When you first heard “Game Show Network” was going to be a thing…

[gamed121683]

A few days ago, I was searching up some videos about first generation Cartoon Network & I stumbled on their pre-launch pitch video from 1992. A fascinating 7 minute video that went into good depth about the concept and economics about how great it would be to add a channel that (essentially) showed nothing but Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbara content around the clock. It left me in awe about how this was once seen as a “strange” format. Then again, I’m sure people said the same thing about 24/7 news, weather, and “music on TV” in their infancy.

It made me wonder (& fittingly, on their 29th anniversary, as I type this), what did you think when you first heard that was going to be a channel that was going to show nothing but game show reruns all day? I recall first reading about the channel in TV Guide’s Fall Preview issue from either ‘91 or ‘92 myself. Did you think it was an odd choice for a niche channel? Did it catch you by surprise? I’d love to hear your thoughts?

[BrandonFG]

When I was in elementary school, the idea of a 500-channel universe was amazing. Imagine never running out of things to watch*! I remember seeing a news story c. 1992 with three women (I wanna say it was Kathleen, Dian, and Janice from TPiR) wearing GSN shirts, and was immediately hooked. My mom just shook her head at the concept of so many channels.

*/Yeah, no

[That Don Guy]

My cable system wasn't upgraded to get more than 40 channels until 1998, I think - it was just before the "dead period" (where the network lost the rights to G-T shows for a while) started.

I was hoping to see if anybody had some "classic" game shows I had not seen in a while.

[TimK2003]

What was more interesting was how a lot of these start-up niche cable channels would go DEEP into the rerun archives and be willing to air unfamiliar shows of the past along with a smattering of well-known titles.

For example, HA! Channel, Game Show Network (Of Course), Boomerang (originally commercial free and played the entire Hanna-Barbera portfolio), Trio, and others who would even air short-lived series.

Now you have cable, sub-channel, and streaming channels that run the same programs, in the same time slots, for years and years on end -- not even willing to shuffle their schedule every so often or to "rest" the shows  for a few months to freshen things up or even to give viewers a chance to watch these shows at a daypart that may be more convenient to them (MeTV)....or run programming that doesn't really reflect.the original theme of the network (i.e. MTV or The Weather Channel).

But at least Game Show Network has experimented and tried out various things over the years -- some were winners (Going deep into the G/T archives) and some absolutely made no sense.(DJ Games, Burt Luddin....)

[Eric Paddon]

The idea of GSN excited me tremendously when I first heard about it.    And the for three years it was frustration over not having it on my cable company in either NJ or out at grad school in southern Ohio which had one of the worst selections and how I kept trying to make trades with people just to get me a batch of B/W WML and TTTT episodes and a few other things.   Then in August 1997, I'd finally had enough and I had a dish installed at grad school just to get GSN at long last and it was like raiding the archives for 24 hours non-stop.      Then a month later, the "Dark Period" derailed a lot of that enthusiasm (though with hindsight I know it had its advantages).

[That Don Guy]

My cable system wasn't upgraded to get more than 40 channels until 1998, I think - it was just before the "dead period" (where the network lost the rights to G-T shows for a while) started.

My mistake - it's called the "dark period," isn't it?  I got it confused with the NCAA "dead period", which is when colleges cannot make any contact whatsoever with recruits. This has made the news in the past few months as a number of schools have been caught violating the pretty much year-long dead period in all sports imposed as a result of COVID-19.

[Nick]

What was more interesting was how a lot of these start-up niche cable channels would go DEEP into the rerun archives and be willing to air unfamiliar shows of the past along with a smattering of well-known titles.

And this is something I don't understand why it's not being done more today.  In light of cable subchannels (e.g., Buzzr, which is actually doing this) and YouTube content of copyright holders who don't seem to have a problem with the streaming video thing, why not do something to turn more eyes to your channel and your advertisements by showing something nobody else is showing?  I get that GSN can turn a profit by basically being the Family Feud Network, but it seemed there was a time, not just in their lives but in the lives of other cable channels, where there was some love for the genre backed up by the programming selections, and now... Meh, it's McDonald's television.

I get that there's also been a change in how the episodes are, more or less, obtained now.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seemed in the early years of GSN, getting the rights to a show seemed to mean getting the rights to air whatever episodes of which you could get a copy to broadcast.  Now shows are leased in packages of 65 episodes or whatever.  When you're the owner of both the cable channel and the shows you broadcast (which, I suppose, only applies when Sony is the answer in both cases, but still, that provides a good smattering of shows), I'm not seeing where it would be unprofitable to run a show that's otherwise just a pile of tapes sitting there making you no money but costing you storage (unless viewership is so poor that indeed you lose money broadcasting the show, but I think there's a good number of Sony, Fremantle, etc. game show titles that would be worth trying again in reruns at least).

But at least Game Show Network has experimented and tried out various things over the years -- some were winners (Going deep into the G/T archives) and some absolutely made no sense.(DJ Games, Burt Luddin....)

I perused about five minutes of Faux Pause the other day.  How the heck did such trash get on the air?  It doesn't even come close to being "so bad, it's good" (if that was ever a truly redeeming factor about a show), and really, why waste your money producing shows on a network whose primary programming is reruns?  Is it a FCC licencing condition or something that if you're going to be 90% reruns you need to produce 10% new content or something?

[TimK2003]

My cable system wasn't upgraded to get more than 40 channels until 1998, I think - it was just before the "dead period" (where the network lost the rights to G-T shows for a while) started.

My mistake - it's called the "dark period," isn't it?  I got it confused with the NCAA "dead period", which is when colleges cannot make any contact whatsoever with recruits. This has made the news in the past few months as a number of schools have been caught violating the pretty much year-long dead period in all sports imposed as a result of COVID-19.

Looking back at GSN's "Dark Period", it DID give us Barker Price Is Right for the first time, and the most exposure to the Merv Griffin, Chuck Barris, and Barry-Enright libraries...many of which were phased out of the schedule and now locked up in Sony's vaults again, collecting dust.

What was more interesting was how a lot of these start-up niche cable channels would go DEEP into the rerun archives and be willing to air unfamiliar shows of the past along with a smattering of well-known titles.

And this is something I don't understand why it's not being done more today.  In light of cable subchannels (e.g., Buzzr, which is actually doing this) and YouTube content of copyright holders who don't seem to have a problem with the streaming video thing, why not do something to turn more eyes to your channel and your advertisements by showing something nobody else is showing? 

True that.  As a great example, The Andy Griffith Show:  It can be found on several cable channels in hours-long blocks throughout the day, plus local OTA channels and Sub-Channels (though MeTV only stays within the Barney Fife years), AND has it's own FAST channel via streaming devices.  M*A*S*H , Perry Mason are Columbo are some other examples. 

Kind of like how most of the 24/7 Holiday Music Radio stations run -- hundreds of Christmas songs to choose from over the last 50+ years, but noooo -- gotta play Mariah Carey to death every half hour and the other 29 songs every 2 hours!!!

[Ian Wallis]

I had my C-band satellite dish from September 1992 onwards, so my first thought is what satellite and channel is it going to be on?

When it first went on the air 12/1/94, I was glued to it.  I loved that they were doing this and was hoping they'd add more favorites that I remembered from when I was a kid.  I didn't realize at the time how much of the past hadn't been saved and was disappointed once I started finding out how many shows were "missing" or "erased".  I couldn't believe networks would do that, not realizing the cost and space requirements of archiving everything.

Although I recorded some stuff and having access to the channel was helpful in the trade circuit, my one regret is not saving more of the early days of GSN.  It seemed like such a happy and welcoming place the first few years, with shows like Club AM and Prime Games, and the general atmosphere of the channel.

Looking back at GSN's "Dark Period", it DID give us Barker Price Is Right for the first time, and the most exposure to the Merv Griffin, Chuck Barris, and Barry-Enright libraries...many of which were phased out of the schedule and now locked up in Sony's vaults again, collecting dust.

It was mentioned in an earlier post about GSN going deep into the GT archives.  My frustration is that they should have "gone deep" into the other archives too but for the most part, didn't.  There was that six-month period between Oct 97 - Apr 98 where they showed some rarer shows from these libraries, but as soon as GT came back out the other shows went.  I don't know whey they couldn't have come up with some sort of hybrid of maybe running GT thru the week, and shows from the other libraries on the weekend.  As a result, there were thousands of episodes of their original holdings that never aired.

Still, it's nice to have GSN around!

[Nick]

Kind of like how most of the 24/7 Holiday Music Radio stations run -- hundreds of Christmas songs to choose from over the last 50+ years, but noooo -- gotta play Mariah Carey to death every half hour and the other 29 songs every 2 hours!!!

Having formerly worked in radio, I do understand a bit the reasoning behind this, at least as far as wall-to-wall Christmas tunes are concerned.  There are really only about twelve songs and hundreds of recordings, and as as a former operations manager of mine repeatedly said, "Why am I going to play ‘Last Christmas’ by anyone else when I've got it by Wham!?"  People only want to hear the "definitive version" of any of the twelve songs, and since music radio is "background noise" for most anyway, going milquetoast as least keeps people from tuning out from perceiving it as noise.  It is part of the overall programming strategy that is "McDonald's radio", which is keeping it familiar and generic that you keep coming back instead of trying to go exotic and losing listeners through disappointment.

The real fault is wall-to-wall Christmas music programming.  I know it took off after one major market station turned around its sagging ratings by doing it.  Good for them.  No station I ever worked at benefitted from going wall-to-wall Christmas tunes, yet it seems every top 40 and classic hits station feels the need to do this to make itself relevant in December, even if you're not in the midst of ratings (and I am happy to have had the aforementioned boss who fought and won that we only went wall-to-wall Christmas tunes on Christmas Day itself).

Going back to GSN and other cable channels, though, "background noise mediocrity" should not be a programming strategy.  If broadcast television wants to remain relevant in an on-demand, streaming world, then offer me something I can't get elsewhere.  It was like that time GSN gave the first airing of that one episode of ABC Password around 2 AM.  That's something that should have been a promoted, featured event with a much better timeslot because you would think that your target audience would make an appointment for such a thing and not just with their VCRs.  Buzzr has shown multiple times the kind of feature event they can make out of obscure and unsold game shows, and really, shame on GSN for not having done more of this through the years.

[Eric Paddon]

Looking back at GSN's "Dark Period", it DID give us Barker Price Is Right for the first time, and the most exposure to the Merv Griffin, Chuck Barris, and Barry-Enright libraries...many of which were phased out of the schedule and now locked up in Sony's vaults again, collecting dust.

Barker TPIR started before the Dark Period began.   It was because it's contract was negotiated separately from the rest of the G-T library that that's why it continued during the DP (including the Cullen TPIR).

$20K Pyramid, Go!, Chain Reaction, Pass The Buck (which was phased out much too soon) and Break The Bank 76 were the best items to get exposure in the DP, along with perhaps just enough of "Diamond Head Game" so we got to see the Mercedes Benz episode, the most infamous in the show's history.    OTOH, I could have done without EVER seeing "Three's A Crowd" re-exposed to us again especially since GSN developed too much of a fondness for it even after the DP.

[beatlefreak84]

I was thinking about this for the last couple of days, and I don't remember the exact time I heard that there was going to be a "Game Show Network", but I definitely know it was my mom who told me about it after reading a short article about it in TV Guide, I think.

Since GSN debuted when I was 9, I had no inkling of the economics of TV, only that USA had gotten my eyeballs glued to them for most of my childhood on weekday afternoons with game shows, and I couldn't wait to see what could happen with 24 hours a day of game shows!  I honestly imagined different shows on at all times of the day and getting to see any game show I knew and ever wanted to see.

I finally got to see GSN 3 years later (right before the Dark Period) when my family added a satellite dish to our small cabin in Michigan, and I was immediately hooked.  Heck, the first thing I learned when I turned it on:  The Joker's Wild was not only hosted by Pat Finn nor was it a "game of definitions" (yep; I never knew about the Barry/Cullen version until that day!).  My mom commented that I spent over 12 hours the next day watching the channel, which greatly annoyed the rest of my family as that was the only TV in the cabin...

Anyway, to the other question:  My 9-year old brain thought it made economic sense because, of course, everyone I knew loved game shows*, and so they'd be glued to the channel too!  And, looking back at the channel now with "adult eyes", I think GSN made economic sense largely because USA was doing well with its afternoon game show block for years, and Family Channel had greatly expanded their game show lineup with success at that time.  Plus, it was a fascinating trip through TV history, and the shows largely didn't require significant viewer investment to know what was going on.

*"Everyone I knew", that is, friends and family, largely only kept up with game shows because of me, but could take or leave them...bless them! 
**Except for my grandma, who loved game shows...and Peter Tomarken...but not Jim Lange.

Anthony

[Dbacksfan12]

I finally got to see GSN 3 years later (right before the Dark Period) when my family added a satellite dish to our small cabin in Michigan, and I was immediately hooked

ISTR DirecTV added GSN in September 1997.  That was my first exposure to the channel outside of ATGS mentions and Chris Lambert’s page.  8th grade was spent with too much time on GSN and not enough time on homework.  Whoops!

[Blanquepage]

First I heard of it was around late '95, I watched (and happened to record) an episode of Live with Regis and Kathy Lee and Peter Tomarken was on to promote it. A clip of Regis on Password Plus was shown. Peter stated that they didn't have Name That Tune in their library "at the time," but they still showed a clip from it of Kathy Lee singing. My tape was lost unfortunately, but someone else out there is bound to have it...perhaps? Took two years to pass before I finally got to watch it and start stockpiling recordings 

[aaron sica]

Barker TPIR started before the Dark Period began.   It was because it's contract was negotiated separately from the rest of the G-T library that that's why it continued during the DP (including the Cullen TPIR).

It sure did.......We had gotten DISH Network in November 1996, and IIRC, they just started sprinkling TPiR at random on the schedule. I remember looking forward to seeing a show at 10:30am on a Saturday. Nope! Hour long Barker Price instead. Maybe a Kennedy one somewhere else.

I believe it was the next month when it found a permanent home on the schedule....9am (EST) weekdays of half-hour, 1972-1975 shows, and weeknights at 6pm with 1975 on Mondays, 1979 on Tuesdays, 1981 on Wednesdays, 1986 on Thursdays and 1990 on Fridays. I may have the years wrong.