Two Sale of the Century inquiries

[BrandonFG]

Something that occurred to me: does anyone know of any other game shows that were still bicycled by 1985-86 or later? I had figured that by that late date more shows would be moving to satellite transmission; I recall reading somewhere that the Griffin shows had done so.

Re Griffin shows - I'm pretty sure that Wheel of Fortune was bicycled in its first year (1983-84).  The Buffalo and Rochester stations were two weeks out of sync the whole season.  When the second nighttime season started in Sept 1984, those two stations were now running the exact same episode, as was a Toronto station that also picked it up that year.

I think J! as well. I’ve seen convincing premiere dates for both shows, with various cities claiming to have gotten the first episode at varying points in September.

[Jimmy Owen]

Channel 12 in Flint started WOF in August 1983.

[steveleb]

As a general rule of thumb any show that came from a smaller syndicator that either did not contain  barter ads or had a more limited nautical footprint were distributed by bicycling until the late 80s.  The first season of Wheel started in well under 70 per cent of the country and BTB had a limited lineup as well.  The King World of 83 and the Blair of 85 were definitely smaller players.  Hope that helps?

[steveleb]

National footprint not nautical.  Autocorrect sucks

[SuperMatch93]

Given that network $OTC wasn’t kept at the time, I wonder what was done with the masters for “Time Machine” and “Hot Streak.” Neither has been rerun, although at least episode #44 of the latter exists as a master (posted by Winc).

Not to take the thread too far afield of $OTC, but I suppose the other long-running 80s network show for which we don’t have precise survival information is daytime WOF. Occasional masters exist as early as 1975-76, based on what the Paley Center has and what GSN aired in 2007, but do know *exactly* how much was kept continuously — if anything — other than vague suggestions that it was retained starting in the mid-80s?

I happened to find a partial answer to this while perusing another thread: http://www.gameshowforum.org/index.php/topic,11172.0.html

Apparently NBC didn't dispose of the tapes, but Griffin's policy at the time was to use/reuse.