Let's Ask America
| Let's Ask America | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Jeff Apploff |
| Developed by | Jeff Apploff/Casey Green/Ben Betts/Todd Stevens/Jim Paratore |
| Presented by | Kevin Pereira Bill Bellamy |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 22–24 minutes |
| Production companies | paraMedia E. W. Scripps Company Telepictures |
| Original release | |
| Network | Syndication |
| Release | September 17, 2012 – March 27, 2015 |
Let's Ask America is an American interactive game show which debuted on September 17, 2012. The show features contestants who play from their homes via webcams, answering trivia questions relating to current events. On November 4, 2013, it was announced that Scripps planned to launch Let's Ask America nationwide through a distribution deal with MGM Television. Contestants participate by Skype from the comfort of their own home, an inexpensive technology negating the need for travel expenses. In sweeps months, the show features celebrity editions featuring local news talent from the stations carrying the series such as meteorologists and anchors playing the game from their station's studios for local charities.
The program was hosted from its premiere through the summer of 2014 by Kevin Pereira. In July 2014, Bill Bellamy confirmed he had begun taping episodes as the host for the program's third season, set to begin that fall.
Produced by paraMedia and Telepictures, the program was created for the E. W. Scripps Company, and initially premiered on seven of its television stations alongside another Scripps-created program, the news magazine program The List. The premiere of the two programs are part of a strategy being undertaken by Scripps to replace existing syndicated programming in the valuable pre-primetime hour with new "home-grown" programs. These new programs would allow Scripps complete control over advertising inventories during the hour for better profitability, unlike Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, which Scripps staff felt were too expensive and underperforming in comparison. Wheel and Jeopardy! were replaced by The List and Let's Ask America on the Scripps stations that carried them. Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution began to syndicate Let's Ask America to other markets at beginning of the 2013 season. The program is executive produced by Jeff Apploff, Jack Martin and Todd Stevens and is co-produced by Ben Betts and Casey Green.
Let's Ask America was canceled on March 24, 2015, due to low ratings, with the show's final episode airing three days later; reruns continued to air until the end of the season.