Author Topic: CBS Cancels Guiding Light (Read 42881 times)

colonial · « **Reply #105 on:** April 02, 2009, 12:35:29 PM »

IIRC, CBS essentially forced affiliates to air The Early Show in its entirety 2-3 years ago (some affiliates opted not to air the show, or just an hour of it, in favor of local newscasts, infomercials or religious shows). It was said that some affiliate groups were not amused with CBS's demand, and I could see them raising a bigger stink if the Eye demanded to give a third hour of the day to the show.

Even though ratings have improved somewhat for the show in the last 12-18 months, it is still a distant third behind Today and GMA. Also, you would have to deal with giving the 3p slot back to the affiliates in exchange for the affiliates giving the 9a hour back, and I doubt some affiliates would be willing to do that.

JD

Neumms · « **Reply #106 on:** April 02, 2009, 12:57:15 PM »

[quote name=\'colonial\' post=\'211862\' date=\'Apr 2 2009, 11:35 AM\']
Even though ratings have improved somewhat for the show in the last 12-18 months, it is still a distant third behind Today and GMA.
[/quote]

Right. The CBS News source doesn't sound as if "The Early Show" idea is top of mind: "'We're ready if they need us to produce a show."

If it was going to the news division, I'd wonder if it would be a brand new show for the Chenbot herself.

Or CBS frees up the "Guiding Light" hour as an inducement to get affiliates to clear Katie Couric for a whole hour. With local news on CBS affils doing lousy ratings, maybe the stars align and a network news hour finally happens.

Neumms · « **Reply #107 on:** April 02, 2009, 01:12:27 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'211861\' date=\'Apr 2 2009, 11:34 AM\']
Also I was trying to come up with a format that played three games in an hour, like Jay suggested, specifically to avoid that "rushed" issue.
[/quote]

Yeah, but only three end games in an hour? That would suck. Maybe the top winners of the day come back to play for $30K at the end, no front game (except for a tie breaker).

Or you play two 30-second rounds instead of three in the front game. Or one 60-second round. Or stick with 6 in 20 seconds. But they can't cheat us out of a winners' circle.

tvwxman · « **Reply #108 on:** April 02, 2009, 01:39:27 PM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'211861\' date=\'Apr 2 2009, 12:34 PM\']
Yes, if I had my druthers, it would be a two half-hour double-pump with two games per show. Also the desks would be made of chocolate fudge and Dick would make a miracle recovery so he could helm it.
[/quote]

I'd just settle for Dick, but the fudge clinches it - I'd watch.

The above line has never been typed on the intranets, has it?

aaron sica · « **Reply #109 on:** April 02, 2009, 01:44:33 PM »

Funny what a little 1-hour timeslot vacated by a long-running soap can do - this is the most active thread I've seen in a while.

A new "Pyramid" would be quite cool as well....I did get to thinking, yesterday, though (just for discussion's sake), a cheap solution would be not only re-purposing of CBS shows (as previously mentioned), but something else. The oft-used "sitcom rerun", which pretty much ended in the early '90s...Which CBS sitcoms haven't hit that magical 100 episode/4-season minimum for syndication yet?

Jimmy Owen · « **Reply #110 on:** April 02, 2009, 01:55:33 PM »

Would it be too much of a radical departure if they did two front games before going to the end game? Players would switch partners at the end of the first front game. In an even more radical departure, the winning player would be charged with the task of giving clues to both celebrities in the Winner's Circle, either at the same time or alternating. That would solve the timing problem and the bad celebrity problem, so you'd get four front games and two end games an hour.

geno57 · « **Reply #111 on:** April 02, 2009, 02:34:44 PM »

[quote name=\'tvwxman\' post=\'211873\' date=\'Apr 2 2009, 12:39 PM\']

I'd just settle for Dick, but the fudge clinches it - I'd watch.

The above line has never been typed on the intranets, has it?
[/quote]

You'd be surprised...

clemon79 · « **Reply #112 on:** April 02, 2009, 02:45:00 PM »

[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'211869\' date=\'Apr 2 2009, 10:12 AM\']
Yeah, but only three end games in an hour? That would suck.[/quote]
If you want four, in this TV climate of more ad time than the '80s, you're getting a show with the breakneck pace and no soul whatsoever of Donnymid.

Quote

Or you play two 30-second rounds instead of three in the front game.

"From Television City in Hollywood, THIS is The New $25,000 Rhombus!"

Quote

Or one 60-second round.

Now you're just being silly.

Quote

Or stick with 6 in 20 seconds.

No, this sucked and is precisely what we are trying to avoid.

Quote

But they can't cheat us out of a winners' circle.

If they give me back my Pyramid done right, I assure you, they absolutely can.

chris319 · « **Reply #113 on:** April 02, 2009, 03:06:32 PM »

[quote name=\'Neumms\' post=\'211851\' date=\'Apr 2 2009, 09:12 AM\']
[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'211834\' date=\'Apr 2 2009, 03:20 AM\']
[quote name=\'CarShark\' post=\'211817\' date=\'Apr 1 2009, 08:57 PM\']
[quote name=\'chris319\' post=\'211796\' date=\'Apr 1 2009, 10:09 PM\']If they gave that hour away they would never get it back. The networks have basically shut themselves out of daytime for good in those time slots they released to the affiliates.
[/quote]Why did they give them away, then? Was programming daytime shows that much of a hassle that it wasn't worth it?[/quote]
I'm not sure. Part of it may have been that affiliates wanted to fill the time with barter syndication shows.
[/quote]

Wasn't the issue that affiliates simply weren't clearing the shows? CBS didn't "give back" the Body Language/Tattletales time slot until they couldn't get enough stations to run what they were feeding.
[/quote]
That's entirely possible.

calliaume · « **Reply #114 on:** April 02, 2009, 03:28:43 PM »

[quote name=\'aaron sica\' post=\'211874\' date=\'Apr 2 2009, 12:44 PM\']
Funny what a little 1-hour timeslot vacated by a long-running soap can do - this is the most active thread I've seen in a while.
[/quote]
What a good point. Mostly because this is the first time since the internets began that we've talked about a network daytime game show launch that actually has a chance of happening.

I think Neumms is right -- CBS threw in the towel on the 4 PM slot (12 noon in some markets) after PYL failed to do business there; they must have figured it was the slot and not the programming. That was nearly two years after ABC gave that slot back to the affiliates, and almost a decade after NBC stopped programming there (they started programming 1 PM instead, which they hadn't done in years). By that time, Donahue, Oprah, and the enlarging of local news (or pushing it a half-hour earlier, to open up the 7:00 PM slot) had become fashionable.

I don't see any logic in making "The Early Show" any longer. "We've had the least popular early-morning news program for over 30 years, so let's make it bigger" isn't gonna fly.

No one's ever going to do this, but I'd love to see what would happen if some smaller-market station dared to program Pyramid and TPIR from, say, 3 to 5 PM rather than 10 AM to 12. I don't see the sense in having two or three court shows battling each other to death in that slot.

joker316 · « **Reply #115 on:** April 02, 2009, 03:34:27 PM »

But what is to stop CBS from moving TPIR to 3 pm and slotting the extra Early Show hour, similar to NBC and the Today show 4 hour marathon? As much as I want a new Pyramid, I fear this is the direction they might take. Then some affilliates won't clear TPIR after a while and it disappears too.

/then we can have another hour of the Chenbot.

BrandonFG · « **Reply #116 on:** April 02, 2009, 03:41:59 PM »

[quote name=\'joker316\' post=\'211887\' date=\'Apr 2 2009, 03:34 PM\']
But what is to stop CBS from moving TPIR to 3 pm and slotting the extra Early Show hour, similar to NBC and the Today show 4 hour marathon? As much as I want a new Pyramid, I fear this is the direction they might take. Then some affilliates won't clear TPIR after a while and it disappears too.
[/quote]
I don't quite know the logistics of programming, but I have a feeling that a lot of CBS affiliates still do well with TPiR as a lead-in to their noon (or 11am) newscasts. I'd like to think they'd raise all kinds of hell if CBS told them to move Price, which still holds it own at 11/10c.

But again, all ex rectum.

aaron sica · « **Reply #117 on:** April 02, 2009, 03:45:35 PM »

I tend to agree with Curt - let's face it, when you talk morning shows (news/talk shows...not Captain Kangaroo), CBS has never had a hit. Remember "The Morning Program"? I'd rather forget it. I don't think Early Show will expand to a third hour when it's already a distant-third in the morning race. "Today" had good reason to go FOUR hours, it gets the ratings.

aaron sica · « **Reply #118 on:** April 02, 2009, 03:47:20 PM »

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'211888\' date=\'Apr 2 2009, 03:41 PM\']
I don't quite know the logistics of programming, but I have a feeling that a lot of CBS affiliates still do well with TPiR as a lead-in. I'd like to think they'd raise all kinds of hell if CBS told them to move Price, which still holds it own at 11/10c.

But again, all ex rectum.
[/quote]

The cancellation of GL will be the first modification to the CBS daytime schedule in 22 1/2 years (16, if you count giving the 10-11am hour back to affiliates). I can't imagine they would shake anything else up, either.

tpirfan28 · « **Reply #119 on:** April 02, 2009, 03:48:29 PM »

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' post=\'211888\' date=\'Apr 2 2009, 03:41 PM\']
I don't quite know the logistics of programming, but I have a feeling that a lot of CBS affiliates still do well with TPiR as a lead-in. I'd like to think they'd raise all kinds of hell if CBS told them to move Price, which still holds it own at 11/10c. [/quote]
In addition: try convincing the general demographic of people TPIR seems to get nowadays* that their show now airs at 3. That just doesn't look like a pretty sight.

*and you know I'm not talking about us.

/Mass boycott of The Scooter Store, Liberty Medical and that Sonicearz thing?