Kennedy Password+ Question....

[TimK2003]

Now that Buzzr has moved into the Tom Kennedy password Plus episodes (which I didn't see many of in the NBC or GSN days), I have a question:

Since Tom was no Alan Ludden, I'm sure Alan's passing affected the ratings.  But I've noticed quite a few different All-Star Celebrity episode weeks in the last month or so. Including the Morris/Perry vs Walker/Norton-Taylor week currently airing this week.

Was this Goodson-Todman's last ditch effort to stabilize or boost the post-Ludden ratings' or is it just a co-winky-dink?  It seems like several shows around that time were cancelled while under an all-celebrity set up:  Beat The Clock, Bullseye and Whew -- also under Kennedy's watch.

[Chelsea Thrasher]

Password Plus' only two ratings' issues in it's entire run have nothing to do with Tom Kennedy or celebrities. Both involve time period moves, per the data.

 In July 1980, the show was doing a 4.8/18 @ 78% clearance at 12:30PM (beating Card Sharks almost 2:1, and being almost as strong vs. Wheel). The show had been hovering in the mid 4's since Fall 1979, with P+ being THE beneficiary of the schedule shuffle that ultimately started Hollywood Squares' downfall and brought about Mindreaders.

NBC shuffled their daytime around in August 1980, a couple of months before Tom debuted, moving The Doctors to 12:30p in the same schedule change that saw Letterman's daytime show and Another World condensed to 1 hour to accommodate the debuting Texas. Password went to 11:30AM, and while the 90 minute game block slid up a half hour, Password and Card Sharks also traded positions, which wound up hurting P+ and made no difference for Card Sharks. Even though clearances went up from 78% to 90% of affiliates, the show's rating immediately dropped to a 3.7 (with the share holding flat at 18) for the first available data period (still Ludden).

Password then held on to a rating somewhere between 3.5 and 4.0 for the first year (including the Allen to Tom change) until they moved it to Noon in October '81, losing about a third of it's viewers for the first month...before going right back to the same mid-high three (even with about 20% fewer clearances) that it then held onto right up until the day it was cancelled.  +

Both Password Plus and Super Password's numbers were stunningly consistent over their runs, only ever changing when viewers found the show (it took everyone six months to realize Super Password existed, and Password Plus absolutely siphoned eyeballs from the former occupant of a timeslot, Hollywood Squares) or they moved it to a new slot. In general, if a viewer liked Password as a game beyond the initial sampling, they made a point to find it and watch it no matter who hosted or what time it aired (as long as it aired in their market).

[tyshaun1]

From what I understand, NBC's cancellations of their game shows in 1982 had more to do with them being desperate to save their soaps that the ratings of the games themselves. As we know in hindsight, it was a futile attempt and 3 games debuted just 9 months later and all of them were revived as soon as a year later.

[Neumms]

The “all-star” week with Norton-Taylor, Walker, Morris and Perry is a pretty lame group. If that didn’t sink the ratings, boy, I’ll say they’re consistent.

[chris319]

Chelsea: where do you come by your ratings and clearance data?

At Goodson-Todman the daytime ratings were distributed throughout the office every week; they included the ratings for all game shows and soaps, as well as reruns of Alice, All In the Family, The Love Boat, etc. We only paid attention to the share numbers in daytime (percentage of Households Using Television or HUT, i.e. the percentage of TV sets in use tuned to a specific show. Contrast this with the ratings, the percentage of total TV Household tuned to a specific show). TV Households is a number determined by Nielsen. In 2022 there were 122.4 TV households in the U.S. The ratings presaged the demise of such weak shows as Whew!, Mindreaders and All-New Beat the Clock. The ratings sheets did not contain clearance numbers.

I saved all of the ratings sheets from G-T when I worked there and marked each sheet with the celebrities appearing. The sheets are buried in a box somewhere among my personal effects. Typically we didn't pay attention to other shows besides ours and didn't much care how Alice or ATWT was doing.

Allen had his "stroke" on Tuesday, October 7, 1980.

Tom Kennedy's first show was #470, taped on Sunday, October 12, 1980.

My last show was #499 taped on Sunday, November 16, 1980, having worked on 6 taping days with T.K.

[TLEberle]

Just my own opinion—I find the swipe at Tom Kennedy in the original post to be ill-considered and flatly wrong. Tom had a long career with many credits. He was given an awful task in taking over and did so admirably. Also I believe that he was given the imprimatur of Allen Ludden himself.

[chris319]

Just my own opinion—I find the swipe at Tom Kennedy in the original post to be I’ll-considered and flatly wrong. Tom had a long career with many credits. He was given an awful task in taking over and did so admirably. Also I believe that he was given the imprimatur of Allen Ludden himself.

Tom took over P+ on very short notice with very little preparation. I don't recall any office rehearsals with Tom.

I'm having trouble watching Bert Convy on Super Password. What a chatterbox he was. He always had to inject himself with some inane remark. He is enamored of the phrases "we're back" and "we're gonna break away". Bert was great on Tattletales but way out of his league on SP. I'd rather have Allen than Bert.

[TLEberle]

Super was the version I grew up with but it doesn’t hold up. Bert is fine on Ttales because it’s all talk and the total prize doesn’t touch $2,000. Bert lacks the gravitas for a bonus round where the grand prize is frequently $25,000 and can crest at $50,000.

This says nothing of his tendency to giveaway answers.

[Casey Buck]

Super was the version I grew up with but it doesn’t hold up. Bert is fine on Ttales because it’s all talk and the total prize doesn’t touch $2,000. Bert lacks the gravitas for a bonus round where the grand prize is frequently $25,000 and can crest at $50,000.

This says nothing of his tendency to giveaway answers.

Didn't you say that Body Language and Super Password would both be better if the hosts were swapped?

[TLEberle]

I am on record saying as such, though I would go searching for someone else for Body.

[Chelsea Thrasher]

Chelsea: where do you come by your ratings and clearance data?

I'm working on a different side project regarding Wheel of Fortune, and in the process for some of my own research needs I was provided with some rating/share/clearance data for daytime by the National Archives of Game Show History team (it's my understanding the data originates from Bob Boden's own records.)

Data is in the format of three-network schedules spanning daytime, with those three data points representing averages for each half-hour for however long that was the schedule, for a time period covering when both Passwords were on.  New page of info when ABC changes a show. Next new page when CBS retools, etc.

Regarding the share, specifically, as I definitely appreciate your point on that: On the last three-network schedule with data during the period Allen hosted, P+ was running an average of an 18 share. On the first ratings calendar with Tom, it's a 20. The share remains at the top end of the teens for the next year thereafter in the data.  The share craters to an 11/12 on the first two datasets after the October '81 time change, but within six weeks has rebounded up to a 14-15 shortly and stays there for the remainder of the run.

(Absolute tangent, but since Wheel's why I got to view the info in the first place: You can pinpoint the exact moment the nighttime Wheel "caught on" in syndication in the numbers for the daytime show; there was absolutely a positive knock-on. The daytime version's rating and share both go up significantly and the handful of stations not clearing it rapidly reach out to the network to change their minds.  On the flip side, the 1-2-3 of "cash format in PM", "Rolf Benirschke", and "the CBS move" not only destroy the daytime show's numbers but have severe detriments on other games in daytime as well)

[chris319]

Regarding the share, specifically, as I definitely appreciate your point on that: On the last three-network schedule with data during the period Allen hosted, P+ was running an average of an 18 share. On the first ratings calendar with Tom, it's a 20. The share remains at the top end of the teens for the next year thereafter in the data.  The share craters to an 11/12 on the first two datasets after the October '81 time change, but within six weeks has rebounded up to a 14-15 shortly and stays there for the remainder of the run.

Meanwhile TPIR was getting shares in the low-to-mid 30's.

The one piece of missing data is the demographic breakdown of the audience. Advertisers didn't like that game shows appealed to an older audience than soaps.

[JMFabiano]

Just my own opinion—I find the swipe at Tom Kennedy in the original post to be I’ll-considered and flatly wrong. Tom had a long career with many credits. He was given an awful task in taking over and did so admirably. Also I believe that he was given the imprimatur of Allen Ludden himself.

Tom took over P+ on very short notice with very little preparation. I don't recall any office rehearsals with Tom.

I'm having trouble watching Bert Convy on Super Password. What a chatterbox he was. He always had to inject himself with some inane remark. He is enamored of the phrases "we're back" and "we're gonna break away". Bert was great on Tattletales but way out of his league on SP. I'd rather have Allen than Bert.

And "shall we?"  Can't forget that.

[chris319]

Bert was constantly cheerleading the players, exclaiming "good clue!" or words to that effect if he thought a word was well played. When the light bulb went on in his head and he knew the answer to a puzzle, he had to broadcast it to the world: "I think I know the answer".

Watching the show on BUZZR, he seems to come across as a bit of an airhead, as we used to say in the '80's.

The use of Chyron for the graphics saved a LOT of labor.

[tyshaun1]

(Absolute tangent, but since Wheel's why I got to view the info in the first place: You can pinpoint the exact moment the nighttime Wheel "caught on" in syndication in the numbers for the daytime show; there was absolutely a positive knock-on. The daytime version's rating and share both go up significantly and the handful of stations not clearing it rapidly reach out to the network to change their minds.  On the flip side, the 1-2-3 of "cash format in PM", "Rolf Benirschke", and "the CBS move" not only destroy the daytime show's numbers but have severe detriments on other games in daytime as well)

I feel the need to mention that I'm an absolute dork when it comes to this sort of thing as game show ratings are quite difficult to come by online.... Chelsea, have you considered starting a thread with more of this data? I'd be quite interested to see it.