[quote name=\'JasonA1\' post=\'119198\' date=\'May 23 2006, 12:03 PM\']
I know you're looking for concrete answers, but I'm making an educated guess in saying shopping was dumped because nighttime went without it for 2 years and obviously fans weren't alienated by that fact. Looked mighty cheap to flip from Wheel at 7:30 at night where thousands in cash was thrown about to Wheel in the daytime for T-Fal cookware and overpriced secretary units. Of course, they couldn't afford to give away as much cash as they did at night, hence the amounts we saw. Which in the process might've made them look even cheaper than they did before. Hmm.
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That was sort of the route I was taking with how that came about. Thankfully, by the end of NBC run, all of the $50 and $75 spaces had been decimated and nicer prizes then a $916 mountain trip or something like that were being offered during the game.
My thought process with CBS and NBC was that Wheel was doing very well in daytime (didn't know it was #2 though), up until Pat left. When Rolf took over, I figured their ratings must have started to plummet, and NBC decided to drop them. Thus, CBS, seeing what might be a golden opportunity, brought Bob Goen in, revamped the daytime rules to resemble the syndicated version's, and brought Pat in on the first episode to hopefully get some people to his failing talk show. Then, possibly, after some time, the ratings started to go down again, so CBS was planning on dropping them, and NBC saw a chance to maybe get one of their trademark shows back, and hopefully turn the ratings around in the process, which didn't happen. Who knows?
I did know about that whole champion thing too, and thought that was awkward as well. It was almost as if the two networks were working together to try to keep the show from going off daytime TV, lol.
