The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: pacdude on May 06, 2014, 04:21:09 PM
-
Someone did the work:
http://www.graphgraph.com/2014/03/jeopardy-and-wheel-of-fortune-airtimes-in-graphs-and-maps/
-
I suppose I did have an idea that Spokane's TV market (The blue splotch to the right of Puget Sound's red) was that big in terms of area, but when you look at it that way it does put things in an interesting way.
-
I'm guessing that the fact that "Wheel" primarily airs from 6-8pm stems from the fact that it premiered when the daytime version still aired, and thus affiliates saw no need to deviate for the most part.
Does anyone recall whether any markets aired Wheel before 6:00 when it first premiered?
-
See, I was somewhat surprised that most of Jeopardy's stations are CBS affiliates. IIRC the ABC O&Os all have it, but I was under the impression NBC stations comprised most of its viewer base.
Although the percentage of TVs themselves being in ABC's favor doesn't surprise me considering its big three stations all have it.
-
Good point, Brandon! J! got some pre-6:00 airtime when IT premiered, but I've never seen the nighttime WoF listed anywhere before 6 in the early days..
/interested in seeing a map of how many stations still air the show in SD.
-
When CBC got Wheel/J! up here a couple years back, the Toronto affiliate aired Wheel at 5:30 before the news, as Coronation Street aired at 7:00 for years prior, and they didn't want to screw up the audience that watches Corrie religiously.
/indeed, the audience for Corrie and Wheel/J! often overlaps
-
I'm guessing that the fact that "Wheel" primarily airs from 6-8pm stems from the fact that it premiered when the daytime version still aired, and this affiliates saw no need to deviate for the most part.
Does anyone recall whether any markets aired Wheel before 6:00 when it first premiered?
In the fall of 1983, it aired in Pittsburgh at 5:30. It aired on KDKA (CBS). I remember if an non-NBC station carried the syndie Wheel before 6, they had to get a waiver from NBC.
Brian
-
I seem to remember KYW airing some form of Wheel in the early afternoon paired with the Newlywed Game sometime in 1985...could've been the daytime series but not sure.
Or I might've missed on this altogether.
-
Good point, Brandon! J! got some pre-6:00 airtime when IT premiered, but I've never seen the nighttime WoF listed anywhere before 6 in the early days..
I don't know who has it now, but for years, WFAA in Dallas aired it at 3:00 pm, which I remember finding odd as a child. IIRC, it was that way for years, from the premiere up until sometime in the mid-to-late-2000s.
For awhile, it seemed that Dallas was a bit of an anomaly, in that it was a market that aired Wheel and Jeopardy! on different stations for a while. IIRC Wheel was on at 6:30 on KXAS for years. When I was younger, I thought it was odd to see a station air the shows reverse of what Norfolk did, let alone seeing them on two different channels!
/Thanks to everyone else who answered my question about Wheel's early timeslots
-
I seem to remember KYW airing some form of Wheel in the early afternoon paired with the Newlywed Game sometime in 1985...could've been the daytime series but not sure.
Or I might've missed on this altogether.
It was the daytime version...Quite an odd arrangement, but KYW aired Scrabble at 3 (originally $ale..not sure why they changed that), Super Password at 3:30, and daytime WoF at 4. This continued until fall of '89, I believe..
-
I seem to remember KYW airing some form of Wheel in the early afternoon paired with the Newlywed Game sometime in 1985...could've been the daytime series but not sure.
Or I might've missed on this altogether.
It was the daytime version...Quite an odd arrangement, but KYW aired Scrabble at 3 (originally $ale..not sure why they changed that), Super Password at 3:30, and daytime WoF at 4. This continued until fall of '89, I believe..
I remember WNBC doing something similar with Scrabble once it moved to 12:30. It would air sometime in the three o'clock hour (don't know what they did with Santa Barbara- I know they picked up Maury and carried it there until sometime in the mid '90s but before Paramount stopped producing it; they also didn't have a noon newscast at that time, so maybe that's what they did with it).
-
I remember WNBC doing something similar with Scrabble once it moved to 12:30. It would air sometime in the three o'clock hour (don't know what they did with Santa Barbara- I know they picked up Maury and carried it there until sometime in the mid '90s but before Paramount stopped producing it; they also didn't have a noon newscast at that time, so maybe that's what they did with it).
I was *just* thinking about this the other day. I seem to remember around 1990 or so, WNBC moving "Santa Barbara" to noon, and airing game shows in the 3pm hour. "Classic Concentration" was definitely one of them but I'm drawing a blank on the other..I don't believe it was Scrabble..
-
I'm actually surprised at how many stations air J! first- I always thought the preferred order was Wheel first (at least when they did national commercials for both shows it was usually Wheel then J!)...
-
I'm actually surprised at how many stations air J! first- I always thought the preferred order was Wheel first (at least when they did national commercials for both shows it was usually Wheel then J!)...
That was because J! was positioned as a transitional show between the network news and WOF.
-
This was very interesting.
Seeing this, and with what I remember to be the history of what aired when and on what channel in the Philadelphia market, I have to wonder if many of these timeslots have more to do with history and an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude at the local level.
In Philadelphia, Wheel/J! have always been on WPVI. Originally J! was at 4pm and Wheel at 730pm (you'll see my theory as to why coming).
In the mid-70s, The PA Lottery would air at 7pm, and the Muppet Show (great companion to the lottery) would come on at 701pm. At 730 there would be a game show. IIRC, Joker's Wild was there first (and I say first from the time in maybe 1976 when the Muppet Show first came and I started watching it).
After Joker's Wild was off the air, Tic-Tac-Dough replaced it and that stayed at 730 until Wheel came around (by this time, the Muppet Show was done and TTD was moved to 7pm with Wheel coming on at 730pm). When the Muppet Show ended, other game shows filled the 7pm slot (I could be wrong about the shows, but I remember in this era watching Bullseye and some other game shows in the pre-primetime slot). After the first year of J! at 4pm, it was moved to 7pm.
So WPVI always had this 7-8pm syndicated slot, with 730 always having a game show. J! was also moved to make way for Oprah, which mostly aired on ABC stations (I think only two markets did not have Oprah on an ABC station for most of her run).
I may have some of the specifics wrong, but just wanted to put out there the idea that history plays a role in what airs at what time in various markets.
-
It's noted at the very end of the post that the author mixed up the Rochester, Minnesota and the Rochester, New York markets.
I can tell you that here in the Rochester, New York market, it's Wheel at 7PM and Jeopardy at 7:30PM (Eastern Time), both on the CBS affiliate. The author's invited comments and corrections so I'll go there next.
-
When I grew up in Maine, after about 1993 or 1994 Wheel and Jeopardy! ran back-to-back on WVII (ABC affiliate for Bangor) in the 7-8 hour (and still do to this day), prior to that Wheel was on WLBZ (Bangor's NBC affiliate), don't recall the time slot though. Where I am now, here in Lima, Ohio, both Wheel and Jeopardy! air back-to-back on WLIO (Lima's NBC affiliate) from 7-8.
-
In Philadelphia, Wheel/J! have always been on WPVI. Originally J! was at 4pm and Wheel at 730pm (you'll see my theory as to why coming).
Almost, but not quite. You've got WoF right, but J! actually started on KYW with a 12:30 timeslot...
-
Do many stations in the Central Time Zone air them back-to-back? Don't they run news at 6 with prime time starting at 7, leaving room for only Wheel?
For what it's worth, in Minneapolis, syndicated Wheel premiered in an afternoon block with Joker's Wild on the CBS affiliate WCCO. They had PM Magazine at 6:30, but shoved that out of the way the following year.
This is also a rare market where Wheel and J! run on different stations. J! started on WCCO, but they grabbed Oprah from the ABC station pushing it earlier. A few years later, Jeopardy switched to the NBC station, airing against her (now Ellen).
-
In Philadelphia, Wheel/J! have always been on WPVI. Originally J! was at 4pm and Wheel at 730pm (you'll see my theory as to why coming).
Almost, but not quite. You've got WoF right, but J! actually started on KYW with a 12:30 timeslot...
In my area (Harrisburg), WoF and J! have aired back-to-back, nearly uninterrupted, for almost 30 years. WHP began the block in 1984, with WoF first at 7 and J! at 7:30. In 1985-1986, J! was bumped to 5:30 to make room for Kennedy PiR at 7:30. However, after a year, J! came back to 7:30, where it's been ever since.
-
In Philadelphia, Wheel/J! have always been on WPVI. Originally J! was at 4pm and Wheel at 730pm (you'll see my theory as to why coming).
Almost, but not quite. You've got WoF right, but J! actually started on KYW with a 12:30 timeslot...
This doesn't surprise me too much that I got that part wrong...I live in Allentown, and with SECTV, I had both Philly and Scranton stations. Whatever Scranton station had it (WBRE has it now, but could've been WNEP that year) must've been the one with the showing at 430...or then again, I also had NYC stations---darn, one of the markets had it at 430 and I could watch J! at 430...
-
This doesn't surprise me too much that I got that part wrong...I live in Allentown, and with SECTV, I had both Philly and Scranton stations. Whatever Scranton station had it (WBRE has it now, but could've been WNEP that year) must've been the one with the showing at 430...or then again, I also had NYC stations---darn, one of the markets had it at 430 and I could watch J! at 430...
Well, I lived in a Scranton secondary market for awhile, so I can help with that too. :) WoF! came along with some heavy advertising in the late summer of '84 on WNEP and settled into a 7:30pm timeslot. It aired on WNEP until '86, when it moved to WYOU and back one half hour at 7. In 1992 it moved to WBRE, where it still is now. J! started out on WYOU, first at 5pm when it premiered, and then swapping timeslots with $100NTT in early 1985 (J! moving to 7pm, NTT to 5pm). When WYOU acquired WoF, J! moved to 7:30. And, just as WoF did in 1992, J! also moved to WBRE. It's been WoF then J! on WBRE ever since.
-
I remember WNBC doing something similar with Scrabble once it moved to 12:30. It would air sometime in the three o'clock hour (don't know what they did with Santa Barbara- I know they picked up Maury and carried it there until sometime in the mid '90s but before Paramount stopped producing it; they also didn't have a noon newscast at that time, so maybe that's what they did with it).
I was *just* thinking about this the other day. I seem to remember around 1990 or so, WNBC moving "Santa Barbara" to noon, and airing game shows in the 3pm hour. "Classic Concentration" was definitely one of them but I'm drawing a blank on the other..I don't believe it was Scrabble..
It definitely was Scrabble because I remember seeing it there. And CC I did remember being there for awhile. IIRC.they also tried a newscast at 3 for a little while.
Looks like a trip to the library is in order.
-
Do many stations in the Central Time Zone air them back-to-back? Don't they run news at 6 with prime time starting at 7, leaving room for only Wheel?
Speaking for the Mountain Time Zone, where we tend to follow the Central Time Format (Primetime starts at 7PM, late news at 10PM), a lot of the stations will have their news hours start at 5PM.
The local affiliates around here do the following:
ABC: 5PM - Local / 5:30 - ABC News / 6:00 PM Local / 6:30 - Ent. Tonight
NBC: 5PM - NBC News / 5:30 - Local / 6:00 PM - J!/Wheel Hour
CBS: 5PM - Local / 5:30 - CBS News / 6:00 PM Local / 6:30 - Modern Family
FOX: 5PM - Local / 5:30 - Local / 6:00 PM Modern Family / 6:30 Millionaire
In the Mountain & Central Zone markets I have seen, the news hour is traditionally 5-6PM or 5-6:30 PM. On the 1 hour news channels with J & Wheel, the game show hour is 6-7PM, while the stations with 90-minute news blocks will split Wheel & J -- with J! usually the show that leads into the news or is aired earlier in the afternoon, according to the charts.
-
This is also a rare market where Wheel and J! run on different stations.
I'm not sure how rare that actually is (though I agree that it is less common than them airing on the same station). My market (Huntsville, AL), the market to the immediate north (Nashville), and the market to the immediate south (Birmingham) each fit the criteria. The former two also air Jeopardy! at 6PM (which, aside from the different stations thing, does make Huntsville and Nashville two of the rare markets in the Central Time Zone to air both shows within an hour of the start of prime time.)
-
I forgot about this example until today...until recently we had two stations carrying both shows. Usually the secondary affiliate had them airing in the same order (Jeopardy first) either one or two hours before the primary.
I don't remember quite when or for how long it happened this way, but for a brief period they moved the hour to air two hours AFTER the primary affiliate and flipped the order so that Wheel aired first. So we had examples of both of the scheduling arrangements.
-
In my hometown of Lafayette, LA, Jeopardy! has a fraught history. The ABC affiliate, KATC, has aired Wheel of Fortune at 6:30 for as long as I can remember, and it probably premiered there. Jeopardy did not air in the Lafayette market itself (as long as I can remember, anyway) until about 2004 or so. It started out at 9:00am, then moved to 11am, ultimately ending up now airing at 12:37am, with a number of PSAs instead of sold spots. My theory for the strange treatment is that viewers with cable just had settled into watching J! on WBRZ, the ABC affiliate in Baton Rouge, at 4:30 in the afternoon. (been airing in that timeslot as long as I can remember)
It's a bit strange to see J! treated like a show that's not doing so well in the ratings. Also, in terms of my memory and how far back it goes, I'm 27.
-Ben
-
I can give you four markets off the top of my head
New York City: WABC (ABC O&O), J! at 7, Wheel at 7:30
Philadelphia: WPVI (ABC O&O), J! at 7, Wheel at 7:30
Jacksonville, FL: WTLV (NBC affiliate), Wheel at 7, J! at 7:30
Erie, PA: WSEE (CBS affiliate), Wheel at 7, J! at 7:30