Did NBC make a big mistake...

[danderson]

In canceling "Match Game" in 1969 for the soap "Somerset"? I know, i'm forgetting "Letters to Laugh-In" but...to me NBC really wanted to spin off the characters Sam and Lahoma Lucas, and Missy Matthews, from "Another World," and move them to a town about an hour's drive from Bay City, and in order to do so, canceled "MG" rather than lose "Bright Promise."

[JakeT]

In canceling "Match Game" in 1969 for the soap "Somerset"? I know, i'm forgetting "Letters to Laugh-In" but...to me NBC really wanted to spin off the characters Sam and Lahoma Lucas, and Missy Matthews, from "Another World," and move them to a town about an hour's drive from Bay City, and in order to do so, canceled "MG" rather than lose "Bright Promise."

Or did NBC do everyone, especially CBS, a favor by cancelling "The Match Game" because, without the cooling-off period for what had become a rather stale format at that point, the 1973 revival would have never happened...

In 1969, game shows in general were dead men walking..."Somerset" or not, the days were numbered for "The Match Game"...

JakeT

[JakeT]

Btw, why are you suggesting "The Match Game" was cancelled for "Somerset"?

"The Match Game" ended in September, 1969..."Somerset" didn't premiere until March, 1970...

In fact, wasn't "Bright Promise" MG's replacement, not "Somerset"?

JakeT

[danderson]

I thought "Bright Promise" replaced "You Don't Say"?

[WarioBarker]

It did.

As for The Match Game, it was replaced by Letters To Laugh-In, then Namedroppers (moving from 12:30), then Somerset.

(Source: Game Shows '75, via Internet Archive.)

In 1969, game shows in general were dead men walking...

Eh? 1969 saw NBC debut Sale of the Century, The Who What or Where Game, and (through syndication) It's Your Bet, all of which had long runs.

[danderson]

In canceling "Match Game" in 1969 for the soap "Somerset"? I know, i'm forgetting "Letters to Laugh-In" but...to me NBC really wanted to spin off the characters Sam and Lahoma Lucas, and Missy Matthews, from "Another World," and move them to a town about an hour's drive from Bay City, and in order to do so, canceled "MG" rather than lose "Bright Promise."

Or did NBC do everyone, especially CBS, a favor by cancelling "The Match Game" because, without the cooling-off period for what had become a rather stale format at that point, the 1973 revival would have never happened...

In 1969, game shows in general were dead men walking..."Somerset" or not, the days were numbered for "The Match Game"...

JakeT

One of the reasons why MG was canceled, at least in part, was due to the popularity of "Dark Shadows," which it competed against at 4:00/3:00 CT. If anything, "Somerset" finally did in "DS" and ABC replaced it with- you guess it, "Password", which did cause ratings damage to "Somerset." Also, "Dark Shadows" was gaining in clearances at ABC-a lot of stations were realizing that DS was a big hit.

[JakeT]

Forgive my lack of knowledge on what was in which time slot (my recollection for that stuff is fuzzy at best)...I just knew that "Somerset" came months after the cancellation of TMG so I knew it wasn't the reason for its demise...

JakeT

[Bryce L.]

I'd always heard that DS did itself in, with the "Leviathan" plot in 1970, and the "1841 Parallel Time" story from the last two-months-and-change in 1971.

[aaron sica]

I'd always heard that DS did itself in, with the "Leviathan" plot in 1970, and the "1841 Parallel Time" story from the last two-months-and-change in 1971.

I've heard the same thing. The 1897 storyline was what sent the ratings high; and to try to continue that high, they followed it up with the Leviathan storyline to which the ratings fell and never recovered.

[tyshaun1]

You could argue that a better question would be did NBC make a mistake cancelling Password Plus, Blockbusters, and Battlestars to try to save The Doctors and Texas? Both soaps were seriously flagging in the ratings by 1982 and the 3 games were holding their own by NBC standards. They did revive all 3 over the following years, to mixed results.

[danderson]

YDS became quite popular, ranking among the top three game shows for five straight years, including #1 in the 1966-67 season. I believe that Another World(soap) was also popular, because my grandmom used to watch both back-to-back then. It amazes me then, that she watched Days of Our Lives, The Doctors, Another World, and You Don't Say in that order.

[Bob Zager]

At first, the two soaps were referred to as "Another World (in Bay City,)" and "Another World (in Somerset.)"  Eventually, the latter was titled simply "Somerset."

[RMF]

In 1969, game shows in general were dead men walking...

Eh? 1969 saw NBC debut Sale of the Century, The Who What or Where Game, and (through syndication) It's Your Bet, all of which had long runs.

During that same period of time, though, CBS had completely left the game show field, ABC cut its game show commitments in daytime down to the Deal/Dating/Newlywed trifecta and was starting to curtail its airing of prime-time game shows, and even NBC (which had been more committed to daytime game shows than the other two networks) went between the summers of 1969 and 1970 from airing nine game shows in daytime to five. The fact that a couple of the shows NBC did pick up ran for a while doesn't mean that the genre wasn't in trouble.

[danderson]

You could argue that a better question would be did NBC make a mistake cancelling Password Plus, Blockbusters, and Battlestars to try to save The Doctors and Texas? Both soaps were seriously flagging in the ratings by 1982 and the 3 games were holding their own by NBC standards. They did revive all 3 over the following years, to mixed results.

I'd say they did, The Doctors and Texas did just as poorly as the game shows did. That gave NBC an idea: bring back game shows in the morning. That worked out fine in the end, didn't it? Over time, The Doctors was replaced by Sale of The Century, and Texas was replaced by Wheel(moving back to 11am) and Scrabble, both with long runs

[byrd62]

But would some have said NBC made a big mistake in 1968 when they let Monty Hall and Let's Make a Deal jump to ABC, which made them a better offer that included a guaranteed primetime run (1969-71)?