable program. It’s on television for that reason. The dynamics among media partners, advertisers, and regulators change the market quickly. Trying to plan a long-term strategy makes it difficult. I think poker will remain strong in the United States. There is a demand for the product.”

World Poker Tour Founder, President, and CEO Steve Lipscomb told PocketFives.com: “We are confident that we will find strong U.S. broadcaster support for Season VII. It is important, however, to remember that we broadcast the Tour in television markets all over the world. We plan to be here for Season XXV, much less Season VII.” Stay tuned to PocketFives.com for all the latest news as the World Poker Tour begins its search for a new media partner.