The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: GameShowGuru on November 13, 2010, 01:29:12 AM
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This question came up as a result of the thread where someone asked if their local affiliates pre-empted Super Password. I said that my local affiliates did, but I still saw the show (during its original run) anyway. I didn't elaborate how...until now.
Because my family had cable, and our cable provider had a random channel, which for lack of a better name, I called "The Miscellaneous Channel". This channel would air shows from random out of town local affiliates in blocks of time that I really didn't keep a schedule of, but which often did have the clearances to air whatever network game shows happened to be on.
Thanks to my cable provider (Warner Amex QUBE), several shows such as Scrabble, Super Password, and NYSI '89 I may never had seen or known to have aired, had they not had this "channel".
To show you how random this channel could be, during one hour you could watch CBS Late Night (when they had late movies back in the 80s), then immediately following, it would be The Nostalgia Channel for a few hours, then it would be Movietime (another defunct channel) for another few hours, etc.
Has anyone besides me had (or had) a channel like this? I only ask because Warner QUBE (wiki the name) was at the forefront of the cable tv industry in the 70s and 80s, and QUBE may have been the exception to this random channel provider in its cable package. FWIW, I thought it was really cool being able to watch out of town affiliates, among other things.
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A while back, there was a channel in my area called TV!, later renamed Intro Television which featured certain programs from various channels, such as Cartoon Network and The Military Channel, and many others. We lost the channel when our cable provider switched from TCI to Cox Cable.
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Although I'm pretty sure they never showed any local channels back in 1994 or so we had a station called TV which would switch different cable channels in blocks as they'd show stuff like Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, Bravo etc in rotating intervals.
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Yes, in the '70's and '80's Gerity Cablevision in Essexville, MI had a channel called CTV-2 where they would import distant stations to pick up shows the local affils didn't carry. They had microwave linked antennas so they could send a signal from, say, Detroit or Cadillac, up to Essexville. Since our local CBS station didn't carry the hour-long TPIR until 79 or so, we got it that way. Also got many ABC noon shows that way via WXYZ. Between those shows, the station aired old movies and syndicated shows, most from National Telefilm Associates. They also carried "Somerset" daily which our NBC station declined, but who cares about that. :)
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'250880\' date=\'Nov 13 2010, 12:43 PM\']They had microwave linked antennas so they could send a signal from, say, Detroit or Cadillac, up to Essexville.[/quote]
That's a long microwave journey if you were getting stuff out of Cadillac; the only station in Cadillac at the time was my station, WWTV, and from what I've been told by our old timers, our feed of CBS programming was being relayed from sister station WKZO in Kalamazoo via microwave.
When I was growing up in Grand Rapids, we didn't have anything like a separate station, but I do recall quite vividly that WOTV (the NBC affiliate, now WOOD) spun off "Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour" to WXMI (then independent, now Fox). I can't recall if they ever covered NBC promos within the show's commercial breaks, but I definitely recall the audio being cut during credits to eliminate the VOCA promoting the previous night's programming.
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Wow - I wish we could have had a station like that!
The only one that comes to mind is when WUTV, an independent, picked up Battlestars and aired it a week behind NBC, at 12 noon. WGRZ, the NBC affiliate, aired another show at 11:30 (can't remember what) and didn't pick up Battlestars at all.
Sometimes WUTV would also air primetime network shows if one of the affiliates pre-empted them for sports.
Most other shows that weren't seen in our area we were out of luck, unless the conditions were right and we could pick up the Rochester affiliates, which sometimes happened.
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I never had anything like that, but for years Service Electric in Allentown, PA had multiple affiliate channels for the networks with CBS being the exception (such a shame since the Philadelphia affiliate always interrupted or pre-empted TPIR for breaking news such as someone finding a penny heads up on the street, and also for WPVI constantly screwing up my viewing of Jeopardy at 7pm (was glad for WABC in NYC being on SECTV at the time as well).
Then there were some rules changes and SECTV doesn't have these options anymore. I am so glad I have Blue Ridge now and I get WBRE in Scranton so my Jeopardy viewing hasn't been screwed up in years.
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'250888\' date=\'Nov 13 2010, 03:48 PM\']The only one that comes to mind is when WUTV, an independent, picked up Battlestars and aired it a week behind NBC, at 12 noon. WGRZ, the NBC affiliate, aired another show at 11:30 (can't remember what) and didn't pick up Battlestars at all.[/quote]
ISTR, from a Radio-Info Classic TV post, that WUTV also aired MG/HS at an odd hour (I think noon) as well.
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[quote name=\'Scrabbleship\' post=\'250890\' date=\'Nov 13 2010, 04:36 PM\'][quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'250888\' date=\'Nov 13 2010, 03:48 PM\']The only one that comes to mind is when WUTV, an independent, picked up Battlestars and aired it a week behind NBC, at 12 noon. WGRZ, the NBC affiliate, aired another show at 11:30 (can't remember what) and didn't pick up Battlestars at all.[/quote]
ISTR, from a Radio-Info Classic TV post, that WUTV also aired MG/HS at an odd hour (I think noon) as well.
[/quote]
And independent WPTT in Pittsburgh aired MG/HS at either 9:00 or 9:30 in the morning for a while, though I'm pretty sure Pittsburgh's NBC affiliate, WPXI, aired the show at its normal 3:00 slot for the entire nine months it was on the air.
Brendan
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Since I lived along the lakefront in Chicago, and that I had a funky antenna, I was able (on any given day) to pick up the stations in South Bend and in Milwaukee (in addition to the Chicago stations, obviously). That usually meant, at least in South Bend's case, that if the Chicago feed pre-empted anything for any reason, WFBT or WBND would carry whatever game shows that were on. This usually was the case for most of the 90's.
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Philadelphia was one such city where network game shows were preempted. Then-CBS O&O WCAU-TV was the only station that did not preempt any network game shows, while then-NBC affiliate KYW, and as I had mentioned yesterday, ABC affiliate-turned O&O WPVI, both preempted shows. Those on the shoreline of south Jersey and immediate towns within Atlantic County and surrounding areas had NBC affiliate WMGM 40 out of Atlantic City, which aired both NBC and ABC daytime game shows. As for the Philly stations, the preempted shows did end up on indy stations WPHL 17, WTAF/WTXF 29, WKBS 48, and WGTW 48. Some feared that when KYW and WCAU swapped network affiliations in the late summer of 1995, TPIR would be preempted on KYW because of the station's reputation for preempting NBC shows. Those fears were silenced when it was revealed that Group W/Westinghouse had sold minority ownership of the station to CBS and that the two companies agreed that the entire CBS schedule would be carried (this was months before Group W had purchased CBS as a whole).
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[quote name=\'Johnissoevil\' post=\'250925\' date=\'Nov 14 2010, 01:45 PM\']Philadelphia was one such city where network game shows were preempted. Then-CBS O&O WCAU-TV was the only station that did not preempt any network game shows, while then-NBC affiliate KYW, and as I had mentioned yesterday, ABC affiliate-turned O&O WPVI, both preempted shows. Those on the shoreline of south Jersey and immediate towns within Atlantic County and surrounding areas had NBC affiliate WMGM 40 out of Atlantic City, which aired both NBC and ABC daytime game shows. As for the Philly stations, the preempted shows did end up on indy stations WPHL 17, WTAF/WTXF 29, WKBS 48, and WGTW 48. Some feared that when KYW and WCAU swapped network affiliations in the late summer of 1995, TPIR would be preempted on KYW because of the station's reputation for preempting NBC shows. Those fears were silenced when it was revealed that Group W/Westinghouse had sold minority ownership of the station to CBS and that the two companies agreed that the entire CBS schedule would be carried (this was months before Group W had purchased CBS as a whole).[/quote]
funny how when I turned to WCAU, my viewing of TPIR, PYL, etc. was constantly interrupted for some of the biggest "who cares" events of the day.
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On a simliar vein, how many of you wacthed a game show that was pre-empted in your market, and would put up with a lousy signal from another market just to see it? I can recall my first 'viewing' of Mr. Cullen's "Chain Reaction", thanks to WCYB-5's noon news, was on WTVK-26 Knoxville (which was NBC at that time). Granted all I could do was listen to it... there was no discernible video; we were 90 miles away and the rooftop antenna was crappy for UHF. I still have my audio tape of the episode somewhere. "Go!" was 'viewed' similarly, as was "Break the Bank" on WPCQ-36 Charlotte, NC.
And how about lollygagging around as a kid in a motel, making your parents wait to check out so you could watch a show you'd never seen before? On one trip in 1987 there were multiple 'incidents' so I could watch "Strike It Rich" on WHTM-27 Harrisburg, PA, Monty's "Split Second" on WHEC-10 Rochester (on the Ottawa, ON cable system), and "Guess What" and "Food For Thought" in Toronto (can't recall who carried those).
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[quote name=\'gameshowcrazy\' post=\'250930\' date=\'Nov 14 2010, 04:30 PM\']funny how when I turned to WCAU, my viewing of TPIR, PYL, etc. was constantly interrupted for some of the biggest "who cares" events of the day.[/quote]
There's a difference between preempting network shows for syndicated shows and news bulletins breaking into the middle of a show.
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How about another "big 3" affiliate clearing a competing network's game show?
Washington's 7 (now WJLA, can't recall if calls were different then) cleared "Tattletales" in '70s as WTOP (now WUSA) 9 didn't carry it. Aired at 9:30 a.m.
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' post=\'251029\' date=\'Nov 16 2010, 12:51 AM\']How about another "big 3" affiliate clearing a competing network's game show?
Washington's 7 (now WJLA, can't recall if calls were different then) cleared "Tattletales" in '70s as WTOP (now WUSA) 9 didn't carry it. Aired at 9:30 a.m.[/quote]
WJLA was WMAL until 1977 when the WMAL radio stations were divorced from the old Washington Star.
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[quote name=\'Johnissoevil\' post=\'251026\' date=\'Nov 16 2010, 12:07 AM\'][quote name=\'gameshowcrazy\' post=\'250930\' date=\'Nov 14 2010, 04:30 PM\']funny how when I turned to WCAU, my viewing of TPIR, PYL, etc. was constantly interrupted for some of the biggest "who cares" events of the day.[/quote]
There's a difference between preempting network shows for syndicated shows and news bulletins breaking into the middle of a show.
[/quote]
to-ma-to, to-ma-toe, either way the unlucky viewers of WCAU were screwed, and many times Jeopardy watchers on WPVI are stuck.
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WXMI - Grand Rapids also carried Hot Potato after WOOD-TV pre-empted it for local news. They ran it before noon, so the shows were delayed by one day.
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On a simliar vein, how many of you wacthed a game show that was pre-empted in your market, and would put up with a lousy signal from another market just to see it?
I certainly did. By the late '70s, Rochester NY's NBC and CBS affiliates were added to an extended teir on our cable. Because they were coming from a long distance (I think over 80 miles) the signals weren't always good. Quite often if it was a show that Rochester picked up that either Buffalo or Toronto didn't, I'd put up with the lousy signal to see it. Seeing it that way was better than not seeing it at all!
and "Guess What" and "Food For Thought" in Toronto (can't recall who carried those).
Guess What would have been CTV, Food For Thought was Global.
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How about another "big 3" affiliate clearing a competing network's game show?
Washington's 7 (now WJLA, can't recall if calls were different then) cleared "Tattletales" in '70s as WTOP (now WUSA) 9 didn't carry it. Aired at 9:30 a.m.
I have a Washington-Baltimore TV Guide from 1977 I got on a family driving trip to South Carolina. I was surprised when I saw that. Tattletales wasn't the only show they cleared. I guess there must have been a game show fan running that station. That's nice...for a change :)
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'251089\' date=\'Nov 17 2010, 11:32 AM\']
How about another "big 3" affiliate clearing a competing network's game show?
Washington's 7 (now WJLA, can't recall if calls were different then) cleared "Tattletales" in '70s as WTOP (now WUSA) 9 didn't carry it. Aired at 9:30 a.m.
I have a Washington-Baltimore TV Guide from 1977 I got on a family driving trip to South Carolina. I was surprised when I saw that. Tattletales wasn't the only show they cleared. I guess there must have been a game show fan running that station. That's nice...for a change :)
[/quote]
9 was a Post-Newsweek station up until 1978, so they were big on local pub. affairs shows that would knock out the CBS shows. Washington also had an NBC O&O which produced a local daytime talk show called "Take It From Here" hosted by Jim Peck before, during and after the run of "The Big Showdown."
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'251094\' date=\'Nov 17 2010, 12:01 PM\'][quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'251089\' date=\'Nov 17 2010, 11:32 AM\']
How about another "big 3" affiliate clearing a competing network's game show?
Washington's 7 (now WJLA, can't recall if calls were different then) cleared "Tattletales" in '70s as WTOP (now WUSA) 9 didn't carry it. Aired at 9:30 a.m.
I have a Washington-Baltimore TV Guide from 1977 I got on a family driving trip to South Carolina. I was surprised when I saw that. Tattletales wasn't the only show they cleared. I guess there must have been a game show fan running that station. That's nice...for a change :)
[/quote]
9 was a Post-Newsweek station up until 1978, so they were big on local pub. affairs shows that would knock out the CBS shows. Washington also had an NBC O&O which produced a local daytime talk show called "Take It From Here" hosted by Jim Peck before, during and after the run of "The Big Showdown."
[/quote]
It wasn't like things got much better when Post-Newsweek swapped it to the Detroit News for the original WWJ-TV/WDIV. Through the WDVM years the only game show they cleared was TPiR (minus a few months when Pyramid/PYL were cleared) and they sometimes even preempted that as well. Even once Gannett came in, they still didn't clear the 10:00 hour of network programming at all to my knowledge.
Post-Newsweek always seemed to be a bit apprehensive to game shows on the network level. I know there was a period of several years up until 1982 when WFSB in Hartford didn't even clear TPiR, usually delayed the 10:00 hour a week to 9:00 AM, and aired Card Sharks reruns over Child's Play and PYL.
(To unite the the two topics, didn't WXYZ, as an ABC O&O, air Las Vegas Gambit because WDIV preempted it?)
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[quote name=\'Scrabbleship\' post=\'251099\' date=\'Nov 17 2010, 12:55 PM\'](To unite the the two topics, didn't WXYZ, as an ABC O&O, air Las Vegas Gambit because WDIV preempted it?)[/quote]
No, never.
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From the Cleveland, OH area, I used to pull in:
- Toledo stations for Tattletales (80s vers.) & Every Second Counts
- Detroit station for Bullseye
- A Youngstown station for The Cross Wits (when WEWS stopped airing it in favor of TTD).
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[quote name=\'TimK2003\' post=\'251131\' date=\'Nov 17 2010, 10:11 PM\']From the Cleveland, OH area, I used to pull in:
- Toledo stations for Tattletales (80s vers.) & Every Second Counts
[/quote]
I remember seeing Tattletales in the 80s, presumably on WJKW at the time, and Every Second Counts was on WCLQ.
Back in the 80s and early 90s, I used to watch game shows not shown in Cleveland from either Akron (ABC affiliate WAKC) or Toledo including Blackout, Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak, Trivia Trap, Now You See It, Goen WoF, Match Game 90, and Bargain Hunters. I was also able to catch some shows not seen in Cleveland from Canadian affiliates in southern Ontario like Split Second, TalkAbout, and Canadian daytime shows like Guess What and Definition.
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In San Francisco, TPIR was on pretty much every station except the CBS affiliate...
Seriously, then-independent (now Fox) KTVU aired both TPIR and Gambit when they premiered (CBS affiliate KPIX deciding that it would rather air Family Affair reruns and a talk show by Bing Crosby's wife - KPIX did air The Joker's Wild from the first day). The only time before 1990 that I remember KPIX airing TPIR was during its brief afternoon run (when it was on right before Match Game); for a long time, the hour-long TPIR slot was taken up by a locally-produced morning show, and then by the "Group W talk show of the week".
After KPIX dropped TPIR once it moved back to mornings, it was off for a few years, then, sometime around 1980, KEMO / KOFY / whatever channel 20 is called nowadays started airing it, but on a one-day delay for some reason. This lasted for a few years, then they dropped it, and it was back to San Francisco's version of the dark period er, "that three-word phrase with initials TDP that we're not really supposed to use here any more" until KPIX finally started airing it again in (I think) 1991.
-- Don
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[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'251186\' date=\'Nov 18 2010, 03:26 PM\']This lasted for a few years, then they dropped it, and it was back to San Francisco's version of
the dark period er, "that three-word phrase with initials TDP that we're not really supposed to use here any more" until KPIX finally started airing it again in (I think) 1991.
-- Don[/quote]
Whoda thunk Voldemort had the chops to be a program manager?
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[quote name=\'That Don Guy\' post=\'251186\' date=\'Nov 18 2010, 03:26 PM\']San Francisco's version of
the dark period er, "that three-word phrase with initials TDP that we're not really supposed to use here any more"[/quote]
Honestly, I don't think one guy's comment that it's a dated phrase is quite the same as a permanent moratorium.
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I just thought of another one:
Back in '88, I was really getting into the Davidson Hollywood Squares, until out of the blue, in July of '88, the local affilate (WSYX in Columbus) replaced it with "A Current Affair". I was devastated...until I stumbled upon it several months later on a local low-powered affilate WWAT-53 (which is now high-powered and rebranded as WWHO-53). Anyway, my experience with watching Davidson Squares on WWAT was unbearable, as its low-power signal gave off a lot of snow and static, to say nothing of the caliber of the show's celebs during that final season finally made me seek other more watchable shows.
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Did Tattletales air in reruns after its 1984 cancellation? I have a SE PA TV Guide which has WHTM-27 (ABC) airing it at 10:30 a.m.
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[quote name=\'aaron sica\' post=\'251327\' date=\'Nov 21 2010, 03:02 AM\']Did Tattletales air in reruns after its 1984 cancellation? I have a SE PA TV Guide which has WHTM-27 (ABC) airing it at 10:30 a.m.[/quote]
Yes. Several markets in Michigan ran it as well. IIRC, Firestone syndicated the reruns.
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[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'251328\' date=\'Nov 21 2010, 06:49 AM\'][quote name=\'aaron sica\' post=\'251327\' date=\'Nov 21 2010, 03:02 AM\']Did Tattletales air in reruns after its 1984 cancellation? I have a SE PA TV Guide which has WHTM-27 (ABC) airing it at 10:30 a.m.[/quote]
Yes. Several markets in Michigan ran it as well. IIRC, Firestone syndicated the reruns.
[/quote]
Ditto Boston (WCVB, preempting Feud) and Miami (WSVN, preempting I think Scrabble). Was it only syndicated to markets that didn't get the 80's CBS run which would've made quite a few markets.
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[quote name=\'Scrabbleship\' post=\'251332\' date=\'Nov 21 2010, 10:09 AM\']Was it only syndicated to markets that didn't get the 80's CBS run which would've made quite a few markets.[/quote]
I've wondered that as well. WVEC (the ABC affiliate) in Norfolk aired it at 10:30am, while WTKR only aired the first few months when it originally aired in 1982.
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[quote name=\'mcsittel\' post=\'251017\' date=\'Nov 15 2010, 10:26 PM\']On a simliar vein, how many of you wacthed a game show that was pre-empted in your market, and would put up with a lousy signal from another market just to see it? I can recall my first 'viewing' of Mr. Cullen's "Chain Reaction", thanks to WCYB-5's noon news, was on WTVK-26 Knoxville (which was NBC at that time). Granted all I could do was listen to it... there was no discernible video; we were 90 miles away and the rooftop antenna was crappy for UHF. I still have my audio tape of the episode somewhere. "Go!" was 'viewed' similarly, as was "Break the Bank" on WPCQ-36 Charlotte, NC.
And how about lollygagging around as a kid in a motel, making your parents wait to check out so you could watch a show you'd never seen before? On one trip in 1987 there were multiple 'incidents' so I could watch "Strike It Rich" on WHTM-27 Harrisburg, PA, Monty's "Split Second" on WHEC-10 Rochester (on the Ottawa, ON cable system), and "Guess What" and "Food For Thought" in Toronto (can't recall who carried those).[/quote]
Yes on both counts! I can remember "hearing" shows like "Match Game '73" and even "Jackpot" from the Macon affiliates because they weren't picked up in Atlanta, but I could get a bit of a signal from further south. And no vacation trip in 1974 or 1975 wasn't complete without my watching any number of shows in the motel room... either before checkout, or after an early arrival. It's the only way I ever got to see "Jackpot," "Blank Check," "Password ('75)," "Money Maze," "Magnificent Marble Machine," "Musical Chairs," and others on air.
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[quote name=\'davidhammett\' post=\'251360\' date=\'Nov 21 2010, 07:02 PM\'][quote name=\'mcsittel\' post=\'251017\' date=\'Nov 15 2010, 10:26 PM\']On a simliar vein, how many of you wacthed a game show that was pre-empted in your market, and would put up with a lousy signal from another market just to see it? I can recall my first 'viewing' of Mr. Cullen's "Chain Reaction", thanks to WCYB-5's noon news, was on WTVK-26 Knoxville (which was NBC at that time). Granted all I could do was listen to it... there was no discernible video; we were 90 miles away and the rooftop antenna was crappy for UHF. I still have my audio tape of the episode somewhere. "Go!" was 'viewed' similarly, as was "Break the Bank" on WPCQ-36 Charlotte, NC.
And how about lollygagging around as a kid in a motel, making your parents wait to check out so you could watch a show you'd never seen before? On one trip in 1987 there were multiple 'incidents' so I could watch "Strike It Rich" on WHTM-27 Harrisburg, PA, Monty's "Split Second" on WHEC-10 Rochester (on the Ottawa, ON cable system), and "Guess What" and "Food For Thought" in Toronto (can't recall who carried those).[/quote]
Yes on both counts! I can remember "hearing" shows like "Match Game '73" and even "Jackpot" from the Macon affiliates because they weren't picked up in Atlanta, but I could get a bit of a signal from further south. And no vacation trip in 1974 or 1975 wasn't complete without my watching any number of shows in the motel room... either before checkout, or after an early arrival. It's the only way I ever got to see "Jackpot," "Blank Check," "Password ('75)," "Money Maze," "Magnificent Marble Machine," "Musical Chairs," and others on air.
[/quote]
Living in New York growing up, I can't say I have ever seen any game show pre-empted.
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[quote name=\'Scrabbleship\' post=\'251332\' date=\'Nov 21 2010, 10:09 AM\']Ditto Boston (WCVB, preempting Feud) and Miami (WSVN, preempting I think Scrabble). Was it only syndicated to markets that didn't get the 80's CBS run which would've made quite a few markets.[/quote]
Nope - the Harrisburg/Lebanon/Lancaster/York TV market got the CBS run. At the time, there were three CBS stations (WLYH-15 in Lebanon, WHP-21 in Harrisburg, WSBA-43 in York) and two of them aired "Tattletales", one for the whole run. WHP-21 flip-flopped back and forth between airing it at noon and 4pm for the entire run, and WSBA-43 aired it at 9:30 in the morning (not sure of when).