The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: chrispw1 on January 17, 2008, 08:29:55 PM
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I was wondering why no Goodson-Todman shows were aired on NBC for over eight years from the original Match Game's cancelation in 1969 to the debut of Card Sharks in early 1978, was it Goodson not wanting to do business with NBC as there weren't any Goodson shows on NBC during Lin Bolen's tenure or prefering to do buisness with CBS or ABC?
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I don't know the answer, but it probably should be noted that HSSS, TTTT and WML all taped at NBC NY in that time frame and the O&O's carried a good number of the syndicated Goodson shows. KNBC had Wood BTC, TTTT, James TPIR and Dawson Feud and WNBC had the latter three plus Narz Concentration.
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Somehow, I would not be even remotely surprised if this had something to do with Lin Bolen.
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I think it might have something to do with the fact that NBC's schedule was dominated by Heatter-Quigley games during that time. Maybe there just wasn't any room for a GT show until Card Sharks; or maybe they just didn't feel any of the shows they were pitched were strong enough.
(That didn't seem to be an issue with Mindreaders though, did it?)
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I don't know the story myself, but it is entirely possible that Lin Bolen considered G-T shows to be generally too staid and old-school for NBC.
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' post=\'175398\' date=\'Jan 18 2008, 11:14 AM\']
I think it might have something to do with the fact that NBC's schedule was dominated by Heatter-Quigley games during that time. Maybe there just wasn't any room for a GT show until Card Sharks; or maybe they just didn't feel any of the shows they were pitched were strong enough.
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I think between you and Chris you hit the nail on the head.
Consider this--GONG, which debuted four weeks before FF did, was originally pitched to ABC. Had ABC taken the show, ABC would have had to shove something else aside to make room for FF. It's plausible that FF could have ended up on NBC in that case if ABC didn't want to cancel anything else, and that was just short of two years before CS debuted.
Refresh my memory on the timing--I'm gathering that when GONG premiered in June 1976, Lin Bolen was no longer with NBC (since she and Barris didn't exactly get along). So the two-year gap could just have been a coincidence--that NBC didn't have slots open when G/T had projects to pitch, or they weren't overwhelmed enough by the projects for NBC to shove something aside.
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[quote name=\'SRIV94\' post=\'175412\' date=\'Jan 18 2008, 01:22 PM\']
Refresh my memory on the timing--I'm gathering that when GONG premiered in June 1976, Lin Bolen was no longer with NBC (since she and Barris didn't exactly get along).
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Her show "Stumpers" debuted in October of that year. I'm guessing she left in '77 at the earliest. However, Barris very well could've had something to do with it though.
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I thought Stumpers was NBC's parting gift to Ms. Bolen as a term of her departure (http://\"http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.game-shows/browse_frm/thread/6bbd926f853ea86d/ebe5feb214bd7556?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dstumpers%2Bbolen%2Bgroup:alt.tv.game-shows%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D9gn62.4790%2524QO1.9213239%2540newse2.tampabay.rr.com%26rnum%3D2#ebe5feb214bd7556\"), meaning she'd already been shown the door at that point.
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Wouldn't surprise me if Bolen's involvement with NBC had anything to do with it...Match Game ended earlier (and even if it got canned after the risque questions made it on, it'd be too "touchy" for her) and a game like Double Dare seems too cerebral for her. NBC probably could have gotten Family Feud if she hadn't been so hard-nosed about the others earlier.
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[quote name=\'rigsby\' post=\'175423\' date=\'Jan 18 2008, 02:11 PM\']
I thought Stumpers was NBC's parting gift to Ms. Bolen as a term of her departure (http://\"http://groups.google.com/group/alt.tv.game-shows/browse_frm/thread/6bbd926f853ea86d/ebe5feb214bd7556?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dstumpers%2Bbolen%2Bgroup:alt.tv.game-shows%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D9gn62.4790%2524QO1.9213239%2540newse2.tampabay.rr.com%26rnum%3D2#ebe5feb214bd7556\"), meaning she'd already been shown the door at that point.
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Interesting. Now I wonder if NBC only intended for the show to last 13 weeks just to shut Lin up...anyone remember how the ratings looked for the show, or what it aired up against?
ETA: 11:30 am, taking HSq's former slot.
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It's also possible that G-T was going to CBS with new concepts first, and that Bud Grant/Mike Ogiens were picking them up, thus no reason to deal with NBC. Someone remind us when Bud Grant/Mike Ogiens were in.
Of course that all changed when Fred Silverman came to NBC.
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[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'175433\' date=\'Jan 18 2008, 02:44 PM\']
It's also possible that G-T was going to CBS with new concepts first, and that Bud Grant/Mike Ogiens were picking them up, thus no reason to deal with NBC. Someone remind us when Bud Grant/Mike Ogiens were in.[/quote]
Early 70s. By 1972 for sure, when they wanted to dump those expensive morning sitcom reruns that were itching to go to syndication anyway.
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No, when did Grant get booted up to president of CBS entertainment and Ogiens take over daytime? We know Grant was doing daytime in 1972.
Morning sitcom reruns expensive? More expensive than making new episodes of game shows and all of the attendant development and pilot costs? Please fill me in on the economics, bearing in mind that in the mid-'80s the typical network daytime game show cost the networks around $120,000 per week. It was enough to make wealthy men out of guys like Frank Wayne, Marc Breslow and Paul Alter (although Goodson got more for his shows than other packagers, and the nighttime versions of those shows made them even wealthier).
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From pg. 488 of Wesley Hyatt's book "The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television": "In an article in Variety that appeared on October 29, 1969, CBS executives announced that the network had lost interest in nighttime TV show reruns because contracts to repeat such programs as "Here's Lucy," "Gomer Pyle" and "Family Affair" were long-term deals that cost approximately $5 million per show if five years worth of episodes were to be repeated."
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[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'175447\' date=\'Jan 18 2008, 06:20 PM\']
No, when did Grant get booted up to president of CBS entertainment and Ogiens take over daytime? We know Grant was doing daytime in 1972.[/quote]To close it up a little bit, Ogiens was in place by 1977, per Curt's (http://\"http://www.curtalliaume.com/mg.html\")website.
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Remember too that FF and The Better Sex wound up on ABC, not CBS or NBC.
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I think I had asked this question a very, very long time ago and there were no certain answers.
In 1969, NBC was working with a lot of packagers (HQ, Stewart, Merv, Ron Greenburg, etc.), and at that time, G-T really wasn't coming up with anything new -- just revivals of older shows (save He Said, She Said). Perhaps that had something to do with it. Revivals weren't big at the time.
Within a few years, CBS had Budd Grant at the helm (he eventually moved up to be head of CBS Entertainment in 1980), and Grant wanted to get rid of the reruns (whether for cost reasons or not). By that point, The Lucy Show had been running in daytime for four years, The Beverly Hillbillies for six, Family Affair for two. All of these were "old-style" CBS shows, which they were getting rid of at night -- so no surprise, I suppose that daytime was the next to lose them. G-T was one of many packagers CBS was working with -- it seems they kept going back there because G-T was consistently successful with almost everything (Now You See It was their only miss over the first four years, and even that wasn't a bomb). Grant had also wanted to get Password back, but ABC beat him to it.
I don't know if Lin Bolen had any particular dislike of G-T; maybe CBS and ABC were getting first cracks at everything. It seemed, however, that Bolen wanted everything to look "new" and "hip," and maybe G-T didn't fit that mold as far as she was concerned. (This doesn't explain the Name That Tune revival.)
Anyway, Bolen and Chuck Barris got into an argument during a rehersal for The Gong Show according to Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, but Barris knew that her assistant and later successor Madeline David loved the concept (in fact, it was her idea for Barris to host after John Barbour was dismissed). I think Chuck had about worn out his welcome at ABC by that time.
By early 1978, when CBS and ABC settled a huge chunk of their schedules with soaps (almost all of which are still around today) and NBC was flailing, they went running back to G-T.
In other words, I have no freakin' clue.
EDIT: Lin Bolen was gone by the time The Gong Show came on, as you might have guessed, and Stumpers was part of the settlement. She also executive produced a prime-time show, W.E.B., in 1977, for NBC. She's not universally disliked (when I talked to him, Jim MacKrell sang her praises), and she still keeps an eye out on things (she wrote me to criticize my Jeopardy! page one day and praise my Celebrity Sweepstakes page the next, not connecting the two).
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'175431\' date=\'Jan 18 2008, 04:37 PM\']
Interesting. Now I wonder if NBC only intended for the show to last 13 weeks just to shut Lin up...anyone remember how the ratings looked for the show, or what it aired up against?
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It aired against "Love of Life" on CBS and reruns of "Happy Days" on ABC, losing to both shows in the ratings battle for most of its 13 weeks; it did manage to finish second in its last week, as game shows typically got higher ratings during the Christmas holidays because kids would tend to watch them more than soaps.
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The switch from Grant to Ogiens occurred prior to 1980. It might have occurred in 1979, the year Ogiens ordered All New Beat the Clock from us.