|
COVER STORY ARCHIVES Ira Skutch, producer of Match Game Natalie Hlavenka of Wheel of Fortune Show Me the Money executive producer Mike Nichols Miguel Ferrer of Celebrity Jeopardy! Tribute to Bud Collyer Geoff Edwards of Treasure Hunt and Jackpot Bob Harris, author of "Prisoner of Trebekistan" Johnny Gilbert, Jeopardy! announcer Bob Goen of That's the Question Ken Jennings, author of "Brainiac" Howie Mandel of Deal or No Deal Pilar Laster of Deal or No Deal Claudia Jordan of Deal or No Deal $1.86 million WWTBAM winner Ed Toutant Network TV's top winner Dr. Kevin Olmstead Kathy Garver of Family Affair Tribute to Mike Douglas Burton Richardson of Family Feud Dylan Lane of Chain Reaction Pat Kiernan of World Series of Pop Culture Author Wesley Hyatt on Emmy-winning game shows Laird MacIntosh of Treasure Hunters Teresa Strasser of How to Get the Guy Ricki Lake of Game Show Marathon Michael Falk, Jeopardy! 2006 Tournament of Champions Winner Is Survivor Slipping? Vanna White of Wheel of Fortune Bob Juch of Millionaire Sheetal Shetty of Deal or No Deal Wink Martindale Did Richard Karn Get the Shaft on Family Feud? Bob Boden, Laura Chambers on Peter Tomarken Bil Dwyer of I've Got a Secret Don Knotts: a TV Legend Leaves Us Robert Purdum: $132,000 Wheel Winner Adam Wade of Musical Chairs Michael Davies: His New Sony Deal Nipsey & Adam: They Were the Pioneers Peter Marshall: 40th anniverary of Hollywood Squares 2005 Player of the Year: Brad Rutter Lin Bolen Betty White Jeopardy! college champion Nico Martinez Deal or No Deal's Scott St. John Harry Friedman, Wheel and Jeopardy! executive producer |
Q: Are the ratings for Power of 10 good because the game is good or because of so much curiosity around Drew Carey? A: This is one of the better questions we've been asked. We would say a little of both. Power of 10 and Drew are multiple examples of how one should not judge a show or an emcee strictly by its premiere. Drew has really settled down since the debut when he was rattling off a few too many one-liners in an attempt to be funny. He still makes his jokes but they're in the context of the game and he has grasped quickly that the contestants need to be the stars of the show. The game is good. The format is sound and requires a sense of the current culture. It's easy for people to guess along at home. Plus, after throwing in an unnecessary sexually-driven question in the premiere (remember Millionaire did the same thing on its opening show in 1999 and backed away from that type of question very quickly), Power has focused on being a family-oriented show. That's only healthy. You aren't going to build a solitary ratings point, despite what some network executives think, by having a batch of sex questions on an 8:00 game show. You'll only succeed in running off families who will watch the show together, even in today's more permissive society. Just remember Let's Make a Deal in 2002 on NBC and I rest my case. Power is not a major hit but has won its time slot five times out of the seven episodes which have aired. It's not exactly blowing through the roof in 18-49 age viewers but it's done well enough to earn strong consideration to be back at midseason. CBS will probably bring it back, if for no other reason than the cross-promotion from Drew on The Price Is Right. Q: I remember Lloyd Thaxton hosting a couple of game shows in the '60s but is it my imagination, or did he host some kind of show like American Bandstand? A: He indeed did. The Lloyd Thaxton Show began as a local show in Los Angeles and went into national syndication in 1964-65 and 1965-66. In most markets, the show aired Saturday afternoons (a few cities with ABC affiliates aired Thaxton right after American Bandstand). Lloyd's two game shows, Everybody's Talking and Funny You Should Ask, were not long-running successes for ABC). He went on to do Showcase '68, which was a summer low, low-budget precursor to American Idol for NBC. The results reflected the budget. Thaxton wasn't seen on national television after that but went on to do other work as a producer. Q: Why doesn't GSN ever air Tic Tac Dough? Seems like it's been ages since I've seen it. A: I'm told two things on that issue by people who are in a position to know. One, it apparently draws an older demographic (although almost all game shows do), or one older than GSN wants to attract....and, two, Sony apparently charges GSN a higher license fee for Tic Tac and Joker's Wild than some of the other comparably aged product. So, part of it is economics. In our view, Tic Tac Dough would be a good replacement for Blockbusters, which GSN is about to rest as a daily half-hour, if for no other reason than it has been so long since it was a Monday-through-Friday offering. But they didn't ask us. Q: Why did CBS stay away from game shows from 1968 to 1972? A: Three words: economics and Fred Silverman. Economics because from the time CBS first purchased the rerun rights to I Love Lucy in 1959 at a bargain price (largely because Desi Arnaz or no one else in television yet recognized the value of repeats), sitcoms which drew good ratings in repeat runs were far more profitable than game shows in the morning. Over the years, CBS bought up rerun rights to many of its most successful comedies with the idea of running them for five to seven years (if they drew good audiences) in daytime and then selling them to local stations through its CBS Films subsidiary after the network run. In 1971, the networks were forced by the Justice Department to sell their syndication companies (CBS Films was sold to Viacom---which now owns CBS, talk about full circle). Very few of the sitcoms were not strong performers in the morning. CBS even spirited away The Real McCoys and My Three Sons away from ABC in no small part because of the rerun packages. The McCoys had a strong five-year run. My Three Sons did not perform as well. The strongest combination for CBS was that of I Love Lucy at 10, The McCoys at 10:30, Andy of Mayberry at 11 and The Dick Van Dyke Show at 11:30. CBS had such a backlog of these shows (ultimately, Candid Camera, The Beverly Hillbillies, Family Affair, The Lucy Show and Gomer Pyle, USMC would all have repeat runs on the network) that Silverman saw no need to develop game shows for the morning. We have stated several times over the last decade that for all of the plaudits Mr. Silverman earned as a prime time programmer (until he became president of NBC in the late '70s), he almost demonstrated a disdain for game shows. When Password was passed in the ratings by The Newlywed Game in early 1967, rather than trying it in another time slot, he forced Mark Goodson into doing a ton of gimmick weeks that ultimately killed the show. He fired Tom Poston from To Tell the Truth in favor of Bert Convy because he thought the younger, though unknown, Convy would bring younger viewers to the show. Poston was all of 45 when he was canned. He sat on The Hollywood Squares for 18 months and didn't use it. Silverman was known in the industry as a significant micromanager and even though he had competent daytime program executives in place, he frequently superseded their decisions. Case in point after he moved to ABC: Tom Kennedy's Break the Bank was beating Guiding Light and The Doctors head-to-head and nine weeks into its run was posting an 8.4 rating, which was strong for 1975. But Silverman was determined to expand One Life to Live and General Hospital to 45 minutes each. So, Break the Bank was summarily scuttled. The prime reason CBS moved back to game shows in 1972, when Bud Grant was hired away from NBC to supervise daytime at CBS, was also economic. The best of the lot of those '60s sitcom repeats had moved into syndication by 1971 and the remaining morning lineup in 1971-72 (The Lucy Show at 10, My Three Sons at 10:30 and Family Affair at 11) performed much weaker than the classic predecessors. By the late sixties, CBS had a dearth of available sitcoms which had enough episodes to strip in the morning. So, the games began again on CBS. Ironically, both of Lucille Ball's succeeding sitcoms after I Love Lucy were miserable performers in syndication. My Three Sons was held out of the syndication market until 1977 and never performed well. Family Affair, candidly, laid an egg for both syndication and cable. Q: When Merv Griffin died, I thought I remembered him seriously considering taking over as host of Wheel of Fortune in the late '80s. Was that true? A: That rumor had a lot of traction in the media. Entertainment Tonight fueled it. Merv denied it in every interview but couldn't stop the speculation. This was when Pat Sajak left daytime Wheel in order to do The Pat Sajak Show for CBS late-night. What we've been told actually happened: NBC approached Merv to take it over because the ratings for daytime Wheel were flagging and some of the network's daytime executives felt he was more of a name to take over the show than anyone they could audition. Merv said no. He was nearing 65 at the time and was heavily into his hotel/casino interests and did not want to devote the time to host a daily game show (though we'll guarantee he would have been superb). This was the transition that came down to a final two of then-ESPN sportscaster Tim Brando, who now works for CBS Sports and Sporting News Radio, and former San Diego Chargers kicker Rolf Benirschke. In our view, Brando---who was 33 at the time---would have been terrific (and he still would be if CBS develops another game show and gets off this kick of hiring standup comedians as hosts). For whatever reason, Benirschke---one of the nicest guys from pro sports---got the nod. Whatever impressed NBC and Merv never surfaced on the air. Benirschke, in the 2004 E! documentary on Wheel, good-naturedly admitted he was out of his league as a game show host and has summarily put the experience behind him. After a short period, CBS picked up daytime Wheel from NBC and the network was not interested in Benirschke coming along. The rumors of Merv becoming the host resurfaced. Merv was asked by Harry Smith on CBS This Morning if he was going to become the Wheel emcee. Again, he said no. CBS had its up-and-comer Bob Goen waiting in the wings and he was hired. Q: Why haven't reruns of Concentration ever been shown on GSN? A: That's a complicated issue. Game Show Network definitely wanted Concentration back in 1994 because some of the Hugh Downs episodes were repeated in a limited number of markets for a short period. USA Network bought the rights to air reruns of Classic Concentration with Alex Trebek in the mid-'90s after Game Show Network was already on cable. The Jack Narz version from the '70s (as well as the Classic version) was distributed by Jim Victory, a Florida-based syndicator who also sold Match Game P.M.. Here's where the complications set in: NBC actually still owns Concentration, which it obtained when it bought out the assets of Jack Barry and Dan Enright at the height of the quiz scandals in the late 1950s. When Goodson-Todman produced its two versions of Concentration, the format and name were merely licensed to Mark Goodson by NBC (as the only game show format Goodson-Todman ever produced which the company did not develop itself). We were told by an executive of GSN in early 1995 that NBC, for unexplained and puzzling reasons, refused to allow any version of Concentration to be released in reruns and was not going to allow any further distribution of Classic Concentration after its USA Network run ended. What's puzzling about why NBC would take that stance is the network has never developed a new version of the format in the 15 years since it left television. That's also a sore spot with Jack Narz. Jack told us a few years ago that Jim Victory was sitting on the five years of the '70s Concentration. He didn't realize at the time that NBC, which has the right to do so, would not allow Victory to sell those episodes. Too bad. That would have been the most lucrative payoff for reruns Jack would have had. Concentration was his longest-running game show.   Miss Francis' gowns by Bonwit Teller © Copyright 2006 TVgameshows.net. All Rights Reserved. |
 to TVgameshows.net |