Author Topic: Syndicated Dawson Feud question (Read 9940 times)

Vahan_Nisanian · « **on:** September 28, 2013, 02:53:46 PM »

At the beginning of the finale week of the daytime show on the June 10, 1985 episode, Dawson said that they had done 976 Syndicated shows. Exactly how many were there in each of the eight seasons?

jimlangefan · « **Reply #1 on:** September 28, 2013, 06:21:13 PM »

That\'s tough to answer exactly. Those who know or want to take the time to figure it out can do it, lol. Remember at the beginning, the show was only once a week. It expanded as the popularity grew. It started airing 5 days a week with the 1980-1981 season.

snowpeck · « **Reply #2 on:** September 28, 2013, 08:18:35 PM »

Feud was once a week from September 1977 to January 1979, twice a week from January 1979 to September 1980, and five days a week until 1985.

A little quick research shows a reference in Broadcasting Magazine in the NATPE issue from 1979 that seems to indicate 98 episodes had been produced up until that point. 39 episodes for the first season (confirmed in another Broadcasting issue), the original order of 39 for the second season (again, confirmed) and 20 apparent additional episodes when the show went bi-weekly mid-year. Season 3 seems to have been 78 episodes (2x39).

That leaves 800 episodes which, divided by 5, come out to 160 a year for the five stripped seasons. 160 was a relatively common number for a 5-a-week show, and I seem to recall some of the more recent seasons of Feud had that same number of episodes.

Don\'t take any of my calculations for gospel, but they seem pretty reasonable. If anybody can prove me wrong, go for it.

Chelsea Thrasher · « **Reply #3 on:** September 29, 2013, 05:58:24 AM »

Went digging through my archive of GSN schedule PDFs looking for info. Because I\'m bored and have a lot of time to kill at the moment. Some stuff:

Season 1: 39 episodes. All episodes have the year \'77 in the production code. Last show aired IS the 39th show of the season.

Season 2: The last episode GSN aired was number 2-51. The first 24 shows have \'78 in the production code, 26-51 have \'79, and show 25 was skipped. Given the jump to 2x/week in January and that 51 is a weird number to stop at, I\'d have to assume skips at the end, the question is how many. I\'d wager a minimum of 52 shows, and a maximum of 65.

For what it\'s worth, the 98 listed in Broadcasting could easily just be the number of eps being made available for the third season including reruns. That seems to be the convention for other first-run shows, at least. (Ex: TJW and TTD both having 260 available for NATPE \'79 - that\'s clearly the number for the coming year, not number of eps in the can)

Season 3: There\'s a month\'s gap of missing data in the PDFs. The final episode confirmed is 3-74. I dug around the old archived GSN boards, and the fourth season is said to have started on GSN very close to when 3-074 aired, so the season didn\'t extend too far beyond that. 78 definitely my guess here.(39 weeks x 2 eps.) FWIW, the first 58 shows have \'79 in the production number, the rest have \'80.

Season 4: Thanks to the gap in the PDFs, the first show confirmed to have aired on GSN is 4-026. So there were definitely at least a couple skips somewhere early on in S4 as said ep aired just 3 weeks after 3-074. Production year gets dropped from the episode number after show #97. Last show aired is 4-160.

Season 5: Skipped entirely. GSN\'s run jumped from 4-160 to 6-001. If episodes in season 4 after 4-160 were made, they disappeared down the same rabbit hole as season 5.

Season 6: Made it through 6-017 before the show disappeared from the schedule.

(For reference, the production codes for the daytime run all feature the year produced in the beginning, followed by the episode number. The nighttime show used this convention as well for the first few years, but dropped it halfway through the 4th season - hence the mention of years above.)

Bryce L. · « **Reply #4 on:** September 29, 2013, 07:22:46 AM »

Hmm, sort of reminds me of how Dark Shadows\' production codes went (the last show of 1966 was labeled #135-DRK-66; the next one, the first of 1967, was #1-DRK-67)... did other ABC-produced series use similar numbering schemes?

snowpeck · « **Reply #5 on:** September 29, 2013, 04:54:46 PM »

I realized I skipped over mentioning season 3 entirely in my post, though I did factor it in my calculations. (78 episodes, 39x2.) The reason I believe the mention of 98 episodes is the number produced up to that point is the number of episodes mentioned for the other Viacom-distributed shows in that listing. It mentions 230 episodes of TPIR and 150 of $25K Pyramid being available. (http://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/Archive-BC-IDX/79-OCR/BC-1979-03-05-OCR-Page-0047.pdf\'>The page in question)

Thunder · « **Reply #6 on:** September 29, 2013, 05:34:23 PM »

How could a TV station set their lineup for a syndicated show that only produced two episodes per week? Were there other programs that did 3 to balance it out?

Jimmy Owen · « **Reply #7 on:** September 29, 2013, 05:43:02 PM »

How could a TV station set their lineup for a syndicated show that only produced two episodes per week? Were there other programs that did 3 to balance it out?

Stations used to do what was called a \"checkerboard.\" The FCC encouraged stations to have a different first-run show in the 7:30 slot in the top 50 markets. More than two airings of the same show per week was considered a violation of the \"spirit of the rule.\"

snowpeck · « **Reply #8 on:** September 29, 2013, 06:06:23 PM »

How could a TV station set their lineup for a syndicated show that only produced two episodes per week? Were there other programs that did 3 to balance it out?

No, but there were plenty that were once a week. Wasn\'t Hollywood Squares twice a week around the same time?

TLEberle · « **Reply #9 on:** September 29, 2013, 11:30:04 PM »

$25k Pyramid, TPIR, Feud, MG pm, Name That Tune, Hollywood Squres, Jeopardy, High Rollers. You might not be able to fill ten hours on game shows alone, but there were certainly plenty enough that aired once a week to help.

PYLdude · « **Reply #10 on:** September 30, 2013, 01:03:50 AM »

Jeopardy and High Rollers were out of syndication by the time Feud entered, though. Jeopardy stopped at the end of the 74-75 season and High Rollers ended the following, no?

What I find funny is that Match Game PM kept going when the daily syndie series was launched- I had originally thought it was with a reduction in affiliates but that might not have been the case because WABC, which carried it in the checkerboard slot with Hollywood Squares from I believe \'77 until Squares expanded to daily and moved to (I believe) WPIX in \'80, still had the show well into its last year.

I wonder if it caused any confusion in the markets that aired both shows considering one was self contained and the other wasn\'t.

BrandonFG · « **Reply #11 on:** September 30, 2013, 09:08:29 AM »

How could a TV station set their lineup for a syndicated show that only produced two episodes per week? Were there other programs that did 3 to balance it out?

No, but there were plenty that were once a week. Wasn\'t Hollywood Squares twice a week around the same time?

Yes. I believe it went to 2x a week by 1975.

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #12 on:** October 01, 2013, 04:25:01 PM »

How could a TV station set their lineup for a syndicated show that only produced two episodes per week? Were there other programs that did 3 to balance it out?

No, but there were plenty that were once a week. Wasn\'t Hollywood Squares twice a week around the same time?

Yes. I believe it went to 2x a week by 1975.

Actually, Hollywood Squares was twice a week as early as the 1973-74 season, and maybe even \'72-73. Let\'s Make a Deal was another of the \"checkerboard\" shows that was twice a week for most of its run.

For more info about the shows that were seen once (or twice) weekly back then, check out this site:

http://gamesandclassictv.webs.com/checkerboard.htm\'>http://gamesandclassictv.webs.com/checkerboard.htm

Vahan_Nisanian · « **Reply #13 on:** October 02, 2013, 11:06:13 AM »

I read on one of the 1977 issues of Broadcasting Magazine, that Syndicated Feud would launch on all five then-current NBC-O&Os (KNBC, WMAQ, WNBC, WRC, and WKYC). Was September 19, 1977 the launch date for all five of them?

BrandonFG · « **Reply #14 on:** October 02, 2013, 11:26:43 AM »

Have you tried searching the Broadcasting archives on David Gleason\'s site? A quick search for \"Family Feud\" takes you to the mentions over the years, and you can then click on the http://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/Archive-BC-IDX/search.cgi?zoom_sort=0&zoom_xml=0&zoom_query=family+feud&zoom_cat%5B%5D=53&zoom_per_page=10\'>1977 listings. From what I saw on that page, there\'s no mention of a premiere date. I\'ve found articles http://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/Archive-BC-IDX/77-OCR/BC-1977-02-07-OCR-Page-0030.pdf#search=%22family%20feud%22\'>confirming the show http://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/Archive-BC-IDX/77-OCR/BC-1977-02-14-OCR-Page-0032.pdf#search=%22family%20feud%22\'>is going into syndication and http://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/Archive-BC-IDX/77-OCR/BC-1977-03-07-OCR-Page-0013.pdf#search=%22family%20feud%22\'>various http://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/Archive-BC-IDX/77-OCR/BC-1977-08-29-OCR-Page-0034.pdf#search=%22family%20feud%22\'>Viacom ads, but no confirmation of September 19.

Was Feud not bicycled in the early syndication years? Given it was once a week, some markets would\'ve aired it Monday the 19th, while others could\'ve gone with Thursday the 22nd.