Network Game Shows Uncleared by Affiliates

[Mario500]

According to old TV listings available to me, WKRG-TV in Mobile, Alabama did not clear "The $25,000 Pyramid", "Child's Play", "Press Your Luck", "Card Sharks", or "Family Feud" when they aired on CBS and aired syndicated programs such as "The Phil Donahue Show" and "Hour Magazine" instead. WJTC-TV, an independent station in Pensacola, Florida, aired "The $25,000 Pyramid", "Card Sharks", and "Family Feud" at their regular network times.

According to my TV listings from March 1987, WKRG-TV aired what was most likely the syndicated version of "Card Sharks" at 3:30 PM, since "Card Sharks" is also listed for WJTC-TV. I would like to be sure about this.

I don't have any listings for 1986, when CBS moved "Press Your Luck" to 3:00 PM Central time, so I don't know if WKRG-TV ever cleared it. Could someone help me with this, too?

 

[harrisburgpatv]

I can't help you with Mobile, but I think it's a very interesting topic nonetheless and I can report on a few channels....

WNEP-TV in Scranton never cleared "Family Feud" once it moved to noon in 1980. They opted for "Cross-Wits" reruns before adding a noon newscast. Even when it moved back to 11:30 in October 1984, WNEP elected to air "Ryan's Hope" at 11:30 instead.

WGAL-TV in Lancaster's last show to clear the noon slot was "Card Sharks" in 1980. They aired "Noonday on 8" at 12:30, but when "The Doctors" moved from 2:00pm to 12:30pm in August 1980, "Noonday" moved to noon, where it remains (nowadays called "News 8 at Noon"). Every NBC noon offering offered hereafter was never cleared.

 

[Mike Stroud]

Oh, man, you could write a whole #*$(%@ book about that phenomenon, particularly beginning in the late 1970s, when Donahue took off all over the country. From that point forward, network daytime went downhill, and now we are about to experience the terminal stages of the patient's decline, the Let's Make a Deal revival notwithstanding.

 

[oldschooler1]

This thread could get quite long!

In Syracuse, ch. 3/WSYR/NBC ran Hollywood Matinee for many years from 1-230; this meant that at least one game show in that slot, Three On A Match, wasn't seen in Syracuse.

The Magnificent Marble Machine was bumped from the lineup when Ch. 3 started doing a noon newscast in 1975.

Ch. 5, WHEN/CBS always ran syndicated/local stuff at 4PM (at least, in my memory of the late 60s and beyond). I never knew CBS ran anything at 4PM (such as Tattletales) until I saw it on WCBS in New York.

Then there was a game show from CBS not cleared by WHEN in the summer of 1975 -- and ch. 9/WNYS/ABC carried it that summer at either 930AM or 10AM. It might have been Spin-Off. I thought that odd. I do remember the run of it ended on a Monday, rather than a Friday, because it was on a one-day tape delay (I wonder if they had the tape driven over from ch. 5, or if ch. 9 recorded it themselves somehow off the CBS "feed"...? Probably the former.)

Without microfilms of schedules at my disposal, I can't get more specific.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

In the latter years of the nets programming the 4/3 slot, any game show
or soap at that time was fair game for pre-emption (or day-behind delay)
as affils increasingly wanted the entire 4/3 hour for themselves.

 

[Tim L]

From the time ABC started a full Daytime Schedule in October 1958-Summer 1964, WEWS-TV 5 Cleveland didnt carry ABC shows at all from 12 Noon-2:30 weekdays..Some of the shows in these slots would be cleared earlier in the morning on tape delay. The long running Captain Penny (12:10-1) and One O Clock Club 1-2:30 were aired locally,,

 

[Corky Marlowe]

Didn't a lot of NBC affiliates opt out of "The Gong Show"?

 

[charlestondxman]

Charleston has had some weird preemptions. I read that TattleTales (a CBS show) aired on WCBD (then ABC) in the mid 1970s. Even in a market like Charleston (above 110 in the early 1980s), they preempted network noon shows for local news.

 

[BobbyNBC10]

For many years until about 1979, WOOD TV Grand Rapids did not clear the 12:30 NBC shows like Eye Guess,The Who,What or Where Game and The Gong Show, but they did air the nighttime Gong Show. Later, 8 did not clear the noon NBC games due to news.

WILX-TV 10 Lansing as many of you may be aware did not clear the NBC game shows of the morning for years because of the shared-time deal with Michigan State U's. WKAR-TV ,when it was then WMSB-TV. But in mid-1970 Channel 10 aired on same-day tape delay Concentration,Hollywood Squares and Jeopardy! from 3-4:30pm daily before Mike Douglas ,but when TV 10 went full time NBC in 9/1972 and WKAR-TV returned on 23, WILX aired all of NBC's games until 1979, when they did not air the last few months of the revival of the Art Fleming Jeopardy! and many other noon game shows like Chain Reaction, the last 1 1/2 years of the Jim Perry Card Sharks and the last 5 months of Password Plus as well as Super Password which was also not cleared by WOOD due to noon news.

Sacramento, KXTV 10 did not air The Price Is Right for a time in 1991 and 92 due to Joan Rivers,but KXTV turned around and axed Guiding Light and Barker and his beauties returned to Sacto. They also did not air Ray Combs Family Feud for a time due to Eight is Enough reruns. KOVR and later KCRA had Combs syndie Feud and KQCA aired Dawson's returned to FF.

KCRA pre-empted many game shows like the first two years of Classic COncentration and the last 18 months of the Jim Perry $ale of The Century. I had to watch CC on KOFY TV 20 Bay Area. KQCA when it was KSCH breifly aired CC when it began plus Wordplay with Tom Kennedy also from NBC.


KOVR pre-empted many game shows from ABC including the Ross Shafer Match Game.

 

[PDXREXX]

In Seattle, I recall KIRO didn't clear Card Sharks and Family Feud and KCPQ Picked it Up
In the Mid 80's

 

[BobbyNBC10]

.


KOVR pre-empted many game shows from ABC including the Ross Shafer Match Game.

I meant to say 11 am game shows and other shows from ABC at 11 in oder to air All My Children on a tape delay. I had to watch Shafer MG on KGO TV ABC7 from the Bay Area.

 

[anotherguyTN]

In Memphis WMC 5 pre-empted most NBC game shows except Wheel of Fortune and replaced them with syndicated talk shows from the late 70's until the early 90's. The station manager at that time was notorious about pre-emptions and delays all through the day, even in prime time, and the more people and even the local newspapers complained the worse he got, almost like he was thumbing his nose at the viewers. WREG 3 in Memphis stayed with most of CBS's daytime schedule except for the 3 PM CT block. WHBQ 13, then with ABC, may have pre-empted some game shows at times, but WBBJ 7 in Jackson, TN and KAIT in Jonesboro, AR were both ABC as well and I could see anything that was dropped in Memphis from one of them.

I agree with Mike Stroud that the decline of network daytime began when stations started pre-empting network shows to carry syndicated talk shows and the networks, especially NBC, let them get away with it. The networks should have put more pressure on stations to keep their daytime lineup, but thay didn't, which is why daytime TV is in such a sorry state today.

 

[mbclev]

In Cleveland, "Body Language" never aired on WJ(K)W-TV during its run from 1984-86.(WJW dropped the "K" from its call letters during this time, in 1985.) Also, when "Press Your Luck" took over "Body Language" 's old 4 P.M. time slot, WJW never aired it.

 

[BobbyNBC10]

The networks ,especially NBC should have penalized the hell out of their affiliates for refusing to air game shows in the late 1970's until the early 1990's. I am glad CBS is the keeper of the daytime game show flame with the new Let's Make A Deal and The Price Is Right. And when As The World Turns leaves the air in September, what will The Big Eye do?. Put another game show on or let the affiliates decide locally?.

I think the reason WMC-Tv Memphis dropped a chunk of NBC games except Wheel , was that they went thru the Peacock letting the original LMAD slide to ABC at Christmas 1968, and several years later, Lin Bolin NBC daytime head under NBC presidents Julian Goodman and Herb Schlosser, axed the original Concentration, the original $ale of The Century and the original Jeopardy! plus Dinah's Place and shook up daytime TV with flashy sets and handsome MC's. At least we got something good like Alex Trebek on Wizard of Odds and then High Rollers and Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford on Wheel before Pat and Vanna. But Lin moved J! to 10:30 am from noon to put on Jackpot with Geoff Edwards. Also, when Dennis James was doing a revival of Name That Tune in 1974 in the mornings with Tom Kennedy doing it at night, because of Dennis doing Nighttime TPIR, James looked into a camera with him earing a polyester suit and said "Jeez, that's awful". And he was right, he was seen to better advantage on Nighttime TPIR, and before that on other games like The Name's The Same plus Kellogg's ads.

After Lin left NBC, she created a game show with host Allen Ludden in 1976 called Stumpers which was nothing more than a retooled Password. This 1976 show did not last long, but would in some respects serve as the inspiration for Password Plus and also a 1978 show called W.E.B. about TV inspired by the 1976 film Network. That show was one of Fred Silverman's flops in his 3 years at NBC.




Now NBC daytime has The Today Show for 4 stinking hours and Days Of Our Lives. CBS has The Early Show, LMAD and TPIR, plus The Young &The Restless , The Bold & The Beautiful and ATWT, ABC has GMA, The View, All My Children, One Life To Live and General Hospital.

 

[hipman2]

San Diego daytime network TV had numerous daytime pre-emptions and tape delays that it's almost impossible for me to keep track of it all.

Note that this is Pacific time.

When KGTV was KOGO and an NBC affilliate, it aired all of NBC's daytime block except the noon-12:30 block (Three on a Match, Let's Make a Deal, etc.) When Days expanded to an hour and NBC's west coast feed for PM shows shifted back 1/2 hour, the 3pm slot (Somerset, which aired at 2:30 PT) was pre-empted by KGTV and was eventually cancelled.

When NBC moved to KCST (now KNSD) in 1977, from memory, it aired Phil Donahue from 9am-10am, pre-empting the first hour of NBC's shows. It ran NBC's shows from 10am-noon, then the local news, then the PM shows 12:30-3pm. It aired Hollywood Squares (a 9:30 show) at 4, then the Gong Show (a 3pm show) at 4:30. As NBC's schedule changed, and Sally Jesse Raphael was added to the 10am-10:30 slot, KCST aired the network Wheel of Fortune at 3pm sometime in 1983-85 or so. I'm not sure when they canceled their local noontime news, which shifted to 11:30 in 1979, then 11am later on.

KFMB channel 8 was notoriously preemptive on the 3-3:30pm slot, with two exceptions. In 1976, it carried Tattletales instead of airing syndicated shows or movies. In 1979, it aired the M*A*S*H reruns (that aired at 3pm on CBS) at 4:30, and here's the funny part, when M*A*S*H went into syndication that fall, KFMB bought the rights and kept it at 4:30, thus no longer airing the 3pm CBS half-hour slot.

ABC on XETV's days: pre-empted All My Children during the entire time (began airing on KCST in c. 1971), and never aired One Life to Live at 3:30 in favor of cartoons. It aired Dark Shadows at 4pm, but once that got cancelled, it began airing General Hospital, another soap it preempted, at 3pm.

In 1973, KCST got the ABC affilliation and aired the entire ABC daytime block in pattern from 11:30-4:30, then in 1974 from 10:30-3:30 when the ABC west coast feed went to an altered pattern that's way too complicated to explain for now. KCST added a noontime newscast in c. 1975 at 11:30, then shifted it to noon later. It preempted some ABC shows. Not sure which ones.

In April of 1977, All My Children expanded to an hour from 12pm-1pm, but KCST aired it on a one-day delay from 12:30-1:30, and bumped Ryan's Hope. In July of that year, KGTV got the ABC affilliation and kept the daytime ABC pattern KCST had except for Edge of Night (a 3pm show) as KGTV aired the news at noon also. Ryan's Hope never aired on KGTV. When One Life to Live and General Hospital took the 1-3pm block, KGTV aired All My Children (still on a one-day delay) from 11am-NOON, then news, then Family Feud (a 11am show) at 12:30. In 1979, KGTV shifted the news to 11:30 and aired the ABC shows (except RH and EON) in pattern.

In the 80s when ABC's early daytime shows were tanking, KGTV did a lot of premptions, sometimes airing "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" at 11am instead of 10am for example. There were so many that I can't keep track of what didn't air, but the Match Game revival of 1990-91 at 11am didn't air on KGTV for sure.

KGTV delayed Port Charles (a 11:30am show) to 1:10am for most of its run. I can't recall if they aired The View briefly at 1:10am before shifting it to 10am shortly afterward.

I remember this in the fall of 1986. KFMB shifted the CBS two-hour morning news block from 6-8am to 7-9am, and its local Sunup show from 8-9 (where it preempted Captain Kangaroo for most of its run, it ran briefly on XETV from 1974-78?), to 9-10am, bumping off the first hour of CBS daytime shows, which shifted over to, oddly, KGTV. It was weird that an ABC affilliate was airing an hour of CBS shows. KGTV ran Eight is Enough reruns from 10am-11am, then Robin Leach's show at 11am, then news at 11:30 in 1986-87.

I believe KCST didn't air the first hour of David Letterman's 90 minute show when it aired from 9-10:30am in 1980. I don't think KCST aired The Doctors when it aired at 11am during its waning days and aired the news instead.

I'm not sure what the local affilliates had against airing some game shows in favor of movies and talk shows. Had to watch them on the L.A. stations. Some were good, but others were better off pre-empted. You be the judge.

There's more. For a while in 1974-75, KFMB preempted Match Game '7x at 2:30-3 so it could air movies, but XETV picked up Match Game for a while. In 1978, XETV briefly aired Edge of Night and Ryan's Hope from 11am-NOON, opposite KGTV's All My Children. Not sure why but that experiment flopped.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

KFMB channel 8...in 1979, it aired the M*A*S*H reruns (that aired at 3pm on CBS) at 4:30, and here's the funny part, when M*A*S*H went into syndication that fall, KFMB bought the rights and kept it at 4:30, thus no longer airing the 3pm CBS half-hour slot.

Being 1979 (and doubtful that KFMB had 35mm projection facilities), when they
went from the CBS daytime delay to syndication at 4:30, they also "downgraded"
from the 35mm film source used by the network to 16mm reduction prints used
in syndication at the time. Of course they did get to sell all six(?) minutes of
commercial time in the rerun episodes.

I can't really remember how good or bad the M*A*S*H reruns looked on its
CBS daytime run--I'd guess average. I can say that in later years syndication
(35mm film-to-tape transfer) either on local stations or cable networks, the
shows haven't looked that hot. If you have the DVDs (I don't), do those now
look somewhat pristine (remastered and all that), or still just OK?

In 1973, KCST got the ABC affilliation and aired the entire ABC daytime block in pattern from 11:30-4:30, then in 1974 from 10:30-3:30 when the ABC west coast feed went to an altered pattern that's way too complicated to explain for now.

Try this still-running thread here on the Classic TV board,
especially replies 6-8 and 10-11:

http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=166624.0

 

[71dude]

In Pittsburgh, KDKA either dropped the 4:00 shows or delayed them until 9 or 9:30 the next morning. They also pre-empted "As the World Turns" until 1990!

WPXI never carried "Super Password" or whatever aired at noon - Channel 22 picked up some of these shows. They aired syndicated shows at 10 as well.

WTAE dumped most of the ABC soaps in the 70's, though "General Hospital" aired delayed by several days at 9:30, even during the Luke and Laura era.

 

[azumanga]

In 1978, XETV briefly aired Edge of Night and Ryan's Hope from 11am-NOON, opposite KGTV's All My Children. Not sure why but that experiment flopped.

Maybe because ABC didn't like that scheduling?

Being 1979 (and doubtful that KFMB had 35mm projection facilities), when they
went from the CBS daytime delay to syndication at 4:30, they also "downgraded"
from the 35mm film source used by the network to 16mm reduction prints used
in syndication at the time. Of course they did get to sell all six(?) minutes of
commercial time in the rerun episodes.

I can't really remember how good or bad the M*A*S*H reruns looked on its
CBS daytime run--I'd guess average.

I would think they look the same as it was in its prime-time run, as they might've used the same master tapes for daytime reruns.

 

[azumanga]

Meanwhile, in the Tampa Bay area, WTVT would generally pre-empt the 10 AM show for the third 30-minutes of Mike Douglas up until that show changed syndicators (and locally, stations, to WTOG) -- it mainly bumped sitcom reruns, though one of the game show casualties was "The Joker's Wild", which, in its CBS run, was bumped to 10:30 AM on Sarasota ABC affiliate WXLT channel 40 (now WWSB). After Mike moved, it started carrying the 10 AM CBS offering and pre-empting the 10:30 show for a syndicated program -- ironically, during the 1983-84 season, WTVT replaced "Child's Play" with... "The Joker's Wild". WTVT would later flop back to 10AM after the Eubanks' "Card Sharks" started, carrying that show live. By 1988, when Combs' "Feud" began, WTVT would clear the entire CBS morning line-up that season -- Feud, Cards and TPIR. In addition, Tampa Bay viewers never saw "Press Your Luck" on CBS, which was seen at 10:30 PM (when "Joker" was on), then moved to 4 PM (when "Hour Magazine" was on).

WTSP generally cleared the 11AM hour schedule from ABC, but would bump the 12 Noon program for news -- at least shows such as "All Star Blitz" and "Match Game 90" were on 40, which cleared all ABC daytime programming.

WFLA usually cleared most NBC game shows except at noon, when they had news, meaning we never saw shows such as "Chain Reaction", "Battlestars" or "Super Password". I think WTMV (WMOR) cleared Password during that show's last season or so, when the station began to drift from MTV clone to a regular indy. In addition, I don't think WFLA carried any part of "The David Letterman Show", opting for "Romper Room" and other syndicated shows instead.

 

[Kurt Toy]

From maybe early summer 1966 to January 1974 then WIIC-11 Pittsburgh [now WPXI] did not carry Fleming-Pardo Jeopardy opting to run a newscast at noon instead, although they briefly delayed it until 1:00 for some months in 1968.