One look at the Nielsen "Cassandra" syndication ratings on Page 66 (January 12, 1987) and you ask yourself...
How in the world did The Big Spin get up there...and beating Card Sharks and $100,000 Pyramid (given that it was in only nine markets, all of them in California)?!?!
/At least Roy Clark and Buck Owens had .2 more viewers than Geoff Edwards
I'm guessing the same way SEC football ranks with only 19 markets, or the religious programming with five. If I had to put money on it, the shows came from a station group or something similar.
Lottery game shows like The Big Spin (and Ohio’s Cash Explosion, which premiered around the same time as that Cassandra report) were seen on a statewide network of stations, and Big Spin was pretty much popular in Los Angeles and San Francisco, both Top 10 markets then and now.
But then again, the Illinois Lottery’s shows had more
national viewers on WGN anyway.