Lower Budget, Higher Ratings

[Jeremy Nelson]

Just thinking about the economics around this Classic Concentration II pilot has me wondering- have we ever seen a show that noticeably cut its budget but still practically held its ratings or improved them?

[TLEberle]

It’s an outlier because of public dissemination, but Carmen Sandiego made the trips rather a lot harder to win after the first season, and I’m not sure if Canada or Mexico is appreciable more expensive a destination than your chosen location in the lower 48.

Get the Picture took a hacksaw to the prize budget but I don’t have ratings info.

I don’t imagine Feud 94 with Richard Dawson or Scrabble ‘93 lit the world on fire. Hollywood Squares was likely doomed after season six though I liked the prize progression. (That said there’s something fun lost with the step down from win a match, start a car to “anyone who wins the bonus three times will drive home in…”)

[BrandonFG]

I had the same list as Travis, but most of those shows were gone after a year or so.

Maybe Goen-era Wheel? The laughable $75 space, a $5,000 top prize or a Toyota Tercel in the bonus round. But even then they only got two more years with that format.

[TLEberle]

For CBS Wheel you should compare to theNBC version so you lose budget utility when scrapping all of the prizes.

I am less likely to give grace to the bonus puzzle where the winner was playing for quite good cars if not the luxury ones on nighttime eventually. If your grand prize is a Geo Metro and you’re on a nationally aired network, maybe you did it wrong somewhere.

[Neumms]

If your grand prize is a Geo Metro and you’re on a nationally aired network, maybe you did it wrong somewhere.

Alex’s car lot on Concentration offered some cars better than Metros, but the Yugos and Daihatsu Charades sure dragged down the selection.

[PYLdude]

Although to be fair, the cars on CC always seemed to run the gamut between the generic boxes and the niceties, wouldn’t you say? Like for every Excel or Precis you might have a Jeep or Camaro.

(Speaking of which, did they ever offer the Excel and the Precis in the same bonus? Seems like that would be a way to save money by having the original and the rebadge together.)

Another show I notice seems to have trimmed back the budget as it progressed was Tic Tac Dough. I mean, sure, Barry and Enright didn’t exactly shower contestants with vast amount of money as it was, but to me it doesn’t seem like contestants were winning as much after Thom McKee went on his streak. I don’t know how much that has to with budgets but they don’t seem to be paying out as much as they had been in bonuses and such.

[TLEberle]

Chris P—

I think (and should track down videos to confirm) that John Walsh lost to the woman who lost to Thom. He rated seventh in the all time TOC and piecing together bits and pieces I think the won something like $96,000 very quickly. Secret Category plus ties equals the chance for ballooning pots.

More red boxes adds more chaos into the game and more chance for new champions and fewer cars. Grand Question means those monster pots would be much harder to come by. To that end, wasn’t the Barry/Enright stable getting clobbered by Family Feud and then Wheel/J?

[BrandonFG]

Could we make an argument for daytime $ale? By the mid-80s they still offered nice cars, but not the Caddys and Benzes from S1. Off the top of my head Mark DeCarlo won a Celica convertible, which is nothing to sneeze at but a far cry from the $30K luxury sedan you saw in '83. I found an episode from June of '87 where a Taurus was offered, which tells me the move to more conventional everyday cars happened earlier than I thought.

It's hard to call that a downgrade, considering the cars on deck in the final couple years were still $15K+ at a time when four-figure car prices were still a thing.

[BrandonFG]

Although to be fair, the cars on CC always seemed to run the gamut between the generic boxes and the niceties, wouldn’t you say? Like for every Excel or Precis you might have a Jeep or Camaro.

(Speaking of which, did they ever offer the Excel and the Precis in the same bonus? Seems like that would be a way to save money by having the original and the rebadge together.)

I wanna say yes, but while looking for an example I found an (Eagle) Summit and (Mitsubishi) Mirage, which {Consumer Reports}"are essentiially similiar"{/CR}.

[TLEberle]

I thought of Sale too, and they certainly added cash by the bucketful, but daytime generally would have been suffering downgrades by ratings and hemorrhaging cartsige too, so for all of these very good examples, I’m wondering how heavy a load it is to hsve thst uptick.

[TLEberle]

Excellent work by the winner in saving the best car of the lot for last, though I think that was largely chance.

Thirteen grand! My 2012 EX was $17k in today bucks.

Be cool, concentrate, pick two cars you would be happy with and at 45 seconds it should be doable.

[Jeremy Nelson]

(Speaking of which, did they ever offer the Excel and the Precis in the same bonus? Seems like that would be a way to save money by having the original and the rebadge together.)

I once watched a week of shows where six of the eight cars started with the letter C. I don't recall the win rate, but I'm sure it helped rebalance the budget.

[SuperMatch93]

(Speaking of which, did they ever offer the Excel and the Precis in the same bonus? Seems like that would be a way to save money by having the original and the rebadge together.)

I once watched a week of shows where six of the eight cars started with the letter C. I don't recall the win rate, but I'm sure it helped rebalance the budget.

That's nasty. Reminds me of those all-cash games in the original series with amounts like $69, $96, $696, etc.

[TLEberle]

But that was a gag for a celebrity show and the total prize was rounded up. It’s not like in 1973 Concentration had a ball of yarn and a blank cassette tape as the marquee prizes.

[SuperMatch93]

But that was a GSF for a celebrity show and the total prize was rounded up. It’s not like in 1973 Concentration had a ball of yarn and a blank cassette tape as the marquee prizes.

I was referring more to the challenge of remembering the matches, but point taken.