Preemption and Prizes

[carlisle96]

Maybe this has been brought up before here, but if a show is preempted or taped and never aired, like the last weeks of CBS Match Game '79, do the contestants get their prizes?

[Kevin Prather]

It is often in the contestant release that the show doesn't have to pay the contestants if their show doesn't air. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't however. After all, not paying them runs the risk of a PR nightmare.

Without being able to cite any examples, I believe there are cases on both sides.

[BrandonFG]

I believe there was a Deal or No Deal contestant who received their money even though the show never aired.

[PYLdude]

It is often in the contestant release that the show doesn't have to pay the contestants if their show doesn't air. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't however. After all, not paying them runs the risk of a PR nightmare.

Without being able to cite any examples, I believe there are cases on both sides.

You bring this up:

considering all the forms one has to sign when they appear on a show, if for whatever reason someone doesn’t make air and won something, are they still bound by whatever non-disclosure agreements they had to sign? So they wouldn’t be able to raise such a stink if they were so inclined to?

[Kevin Prather]

You bring this up:

considering all the forms one has to sign when they appear on a show, if for whatever reason someone doesn’t make air and won something, are they still bound by whatever non-disclosure agreements they had to sign? So they wouldn’t be able to raise such a stink if they were so inclined to?

If I found myself in that position, I'd honestly consult with a lawyer first, especially as the NDAs appear to be getting more draconian. Rather than the penalty being "you forfeit your prize money," sometimes the penalty is "you will be fined and sued for $x00,000." That's something I would never want to be on the wrong side of.

[TLEberle]

I know Survivor and The Mole have NDA riders in the multiple millions.

Talking to a 49er who “won” a grand on the lost episode of Winning Lines, he seemed unconcerned and happy to share. There was also the issue of slow as gluey molasses payment of prize money, but I’m not sure what could be done there.

[carlisle96]

It is often in the contestant release that the show doesn't have to pay the contestants if their show doesn't air. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't however. After all, not paying them runs the risk of a PR nightmare.

Without being able to cite any examples, I believe there are cases on both sides.

But with the game show channels re-running old and "lost" shows, someone's unaired episode may turn up sooner or later

[Adam Nedeff]

It is often in the contestant release that the show doesn't have to pay the contestants if their show doesn't air. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't however. After all, not paying them runs the risk of a PR nightmare.

Without being able to cite any examples, I believe there are cases on both sides.

But with the game show channels re-running old and "lost" shows, someone's unaired episode may turn up sooner or later

I have learned that this is actually an important consideration for Buzzr's Lost & Found marathons. Apparently, they have to make a good faith effort to see if contestants were paid or not at the time. If, for some reason, they chose to air an episode that never aired, and the contestants were never paid, Buzzr/Fremantle WOULD be obligated to pay them whatever they were credited with at the time.

[That Don Guy]

It is often in the contestant release that the show doesn't have to pay the contestants if their show doesn't air. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't however. After all, not paying them runs the risk of a PR nightmare.

Without being able to cite any examples, I believe there are cases on both sides.

I can think of examples on both sides, and both on Fox:

The Rich List - okay, this is second-half information, but The Version I Heard Was, the reason the show started with existing "current champions" is, Fox wanted to see what the ratings would be like before committing to air episodes with contestants that went on to win hundreds of thousands of dollars; the show was canceled after one episode, and reportedly the "big winners" got nothing (and the producers pointed to a clause in their contract where it said that (a) if the episode didn't air, they didn't have to pay, and (b) the contestants agreed not to appeal this).

Our Little Genius - despite the fact that some rigging was going on, I'm pretty sure Mark Burnett said that the contestants on the episodes already recorded would be paid.

[PYLdude]

You bring this up:

considering all the forms one has to sign when they appear on a show, if for whatever reason someone doesn’t make air and won something, are they still bound by whatever non-disclosure agreements they had to sign? So they wouldn’t be able to raise such a stink if they were so inclined to?

If I found myself in that position, I'd honestly consult with a lawyer first, especially as the NDAs appear to be getting more draconian. Rather than the penalty being "you forfeit your prize money," sometimes the penalty is "you will be fined and sued for $x00,000." That's something I would never want to be on the wrong side of.

For not just the legal ramifications but for the financial ones as well. Say bye bye to your credit worthiness.

Was talking with one of my coworkers the other day about how the inner workings of these kinds of shows work and he asked me how you could keep that kind of thing under wraps. I told him of the pains they take to make sure everything is on the up and up and he was surprised. I even told him about the quiz scandals from the 50s and how that all got started.

Unrelatedly, I also told him about how much of a pain in the ass it could be to arrange travel and such if you’re going to wherever the show is taping, like if I was to go to California or when some of us came east for when Millionaire or the various others that were taping in Manhattan or Connecticut.

[Dbacksfan12]

It is often in the contestant release that the show doesn't have to pay the contestants if their show doesn't air. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't however. After all, not paying them runs the risk of a PR nightmare.

Without being able to cite any examples, I believe there are cases on both sides.

But with the game show channels re-running old and "lost" shows, someone's unaired episode may turn up sooner or later

I have learned that this is actually an important consideration for Buzzr's Lost & Found marathons. Apparently, they have to make a good faith effort to see if contestants were paid or not at the time. If, for some reason, they chose to air an episode that never aired, and the contestants were never paid, Buzzr/Fremantle WOULD be obligated to pay them whatever they were credited with at the time.

I guess I would look at this from the opposite perspective, at least from a PR angle.  “Next on Buzzr:  A never-before seen episode of Match Game ‘79!”.  Cut the check on Skype to the winner or their heirs.  That’s worth $5000 in publicity and a brief mention on GMA…at least in my opinion.

[SuperMatch93]

Brad Bianucci's appearance on the last November 1999 episode of Millionaire was cut for time, but he was still paid.

https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2001/october/first-person-how-regis-philbin-changed-my-life/

[chrisholland03]

It is often in the contestant release that the show doesn't have to pay the contestants if their show doesn't air. That doesn't necessarily mean they won't however. After all, not paying them runs the risk of a PR nightmare.

Without being able to cite any examples, I believe there are cases on both sides.

But with the game show channels re-running old and "lost" shows, someone's unaired episode may turn up sooner or later

I have learned that this is actually an important consideration for Buzzr's Lost & Found marathons. Apparently, they have to make a good faith effort to see if contestants were paid or not at the time. If, for some reason, they chose to air an episode that never aired, and the contestants were never paid, Buzzr/Fremantle WOULD be obligated to pay them whatever they were credited with at the time.

My understanding is GSN at some point had a similar check. 

Back to OP's original example, my understanding is that Goodson/Todman paid the contestants appearing in the unaired episodes of MG'79. 

[chris319]

Suppose a show is budgeted for $120,000 per week (1980's dollars), of which $40,000 is designated as prize money. If a contestant wins $5,000 on a show which doesn't air, the network is still paying $40,000 for the week's prize budget. That money doesn't go back to the network, so the packager can either keep it or pay the contestant. Either way, the money comes from the network.

The main reason everything is kept on the up-and-up in the wake of the quiz scandal is as follows. All four major networks own TV stations and hold broadcast licenses issued by the FCC. The networks control game shows so tightly to avoid challenges to those licenses at renewal time or a cash forfeiture, due to hanky-panky on a game show such as almost happened with Our Little Genius.

In modern times, the FCC levied a forfeiture against a station which didn't disclose that handout video provided by a car manufacturer and used in a news story was provided by the car manufacturer. The FCC felt the station had received a "thing of value" and that the handout video was too much like a commercial, so the station should have disclosed it just like prize suppliers are identified on a game show. The FCC has also levied forfeitures for airing a commercial which contained the EAS sounds as an attention getter. The FCC was on the warpath over that one. At my station our VP of Engineering circulated memos about these things.

In the case of our unaired George Peppard show, I don't recall that anyone won anything.

[Nick]

In the case of our unaired George Peppard show, I don't recall that anyone won anything.

In the case of our unaired George Peppard show, I don't recall that anyone won anything.

I pulled up the tape quickly, and Alphabetics was won off the top of the show.  So, does this mean GSN would have done the same due diligence test back in the day before the ran it (Was anybody even talking back then that this was a never-before-seen episode?) or was G-T generally likely to pay in the event of a withheld broadcast regardless?

And what I've never understood is why was the entire episode thrown out when the "rant" could simply have just been edited out of the program?  It was divided into its own segment, and that's pretty friendly from an editing perspective.  You skip over it and come back with the $200 puzzle (I suppose Peppard made some snide remarks elsewhere in the show about how he wanted to vent, but even if you didn't edit those out and just made it appear you ignored him, it wouldn't have been the sloppiest thing that ever got on television).  Allen's rebuttal was diplomatic and factually correct, so it didn't make for bad TV per se (except for Peppard making himself look like an idiot for, quite frankly, having no idea about what he was talking).  I'm guessing Howard or Bobby judged it acceptable to leave in and NBC said no too late to shoot more tape to fill the gap?  If that was the case, I'm just wondering why they didn't just decide to throw out the segment right away and fill the gap as it nothing to do with the game, and I'm sure nobody in the viewing audience really card about what Peppard thought about network oversight on the integrity of game show productions.