This info regarding Sale of the Century's broadcast history in my area may not be of much general interest, but I am going to share it here since I did the research.
With easy access at work to the newspaper archive, including TV listings, I wanted to see how much Sale of the Century actually aired in my area. Although we regard it as a show that enjoyed a healthy six-year run, I was curious if my hunch that not much of it aired in my area is correct. Via cable, my city had/has two NBC affiliates — WMC (Memphis) and WTVA (Tupelo, Miss.)
One wrinkle here is that the newspaper archive is spotty in the 1980s. For 1983, when Sale premiered in January, the earliest papers available are from June. The TV listings here reveal that Sale was in the 2:30 slot on WMC and nowhere to be found on the WTVA schedule. Based on this and my perusal of listings through '89, I am going to make the assumption that, for whatever reason, WTVA never aired Sale at all.
Jumping ahead to January '84, Sale still holds the 2:30 slot on WMC, while WTVA has the Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour in that slot. (I remember as a kid being really impressed by the huge display wall on MG/HS Hour, so Sale may have lost me to that on some days.)
Later in '84, Sale still has its WMC slot in July, but by September, Scrabble has replaced it at 2:30, and Sale is gone from the schedule, never to return. No local stations carried the syndicated run. So, as far as folks around here knew, Sale of the Century ran from January '83 to mid '84. This fits with my memories, as I only have some vague recollections of seeing the original run of Sale in its early days, including the rainbow buzzers period, while home from school. I know that Sale suffered clearance issues in its later years, but I'm wondering why it got so little love from not just one but two local affiliates while early in its run and enjoying ratings success. I guess that's my question for the board — was Sale this neglected elsewhere?
Scrabble got far more exposure than Sale, appearing on WTVA's schedule as late as '89, when it was part of a surprisingly big block (considering that they rarely did more than a one-hour game block during the '80s) with Wheel; Win, Lose or Draw, and Jeopardy!.
Despite ditching Sale, WMC liked to have a game in that 2:30 slot. In January '86, Scrabble is off their schedule, but Let's Make a Deal sits in the 2:30 slot.
