Dinah/Merv/Mike and the 60/90 minute programs

[harrisburgpatv]

I've always been curious......Shows like Dinah, Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas at one point at the option of a 60 or 90 minute show......What was cut out of a 90 minute show to trim it down to 60?

 

[bpatrick]

Merv did a separate close at the end of the first hour,
so viewers saw just the guests who had been on up
to that point. Mike used one close for all stations,
so there would be guests at the end that those who
got him for only an hour didn't get to see. Don't know
about Dinah.

Dick Cavett, when he was on ABC in the mornings
in 1968, did two separate openings, one for the 90-
minute stations at 10:30 AM (ET), and an abbreviated
one at 11 AM because some stations didn't come in
until then.

 

[cd637299]

^ In the case of Mike, that would seem kinda awkward, wouldn't it? I'd imagine TV stations flooded with phone calls of "We didn't get to see THOSE guests!" I wonder how the stations handled the calls.

cd

PS Even the CBS & syndicated 60-minute "Family Feud" had 30-minute versions for stations who didn't want to carry all 60....this was bizarre, too, because I believe the host would say "The [name] Family won the first half" of which some didn't get to watch!

Good thread. All these talkers in Miami were 90 minute shows.

 

[Bluenoser]

And in the 90s, there was something similar with Sally Jessy Raphael, which ran for an hour in some markets and 30 min in others...

 

[cd637299]

^ I didn't know that about Sally, but I suppose then that the :30 break was definitely a hard break, and I figure that Sally had to get-to-the-point at :30, no matter how serious a subject, right? I was never a big viewer.

I wonder which breaks were hard or soft on Merv/Mike/Dinah....maybe hard at each :30.

cd

 

[skippercollector]

Cincinnati stations ran Merv and Dinah for 90 minutes, but Mike was always only 60 minutes, even on the Dayton stations. I discovered that the station out of Indianapolis ran Mike for 90 minutes. SOME times I could pick up the Indy station if I were lucky. I think that usually it was the musical guests that were interviewed in that third half hour.

 

[Legend City]

Nothing approaches the surreality of when Tony Clifton was Dinah's co-host.

Of course, Tony was the alter ego of Andy Kauffman (or WAS he?).

A lounge act singer in a bad polyester suit who treated everyone like crap.

Dinah never knew what hit her.

 

[cd637299]

Nothing approaches the surreality of when Tony Clifton was Dinah's co-host.

Of course, Tony was the alter ego of Andy Kauffman (or WAS he?).

A lounge act singer in a bad polyester suit who treated everyone like crap.

Dinah never knew what hit her.

I prefer Bobby "How AAAAHHH ya?" Bittman of SCTV......

cd

 

[harrisburgpatv]

PS Even the CBS & syndicated 60-minute "Family Feud" had 30-minute versions for stations who didn't want to carry all 60....this was bizarre, too, because I believe the host would say "The [name] Family won the first half" of which some didn't get to watch!

I'm not sure about the syndicated 60-minute one, but I know the CBS one definitely was designed to only be a half-hour if necessary, with the one being shown being the last half hour. At least one station that I know of did that - WHP-21 out of Harrisburg ran the second half of "Family Feud Challenge" at noon, right after Price is Right, and IIRC, no mention of that first half hour was made.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

For a few months in 1978, NBC broadcast "America Alive", a live hour-long talk show from 12 Noon to 1 P.M. EDT/EST.

Because of it's time slot, many NBC stations (including WJAR-10 in Providence) only took the second half-hour of the show since they were running local news at 12 Noon ET.

 

[harrisburgpatv]

On the flip side, WGAL in Lancaster took the *first* half hour - their "Noonday on 8" program, as it was known then, aired at 12:30.