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Does anyone have any biographical or career information on G/T producer Howard Felsher? Sure he didn't do himself any favors on the 'E! True Hollywood Story' but wouldn't you like it if he were running or consulting on 'Family Feud' today?
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[quote name=\'PaulD\' date=\'Mar 5 2006, 09:07 PM\']Does anyone have any biographical or career information on G/T producer Howard Felsher? Sure he didn't do himself any favors on the 'E! True Hollywood Story' but wouldn't you like it if he were running or consulting on 'Family Feud' today?
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Would have done Fremantle some good to use him as a consultant for Feud, I wonder if they actually did. Gaby Johnson, who was a producer of some sorts on Combs Feud, is associated with Karn Feud, no?
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[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Mar 5 2006, 09:15 PM\']Would have done Fremantle some good to use him as a consultant for Feud, I wonder if they actually did. Gaby Johnson, who was a producer of some sorts on Combs Feud, is associated with Karn Feud, no?
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Yes.
Very Nice too.
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[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Mar 5 2006, 08:15 PM\'][quote name=\'PaulD\' date=\'Mar 5 2006, 09:07 PM\']Does anyone have any biographical or career information on G/T producer Howard Felsher? Sure he didn't do himself any favors on the 'E! True Hollywood Story' but wouldn't you like it if he were running or consulting on 'Family Feud' today?
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Would have done Fremantle some good to use him as a consultant for Feud, I wonder if they actually did. Gaby Johnson, who was a producer of some sorts on Combs Feud, is associated with Karn Feud, no?
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You mean even the great and wonderful Zach didn't know Gaby was on the show? That her name heads the credits? Wonders never cease, do they?
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I've known Howard for over 25 years. What do you want to know?
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[quote name=\'sshuffield70\' date=\'Mar 5 2006, 08:55 PM\'][quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Mar 5 2006, 08:15 PM\'][quote name=\'PaulD\' date=\'Mar 5 2006, 09:07 PM\']Does anyone have any biographical or career information on G/T producer Howard Felsher? Sure he didn't do himself any favors on the 'E! True Hollywood Story' but wouldn't you like it if he were running or consulting on 'Family Feud' today?
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Would have done Fremantle some good to use him as a consultant for Feud, I wonder if they actually did. Gaby Johnson, who was a producer of some sorts on Combs Feud, is associated with Karn Feud, no?
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You mean even the great and wonderful Zach didn't know Gaby was on the show? That her name heads the credits? Wonders never cease, do they?
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If it's any defense of Horan (not that I'm wild about doing this), her name had not appeared on the credits for whatever reason until either this current season or last. However, I do believe that she has been a Pearson/Fremantle employee for all or most of the current run of the series and has been involved with the show during that time.
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I don't know about her involvement with FF, but I think she's been with Goodson Productions continuously through all of the ownership changes, and that includes Goodson's buyout of the Todmans in the '80s. She is perhaps the only non-TPIR staffer who can make that claim. I don't know if Andy Felsher has been with the company continuously.
Frank Wayne was with the company for roughly 40 years, starting with Winner Take All until he died in the saddle in 1988. If Roger can hang on until 2012 he'll exceed Frank's seniority, with Gaby and other TPIR folks not far behind.
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[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Mar 6 2006, 10:19 AM\']I've known Howard for over 25 years. What do you want to know?
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How did he begin his career with Goodson/Todman?
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[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Mar 6 2006, 04:36 PM\']Frank Wayne was with the company for roughly 40 years, starting with Winner Take All until he died in the saddle in 1988. If Roger can hang on until 2012 he'll exceed Frank's seniority, with Gaby and other TPIR folks not far behind.
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Wouldn't Phil be up there in tenure starting with 60's Password (did he start earlier?) until 2004?
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I'm not sure Phil was with the company continuously, but he'd be up there.
I can't give you a better answer than Howard needed a job and Goodson hired him. One delves delicately into Howard's past because he became embroiled in the '50s quiz scandal as the producer of the rigged Tic Tac Dough for Barry and Enright. He testified before a New York grand jury and later before a congressional subcommittee. I never had the courage to discuss the quiz scandal with him as I didn't know whether it would be a sore subject.
As for Family Feud, Howard's role, like just about all game show producers, was to choose questions and contestants. The production values were handled by others at G-T. Whether Howard's presence on FF today would make a difference would depend on how much authority he had. Certainly he (nor you nor I nor any rational person) would have hired Richard Karn nor had the audio track so grossly oversweetened. You would likely see better material on the show.
Sorry I can't be more illuminating.
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As for Family Feud, Howard's role, like just about all game show producers, was to choose questions and contestants
I find it interesting that he was responsible for both. I know that at J!, those functions are handled not merely by different people but by people who have no contact with one another, just to be absolutely certain that the material didn't favor any contestant. Granted, that's probably less of a concern for a show like FF.
I'm curious about how they chose the questions. If you know any of the following, I'd like to hear it; if not, it's interesting to discuss.
1. Did they try to create certain situations and avoid others concerning the total value of the answers in the survey? I'd be pissed if, during the $200 era, my team had a clean sweep of the first two questions, not adding to $200, and the other team swept the first double-value question to win the game with exactly $200.
2. Did they put together complete games, as with J!, or just randomly pull questions, making sure not to have two similar questions in one game? (e.g., Don't follow "Name a famous Franklin" with "Name a famous Washington," and especially don't follow it with "Name a famous Benjamin.")
3. For celebrity events, did they deliberately choose questions with a large value for the #1 answer, as it appears to me?
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[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' date=\'Mar 7 2006, 02:54 PM\']3. For celebrity events, did they deliberately choose questions with a large value for the #1 answer, as it appears to me?
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I of course don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me, and here's why: higher #1's means higher banks, means the game is over quicker, which means there is extra time to do schtick with the celebrities.
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[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' date=\'Mar 7 2006, 05:54 PM\']1. Did they try to create certain situations and avoid others concerning the total value of the answers in the survey? I'd be pissed if, during the $200 era, my team had a clean sweep of the first two questions, not adding to $200, and the other team swept the first double-value question to win the game with exactly $200.
2. Did they put together complete games, as with J!, or just randomly pull questions, making sure not to have two similar questions in one game? (e.g., Don't follow "Name a famous Franklin" with "Name a famous Washington," and especially don't follow it with "Name a famous Benjamin.")
3. For celebrity events, did they deliberately choose questions with a large value for the #1 answer, as it appears to me?
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I believe it would be a reasonable assumption in the G/T Dawson-Combs era that they took all the "survey" results, looked at the number of answers where at least 2 people said the same answer, and put those particular surveys into 4 piles:
• Early Game Surveys (ones with the most different answers yielding the fewest points)
• Mid-Game Surveys (more points/fewer answers -- used for Double Point Rounds)
• Triple Point questions (3 or 4 answers with high points that should determine a winner)
• Fast Money Surveys (Simple Questions that get quick answers from Fast Money players).
Then I would assume that they would assemble the main-game surveys to make sure that a family cannot sweep and win the game too quickly, which would mean only having enough points to win after n-rounds.
And I concur with Chris L that probably in the special 'celebrity' games, they would just use mid-game questions and above not only to create faster games and more chit chat with the players, but to make them look more intelligent!
Did Feud, like Card Sharks, ever ask for specific demographics in their home-viewer participation surveys? ("If you have been married for less than a year, send us a post-card and mail it to Card Sharks, Newlyweds, 6430 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood CA, 90028" -- How exactly *did* Gene Wood set up those survey spiels)
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[quote name=\'TimK2003\' date=\'Mar 7 2006, 07:32 PM\']
Did Feud, like Card Sharks, ever ask for specific demographics in their home-viewer participation surveys?
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Combs Feud did ask for bartenders as a specific demographic on-air one time.
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• Fast Money Surveys (Simple Questions that get quick answers from Fast Money players).
And of course, reserve questions like "name a day..." or questions with all numerical answers for this as well. The old NES "Feud" didn't have such a filter, and you'd frequently see stuff like "name the time people get up in the morning" in the main game.
And it seems pretty obvious that they're deliberately leaving answers off the board on Karn "Feud" so Richard doesn't have to stretch through a fourth round's worth of time.
-Jason
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[quote name=\'JasonA1\' date=\'Mar 7 2006, 09:16 PM\']
And of course, reserve questions like "name a day..." or questions with all numerical answers for Fast Money as well. The old NES "Feud" didn't have such a filter, and you'd frequently see stuff like "name the time people get up in the morning" in the main game.
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"Name the month you begin Xmas shopping" was used in the maingame of a Dawson Syndie episode one time, another question better used for Fast Money. Ditto the question with four possible answers "Name a state that begins with the letter A" used as the Double round on a syndie episode.
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1. Did they try to create certain situations and avoid others concerning the total value of the answers in the survey? I'd be pissed if, during the $200 era, my team had a clean sweep of the first two questions, not adding to $200, and the other team swept the first double-value question to win the game with exactly $200.
That happened at least once - in an ep from fall 1976, I believe.
And it seems pretty obvious that they're deliberately leaving answers off the board on Karn "Feud" so Richard doesn't have to stretch through a fourth round's worth of time.
I think they've always done that to a certain extent. As we know, at least 2 people would have to say it for it to make the survey, but there were times were the lowest you saw revealed was 6 or 7. Either that means there were too many lower answers to fit on the board, or they wanted a lower dollar total available in that round and left a bunch off that would have otherwise made it. The host always said "the top X answers", so supposedly they could cut if off anywhere.
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For about three years I saved the questions. (That oughta ratchet up my game show geek standing.) I noticed at least a few times that a question from the show would appear in a home game, and the home game had some answers at the bottom that weren't put on the board. Assuming that the home game results were accurate, that just strikes me as dishonest, not to mention unfair to a player who might have given such an answer.
And, yeah, I figured if they were putting the high-value #1's on the celeb shows, it was for two purposes: to give more time for schmoozing, and also just in case you got two teams' worth of dummies.
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[quote name=\'Jay Temple\' date=\'Mar 8 2006, 08:53 AM\']Assuming that the home game results were accurate, that just strikes me as dishonest, not to mention unfair to a player who might have given such an answer.
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Why? The host says, quite clearly and in plain English, "We surveyed 100 people, the top X answers are on the board." Nowhere do you hear "we included any answer that at least two people gave." In fact, they have NEVER said that, not specifically. So if you give answer #X+1, it's not in the top X answers. Please show me where "dishonest" or "unfair" falls into any of that.
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I'm not intimately familiar with the production of FF back in the day, but I know Howard approved all questions before and after polling, and he edited the responses. For example, if some respondents said "sweet potato" and others said "yam", he would meld the two responses and you would sometimes see both answers separated by a slash. Or, he might meld "Oscars" and "Academy Awards" and only "Oscars" would be printed as the answer. If a contestant said "Academy Awards" he would accept it, and when the answer would flip and you would see "Oscars". Cathy Dawson was involved in assembling the material into matches.
All G-T producers selected both material and contestants, avoiding what might be termed "mo' producers syndrome". Did you ever count the number of "producers" Wordplay had?
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[quote name=\'clemon79\' date=\'Mar 8 2006, 02:54 PM\'][quote name=\'Jay Temple\' date=\'Mar 8 2006, 08:53 AM\']Assuming that the home game results were accurate, that just strikes me as dishonest, not to mention unfair to a player who might have given such an answer.
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Why? The host says, quite clearly and in plain English, "We surveyed 100 people, the top X answers are on the board." Nowhere do you hear "we included any answer that at least two people gave." In fact, they have NEVER said that, not specifically. [/quote]
In the early days, when Richard felt he needed to explain the game more, he would say something like, "At least two people would have needed to give that answer for it to make our survey." I'm not sure how hard and fast a rule that was, or whether their attitude toward it changed over time, or whether the less rigorously-monitored home games just got some extra answers stuffed into them to make them more playable, but the two-response "rule" was specifically mentioned on the show.
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Mar 8 2006, 09:09 AM\']As we know, at least 2 people would have to say it for it to make the survey, but there were times were the lowest you saw revealed was 6 or 7. Either that means there were too many lower answers to fit on the board, or they wanted a lower dollar total available in that round and left a bunch off that would have otherwise made it. The host always said "the top X answers", so supposedly they could cut if off anywhere.[/quote]
True--but I don't recall this being a *regular* thing on Dawson or Combs Feud. (How often would you say it happened, Jay, roughly?) It happens on Karn Feud any time one team has much more than 100 points going into the Double question, though, and it looks tacky.
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It happens on Karn Feud any time one team has much more than 100 points going into the Double question, though, and it looks tacky.
To be honest, I don't watch much of Karn's "Feud" because it's on around noon where I live and I don't bother to tape it.
Isn't that always the case with the third question though? Is it possible that they could just prevent a few bottom-tier answers from showing up on the board of a pre-selected question if there's a chance those answers could add up to a win for someone? I wouldn't think that would happen, but if they really didn't want Karn to stretch for too long, I suppose it could...
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Mar 8 2006, 04:20 PM\']Isn't that always the case with the third question though? Is it possible that they could just prevent a few bottom-tier answers from showing up on the board of a pre-selected question if there's a chance those answers could add up to a win for someone? I wouldn't think that would happen, but if they really didn't want Karn to stretch for too long, I suppose it could...
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It most certainly happens. If both teams are under 100 points going into the third round, then the question will total 80 or 90 points. But if one team has more than 100 points, then the third round question will almost never total enough points to give them the win. Which means that you'll sometimes see surveys with a total of only 50 or 60 points on the board.
And since there are only six answer spaces available on the board during round three, it's clear that they have back-up questions with fewer points to prevent a team from winning before the triple round.
--
Scott Robinson
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Mar 8 2006, 12:44 PM\']"At least two people would have needed to give that answer for it to make our survey."
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See, to me that's not the same, though I will allow that we're at the point where we're arguing semantics. By the letter of that statement, that says "you'll never see an answer only one person gave on the board", but it's still not a guarantee that if two people gave it, it will. But it's a ticky-tack semantic issue, sure.
And I can easily see them being more likely to "massage" the survey results in the later years.
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[quote name=\'Matt Ottinger\' date=\'Mar 8 2006, 03:44 PM\']
In the early days, when Richard felt he needed to explain the game more, he would say something like, "At least two people would have needed to give that answer for it to make our survey." I'm not sure how hard and fast a rule that was, or whether their attitude toward it changed over time, or whether the less rigorously-monitored home games just got some extra answers stuffed into them to make them more playable, but the two-response "rule" was specifically mentioned on the show.
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When he did the "At least two people....." bit, it was always during Fast Money as far as I remember. Answers with scores of two-ten, as we've mentioned in this thread, could be taken out of the maingame questions for reasons described above. The 4th edition MB Feud home game has a Fast Money question which has an answer that was worth only one point.
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[quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Mar 8 2006, 07:11 PM\']When he did the "At least two people....." bit, it was always during Fast Money as far as I remember.
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Might've been more common, but I really wanna say when the show was just getting started, Richard would say that it took at least two people to get considered, mainly if someone got a strike.
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Speaking of FF, I see the show held their 2006 Tournament Of Champions.....several weeks ago. Did anyone here even know they'd done it already? I didn't even know there was one planned. Nice promotion, Fremantle.
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I don't think Family Feud has ever promoted any of their current run tournaments. Not that any of the families were particularly memorable, what with the haphazard way that shows are aired these days.
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[quote name=\'TLEberle\' date=\'Mar 9 2006, 01:04 AM\']I don't think Family Feud has ever promoted any of their current run tournaments.
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I do recall their Family Circle Tournament in 2002 got an ad in my city's TV Guide. But why wouldn't they want their tournaments promoted? As a special event, I would think the production company would be fishing for more eyes.
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[quote name=\'Don Howard\' date=\'Mar 9 2006, 12:43 AM\']Speaking of FF, I see the show held their 2006 Tournament Of Champions.....several weeks ago. Did anyone here even know they'd done it already? I didn't even know there was one planned. Nice promotion, Fremantle.
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I've never seen a promo for Feud on WTXF Philly at all this season. Is this show getting much promotion at all?
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The only reason I knew about it was from seeing a blurb about it on the Professer's site, but I didn't watch it.
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[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Mar 9 2006, 08:55 AM\']The only reason I knew about it was from seeing a blurb about it on the Professer's site, but I didn't watch it.
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Has Fremantle really EVER promoted any of their shows? I think the only show I ever saw get any commercials around here was Feud, and that was during the Louie era ("The Feud is On!"). Not even when Feud started getting better time slots around the country c. spring 2003. Hell, I was channel surfing one morning, and accidentally found out it went from 2:30 am to 11 am, on a different station. Would've been an excellent time to let the viewers know. :-P
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[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Mar 9 2006, 04:41 PM\']Has Fremantle really EVER promoted any of their shows? I think the only show I ever saw get any commercials around here was Feud, and that was during the Louie era ("The Feud is On!"). Not even when Feud started getting better time slots around the country c. spring 2003. Hell, I was channel surfing one morning, and accidentally found out it went from 2:30 am to 11 am, on a different station. Would've been an excellent time to let the viewers know. :-P
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I've seen Feud promos on WNYW fairly recently. However, they would always be general promos - not for any particular special episodes. I haven't had much interest in Karn Feud lately, so this is also the first I've heard of the tournament.
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[quote name=\'FeudDude\' date=\'Mar 9 2006, 04:56 PM\']I've seen Feud promos on WNYW fairly recently. However, they would always be general promos - not for any particular special episodes.
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The ones here are very generic...it's nothing more than "Family Feud, coming up next on WB33!" Other than that, I haven't seen much of anything. I mean, Feud's ratings have supposedly been on the rise (compared to the Louie years), so why not promote your product? I'll bet if I walked up to 10 people and asked them if they knew the show was still on, or ask who the host was*, I'd get a blank stare.
*Wouldn't need an exact name, but at least a "Hey, isn't that Al from 'Home Improvement'?"
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My ex-station runs full :30s with Richard Karn as the Feud Dude. Very comic book/Superman style thing. Tagline: "Feud Dude saves your day!" No promos for specials, although they do sometimes feed them for the most special of specials.
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[quote name=\'mystery7\' date=\'Mar 9 2006, 09:16 PM\']My ex-station runs full :30s with Richard Karn as the Feud Dude. Very comic book/Superman style thing. Tagline: "Feud Dude saves your day!" No promos for specials, although they do sometimes feed them for the most special of specials.
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I suspect that considering the station lineup and time slots, Fremantle and Tribune don't consider spending a lot of money on a national promotional campaign worth it. As I've stated before, "Feud"'s low man on the totem pole on most stations and is on the less attractive stations in most markets--even in Chicago--oops, it's not on in prime time in Chicago anymore, it's double-pumping on WCIU at 10 a.m. against that other Fremantle game show.
In fact, I would love to know why WCIU used their daily Sun-Times ad under the listings (a tradeout, most likely) to promote on their sister LP/DT-3 station (WFBT) "The Shepherd's Chapel," of all programs. Their main channel, of course. Sister CA/DT-2 WWME's classic TV, sure. A generic ad for WFBT's brokered foreign-language programming, maybe. But "The Shepherd's Chapel?" Must've been something in the contract they didn't notice.
ObGameShowForum: WCIU definitely wants you to know that they air "The Insider," with your host, your friend and mine--PAT O'BRIEN!