The Game Show Forum
The Game Show Forum => The Big Board => Topic started by: Dbacksfan12 on June 04, 2025, 01:19:46 AM
-
It's oft been mentioned how the five new shows in 1990 all flopped; I believe half were toast by March. Does anyone have concrete ratings data? A Google search was unhelpful.
-
It's oft been mentioned how the five new shows in 1990 all flopped; I believe half were toast by March. Does anyone have concrete ratings data? A Google search was unhelpful.
I never saw any formal ratings, but in my city, most of these shows started out in afternoon or morning time slots, and 13 weeks later, were seen at 2:00am or later. Those "ratings" were all I needed to see.
-
I looked up the syndicated ratings in the 1992 World Almanac, but as of February 1991 the lowest-rated show out of their list of 16 was Feud, with a 6.0 rating. None of the rookie games - or any fall 1990 premiere for that matter - registered.
Also tried looking in David Gleason’s Broadcasting and Cable archives, to no avail. Someone else might have better luck; I know they’ve posted syndication ratings there before.
(https://i.ibb.co/kVKSsb4W/IMG-2867.jpg)
-
Damn! These days anything not NFL or Idol would soil themselves for a six.
-
It's oft been mentioned how the five new shows in 1990 all flopped; I believe half were toast by March. Does anyone have concrete ratings data? A Google search was unhelpful.
I never saw any formal ratings, but in my city, most of these shows started out in afternoon or morning time slots, and 13 weeks later, were seen at 2:00am or later. Those "ratings" were all I needed to see.
In mine two were stuck in overnight from the beginning, two were plugged in the morning, and one was in access. The first two were Joker and TTD, the next two were Trump Card and Quiz Kids Challenge (which, oddly enough, replaced Wheel on weekends when WCBS lost it to WABC), and The Challengers was the last.
I wanna say that Trump Card never left its slot, because I do remember seeing it there in the spring of 1991. The Challengers went to the morning at mid season and beyond that, I can’t tell you. Although I’m sure TTD disappeared from WNBC’s lineup when $100,000 Pyramid launched in January (unless they didn’t air the reruns; then again, wasn’t Pyramid initially distributed by the same company as Joker?)
-
It's oft been mentioned how the five new shows in 1990 all flopped; I believe half were toast by March. Does anyone have concrete ratings data? A Google search was unhelpful.
I never saw any formal ratings, but in my city, most of these shows started out in afternoon or morning time slots, and 13 weeks later, were seen at 2:00am or later. Those "ratings" were all I needed to see.
In mine two were stuck in overnight from the beginning, two were plugged in the morning, and one was in access. The first two were Joker and TTD, the next two were Trump Card and Quiz Kids Challenge (which, oddly enough, replaced Wheel on weekends when WCBS lost it to WABC), and The Challengers was the last.
I wanna say that Trump Card never left its slot, because I do remember seeing it there in the spring of 1991. The Challengers went to the morning at mid season and beyond that, I can’t tell you. Although I’m sure TTD disappeared from WNBC’s lineup when $100,000 Pyramid launched in January (unless they didn’t air the reruns; then again, wasn’t Pyramid initially distributed by the same company as Joker?)
Yes it was Orbis distributed the first season of Pyramid and after Orbis shut up shop Multimedia took over.
-
It certainly underlines the popularity of Wheel and J! when the only shows that drew more than second-run episodes were Oprah and TNG
-
There's an ad for Family Feud of all things that discloses the Share #'s for the Rookie Five at launch in the 21-24 metered markets they cleared.
Challengers got an 11 share, Tic Tac Dough a 10, Joker a 9, and Quiz Kids and Trump Card bring up the rear at an 8 share.
There's an article from later in the year that notes that while TTD started off a little stronger, it's numbers quickly fell off a cliff. Based on the fact that Wink-era reruns had been in circulation on USA for the past three years and the show had been fairly popular at it's peak, and thus provided a suitable study for comparison fresh in viewers' minds - and given this version's infamy in the fandom - it's a fair guess why viewers turned against it and why stations seemed eager to dump it and why it was the first to go.
Quiz Kids started anemic and didn't get better - and exited JUST after TTD in December '90. At the time it was noted that none of the five were above 75th place in the ratings in syndication, with Joker generally seen as "potentially salvageable" while Trump Card and The Challengers' numbers were poor but with distributors with deep pockets willing to commit to a full season order (in part hoping to pick up some stations as other shows collapsed). The Challengers' numbers were affected by several significant lost clearances and time slot downgrades compared to launch numbers, while Trump Card started in the basement and stayed there.
Joker was right there with them, however it's explicitly stated in late 1990 that Orbis (who also distributed Joker) was launching $100,000 Pyramid in January '91, and planned to keep Joker going paired with Pyramid where possible in the hopes to salvage the former (or at least provide a few landing places for Pyramid in markets that cleared Joker). When Pyramid debuted and Joker didn't so much as twitch a metter, it was scrapped after February sweeps.
Between a slightly hotter launch (because Pyramid) and managing to pick off a few of Joker's stations, Pyramid did enough to come back in September. (but itself would be out by December).
Trump Card went all the way to May and at least finished the season with Warner's backing, but it was already clear the show wasn't getting a second year.
The Challengers held on through the summer - although exact numbers are scarce beyond "never cracked the top 75 after launch month", it wasn't performing horribly in every market, and once it hit it's floor it seemed to stay there with a small but loyal audience. So Disney ate up the full year's contract, the show kept on until September then everyone promptly moved tf on.
-
As someone who worked copiously with and around those ratings, I can pretty much tell you that I don't recall any week of any of them breaking a 4.0 rating, with the possible exception of Week One of THE CHALLENGERS. JOKER/TIC and QKC were pretty much in the hugh 1s. TRUMP in the low 2s.
As contrast, FEUD was regularly in the high 4s and low-mid 5s; obvs WHEEL and JEOPARDY were double digits.
The use of MM shares were a sure sign that the ratings themselves were awful; again, while I have no records per se I have recall and I played this very game of deception. Use bigger numbers regardless of what they indicate so that at a glance the perception of success to a disgruntled buyer can be conveyed.
-
Thanks to all who provided detailed information. However, based on that, I have a follow-up question:
Was The Challengers promoted as a Jeopardy! killer or as something to build around?
I know KCCI in Central Iowa aired them back-to-back, at least at launch.
-
Thanks to all who provided detailed information. However, based on that, I have a follow-up question:
Was The Challengers promoted as a Jeopardy! killer or as something to build around?
I know KCCI in Central Iowa aired them back-to-back, at least at launch.
I can't speak for what pitch the station managers received, but the promos for the general public focused more on the current events slant. The tagline for the early part of run was "The Best News in Game Shows."
https://youtu.be/EkGyZ5kT4Zk?si=HuYGEAUbntQgs9fQ&t=42
-
Because I couldn't remember when Trump Card aired in my market (Detroit), it was 10:30 AM.
As useless as that is to you, this was my final year in college. My roommate was a big game show fan (this rubbed off on me) and I remember having to do a lot of antenna changing because Detroit would have tons of pre-emptions. For limited funsies:
Trump Card in place of Wheel
Tic Tac Dough in place of Feud
Instant Recall over Let's Make a Deal
Divorce Court over To Tell the Truth
Local News instead of Match Game
My only knowledge of Quiz Kids was Jonathan Price being on Match Game. For whatever reason that did clear at 2 in the afternoon against Love Connection on competing indy stations. To be barely on topic, The Challengers aired at midnight after Nightline
And does anyone remember a show called 'Personalities'? I can't remember a thing about it, but it had a prominent spot on one station's lineup.
(Oh, and if you were into soaps, Santa Barbara was on at 4 in the morning).
Also of note, some obscure show called "The Simpsons" had their second season debut on the day I picked. NBC was airing a new episode of something called "Law and Order."
-
And does anyone remember a show called 'Personalities'? I can't remember a thing about it, but it had a prominent spot on one station's lineup.
Unless you're thinking about the show Personals, which came out in '91???
It was part of the CBS late night lineup, and was a Dating Game-type show hosted by Michael Burger..
-
And does anyone remember a show called 'Personalities'? I can't remember a thing about it, but it had a prominent spot on one station's lineup.
Unless you're thinking about the show Personals, which came out in '91???
Personalities with Charlie Rose was a magazine/interview series he did before his PBS series started which was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it affair.
Back to the game show topic, The Challengers did decent at midnight in Detroit as it got a lot of second shift workers needing something to wind down with. ISTR something about how WXYZ was getting ratings similar to what WDIV got for Jeopardy! at 7:30 PM.
-
Because I couldn't remember when Trump Card aired in my market (Detroit), it was 10:30 AM.
As useless as that is to you, this was my final year in college. My roommate was a big game show fan (this rubbed off on me) and I remember having to do a lot of antenna changing because Detroit would have tons of pre-emptions. For limited funsies:
Trump Card in place of Wheel
Tic Tac Dough in place of Feud
Instant Recall over Let's Make a Deal
Divorce Court over To Tell the Truth
Local News instead of Match Game
My only knowledge of Quiz Kids was Jonathan Price being on Match Game. For whatever reason that did clear at 2 in the afternoon against Love Connection on competing indy stations. To be barely on topic, The Challengers aired at midnight after Nightline
And does anyone remember a show called 'Personalities'? I can't remember a thing about it, but it had a prominent spot on one station's lineup.
(Oh, and if you were into soaps, Santa Barbara was on at 4 in the morning).
Also of note, some obscure show called "The Simpsons" had their second season debut on the day I picked. NBC was airing a new episode of something called "Law and Order."
Didn't TJW'90 start out at 7PM on WJBK?
-
Looks like it. (https://www.newspapers.com/image/100041378/?match=1&terms=joker%27s%20wild)
-
(https://i.ibb.co/kVKSsb4W/IMG-2867.jpg)
It looks like Cosby Show was the top syndicated rerun at the time but it wasn't the far ahead of a couple of other shows. That's one show that really didn't live up to expectations. The 1988 syndication of it was such a big deal - there was even a TVGuide article about how it would be the first rerun to have its episodes fed once a day via satellite - but by the early '90s a lot of stations were already either downgrading its time slot or removing it altogether.
-
Interesting—I wonder if it was saturation where people didn’t want to see the same content so soon after airing and it flamed out.
-
Based on 0 data to back it up, I also feel the Cosby syndication disappointment fueled major network affiliates trying to program 4-6 with anything but talk or news.
-
Based on 0 data to back it up, I also feel the Cosby syndication disappointment fueled major network affiliates trying to program 4-6 with anything but talk or news.
Wasn't Cosby's entry into syndication and clearance by WGN and WWOR which undercut the local stations that cleared them what helped spur the FCC to pass Syndex regulations which led to both of those cases having to make separate Superstation feeds?
-
A few notes on this data:
-- This was year three of the Cosby off-network strip. Most reruns show some ratings erosion after predominantly the same episodes are running in roughly the same time period for four or five cycles.
-- In many cases, the exorbitant license fees they were paying on a weekly basis prevented stations from moving it or even downgrading it, so while to Viacom the contributions to national ratings were still higher than they might have been on a weaker competitor, to the licensor they were not just disappointing they were underperforming expectations.
-- Viacom did a masterful job of creating a false perception that as they did on NBC audiences previously not watching any TV would add to the viewing pool in reruns. They also convinced network affiliates in top 50 markets that the show could improve local news ratings by showing how the NBC episodes were watched by a large proportion of folks who watched early and late local news.
Without getting too deep in the weeds with research detail, suffice to say a show that airs in prime time is that much more likely to have common viewership with something that airs at 6 or 11 than a show that runs in the afternoon--where many of those large market "Big Three" stations were forced to program it as they were enjoined at the time from programming off-network reruns in prime access.
-- Stations like WWOR and WGN which used the show in a fringe/access block as part of a sitcom block strategy saw better returns because more halo effect occurred within the genre vs., say, local news. But, again, at the prices they paid and the fact that they were billed on a weekly basis, making amorization a virtual impossibility, it was a loss leader.
-- The syndex exclusivity issues that were mentioned were not a result of superstation licensing of this show in particular. Viacom was upfront in all of their negotiations that no distant signal blackout would be enforced because they were selling national time and the superstations were crucial to optimizing their own sales efforts. Many station groups didn't bother reading the fine print. Not to brag, but my colleagues at WTTG Washington absolutely did and brought it to our attention. We never ran the show directly against either WWOR or WGN and our results vs. projections were far better than others'.
As many of you have accurately noted, 1990 was an especially tumultuous year in syndication. On top of all of the first-run game show disappointments, there was a flood of other sitcom reruns that hit the market at the same time, most of them being sold by the newly merger Warner Brothers-Lorimar-Telepictures. . IIRC, ALF, PERFECT STRANGERS, HEAD OF THE CLASS and THE HOGAN FAMILY also debuted that fall, and FULL HOUSE, which was perceived as a true winner, was set to follow it the following fall. If you wanted the hit, you often had to take several of the others. (That leveraging strategy was also applied to courtroom shows and TRUMP CARD when necessary).
PERSONALITIES was a compliment to A CURRENT AFFAIR that was also an internal response within FOX to have something somewhat less "tabloidy" and Los Angeles-centric versus what was still being mocked even in success as "the video New York Post". The owned-and-operateds were ordered to at least start it out adjacent to ACA. It was a pale imitation in every sense of the word. Soon after I was let go, the stations were able to point to terrible ratings and quickly went back to comedy lead-in.
I know we've gotten way off topic, but suffice to say yet again this is an example that rich people often did dumb things.
-
Personalities with Charlie Rose was a magazine/interview series he did before his PBS series started which was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it affair.
Yup....He was there for six weeks and left. The show was renamed EDJ (short for Entertainment Daily Journal) in July 1991, but left that airwaves that September.
-
I was fortunately very far away from Fox when EDJ was attempted far too late to matter. I vaguely recall a young Jim Moret hosting it?
-
I was fortunately very far away from Fox when EDJ was attempted far too late to matter. I vaguely recall a young Jim Moret hosting it?
I believe you're right. 'twas he and Janet Zappala if I recall.