My initial reaction was Mark L. too, for the same reason.  I think Mark L. started gaining legitimacy was with Russian Roulette.

Graham Elwood too.  Strip Poker?  Meh.  Cram?  Much better.

Quote from: steveleb on September 03, 2025, 07:01:38 PM

The decline in ratings was accelerated by the decline in coverage; as I believe most astute followers here now realize every market where a show was pre-emoted was effectively a zero rating toward that overall number.   But even if the early Letterman numbers were more encouraging there’s no guarantee that those coverage numbers would have been markedly different. 

Although I would say that some markets bought into the curiosity factor initially.  I think of markets like Detroit and Philadelphia, which generally didn't clear whatever NBC offered at 10AM (although Philadelphia was clearing CS for a brief time in late 1979-1980, but not for most of the series), but did clear Dave at first but dumped it within a few months.

Speaking of CS, it still is a curiosity to me that between the cancellation of Fleming J! in 1975 and the debut of SP in 1984, it was the only NBC show to survive more than a year consecutively in the 12N slot (P+ logged about a year or so at 12N, but in a couple of different runs).

NBC affiliate relations did offer incentives to their better larger market stations for efforts they considered important, often in the form of more favorable terms and increased leniency on other shows--all the more necessary given their solid third place ranking overall and the fact they only contolled five stations at the time and two of them (Washington and Cleveland) were in more modest-sized markets than their competitors'.  Given the fact that WDIV at the time was the Tigers' station, and that KY was part of a more aggressive Group W, I'm certain they extracted more than a few of those MFN considerations in exchange for giving Dave a somewhat more optimal launch.

Speaking of CS, it still is a curiosity to me that between the cancellation of Fleming J! in 1975 and the debut of SP in 1984, it was the only NBC show to survive more than a year consecutively in the 12N slot (P+ logged about a year or so at 12N, but in a couple of different runs).

Jackpot survived for over a year a half in the noon timeslot as well.  Fleming J! was moved to the mornings to make way for it.

The ratings data spanning August 4-October 24 (essentially, the entire window when the show was 60 minutes instead of 90) has him averaging a 2.3 rating and a 12 share. One odd tidbit was that from the beginning, the show was broken into 30 minute fragments--they played the theme music at the start of every half hour. At the end, Dave had 83% clearance for the first half-hour and 82% clearance for the second half-hour. (When the show was 90 minutes, the clearances were 88/90/92%.)

The decline in ratings was accelerated by the decline in coverage; as I believe most astute followers here now realize every market where a show was pre-emoted was effectively a zero rating toward that overall number.   But even if the early Letterman numbers were more encouraging there’s no guarantee that those coverage numbers would have been markedly different.  1980 was an especially crowded syndication marketplace where new shows were debuting and older ones weren’t quite fully gone.  This was especially true with talk shoes, where both Mike Douglas and Dinah! still were producing new episodes when John Davidson and Toni Tennille, among others, were debuting.  The marketplace being what it was, lower-rated stations had jumped on those bandwagons long before Dave and had already earmarked fall time slots for those efforts.  So let’s just say the daytime show had the deck stacked against it from the get-go. 

As far as the soaps being given preferential treatment, remember that the P and G shows brought with them large advertiser commitments to the entire schedule, even the lower-rated and lesser-cleared game shows in more vulnerable time slots.  And yes, their demographic skew was slightly younger.  Made the bar for a game to be deemed a success all the higher.

By request, because a lot of you knew I had a bunch, I have now posted my bound volumes of TV Guide Magazines on the super-secret hidden page.  I'm down to my last dozen or so, and I sure would like them to find a nice home.  I've been selling them pretty easily on Ebay for more than I'm asking here, but I'm starting to find that tedious and I have a ton of nonsense to go through in anticipation of our move.

https://ivegotasecret.nicepage.io/Games.html