The future of GSN

[Eric Paddon]

I think Sonny And Cher was aired cut-down to a half-hour.    But E! aired full-length versions of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the mid-90s.

There was also a time when you could get ANY full-length extant Tonight Show from the Carson vault, from 1969 on for $100 per show with commercials etc. but once these shows hit the trade circuit, Carson and his nephew shut down the access sadly.    Now, the only purpose the Carson vault with hours upon hours of classic TV cut off from those who could actually appreciate it because of the cheapskate mentality of Carson's nephew serves is for documentary film makers to pay thousands for clips, or for Carson's nephew to repackage the same old same old set of boring quick clips and overused animal segments for the umpteenth time on DVD (complete with music replacement).

[Jimmy Owen]

I've seen the Carson clip shows on the Reelz channel recently. Monday at noon will be the next airing according to my on-screen guide.

[rwalker]

[quote name=\'Eric Paddon\' post=\'223779\' date=\'Aug 22 2009, 05:26 PM\']The only hope I think we as collectors have for seeing the classics and the wonderful obscurities become available to us again is if (1) the cost of digitizing decreases with new technologies and (2) they are made available in some kind of on-line viewing format that would allow for downloading perhaps so that the people who *really* want this stuff have the ability to get it.

But I honestly don't foresee that kind of technological capability existing for a couple decades at minimum if ever.    

In the meantime, I have to admit I'm at a stage of life where with over 6500 game show episodes in my collection, the time has come for me to stop thinking about what else I can acquire that I don't have and to just be more concerned with preserving what I have long-term through conversion of the tapes to DVD and to come up with a neater structure of organization that will let me enjoy these classics again and again with greater ease.       As far as new gems emerging, I'm through looking to cable venues and feel the only hope lies in more people emerging with their own personally recorded copies of "lost" shows from the late 70s because they were contestants (as was the case with two February 1978 Pyramids I got hold of).[/quote]

Hulu and Marshall Squares is a good sign of this. GSN and their fancast page could be a place to do this, if they had a clue on what viewers want to see. Today's schedule change is a bad sign of what GSN thinks, and misses the target by a mile.