[quote name=\'The Ol' Guy\' date=\'Dec 18 2003, 11:48 AM\']Zach and others probably hit the nail on the head concerning cable shows - sheer cable economics. As far as Bumper Stumpers goes, wasn't that also a co-production of Canada's Global Television Network? It may have done well enough in Canada to earn the run it had - and if USA was having someone else helping to pay the freight for fresh shows, why not keep running it? At least it kept us from getting a replacement like Celebrity Quicksilver.....[/quote]
That's basically why most USA original game shows had decent runs--until "Quicksilver" and "Free-4-All" came along, they were all Canadian co-productions and did well enough up there to continue. On the other hand, USA's involvement was probably also a factor that kept their Canadian runs going.
Produced-in-Vancouver "Loves Me Loves Me Not" was the exception, of course.
And in cable, I tend to go by episode count or number of series produced as a gauge of success, since shows can be rerun ad infinitum. By those standards, "Bumper Stumpers" and the Bob Stewart shows on USA (and "Figure It Out" over on Nick, since that was mentioned) all had at least a respectable number of episodes made, thereby making them successful by cable standards.