[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'250886\' date=\'Nov 13 2010, 02:38 PM\'][quote name=\'MisterBlue\' post=\'250884\' date=\'Nov 13 2010, 01:57 PM\']It's a wonder that this show lasted five years with just over half the country watching it. Have any shows had this kind of longetivity in a slot like that?[/quote]
Jeopardy! One of the situations with NBC in particular was that there was always a midday half hour for stations fill themselves. In the East it was 1pm, 12 central. So a show could be tape-delayed until 1 for Eastern stations while they did a midday newscast. Our NBC affil did this for many years. When "The Gong Show" moved to 4pm in 1977, our station opted to go with Gong at 1p rather than tape delay NTT, and from then on the Noon occupant went uncleared in Sag/Bay City. Eventually, the network fed Days of Our Lives at 1pm, and gave back 4pm to the stations.
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IIRC, when GONG shifted out of 12:30 in January 1977, expanding from 25 minutes to 30, it had a 1PM ET and a 4PM ET feed (that's how the Popsicle Twins made it on the 1PM feed but a rerun was fed at 4PM). Then GONG moved back to 12:30 in late 1977 and only had the one feed.