Game Show “What If:” Wheel of Fortune

[TheInquisitiveOne]

Good evening.

In light of Chuck Woolery’s recent passing (as well as the fact we’re approaching the 50th anniversary of this topic’s subject), I wanted to look into what could’ve been with Wheel of Fortune.

The show has a very rich history, but there were two major points in time that could’ve easily altered the course of Wheel. Let’s look into them.

First, then-executive of NBC Fred Silverman ordered the cancellation of Wheel to make room for David Letterman’s 90 minute daytime talk show, but reversed his decision after it was clear Letterman’s show wasn’t making headway (it was truncated to 60 minutes before being canned). Chuck and Susan Stafford even taped a farewell message set for air; that’s how close of an “11th hour decision” Silverman’s reversal ended up being.

Let’s say Silverman stuck to his guns and decided that Wheel be canceled. Would Merv Griffin and King World have reached a deal to bring it to syndication without a daytime counterpart to sell the show? According to Connor Higgins (whose YouTube channel dove into the history of Wheel of Fortune), Merv planned to sell Wheel to syndication well before 1983, but his potential deals with Syndicast Services and 20th Television Fox fell through. It could be possible that Wheel would still be successful, seeing that it did work for Jeopardy, whose last daytime incarnation - with a modified format and a bonus round - ended five years prior.

If the previous point ended up as it happened and that particular discussion ended up moot, there was another major point that took place. Merv and then-host Chuck Woolery had a contract dispute, where NBC was wiling to pay the gap to help reach an agreement, to which Merv said no. (Merv even threatened to move the show to CBS if NBC didn’t back down.) This would ultimately cause Woolery to leave Wheel and open the door for Pat Sajak to take over the show for the next four decades.

However, let’s say that Merv and Chuck played nice (with or without NBC’s help) and Chuck stayed on. Where would Pat end up on this equation, if he’s even in it? Would the show have even been as successful with Chuck still at the helm?

I am sure there are a lot of complexities I am leaving out, so I’d like to know your thoughts. How do you think events would have played out if the two above events played out differently than they did? Let’s discuss.

Thank you in advance for your responses, and have a safe and Merry Christmas. Be well.

The Inquisitive One

[TLEberle]

Just to make a point--I watched Connor's history of Family Feud and found little that was not either widely known or written on more clearly by our Adam N. I found it tough to endure but my mileage is my own.

I wonder if the ratings of daily Wheel being ok not great means it becomes difficult to sell as a five-a-week strip with an eye toward knocking off Feud, Joker and Dough. The days of the weekly prime access show were quickly running out by '81.

If Pat gets the Puzzlers pliot he'll end up somewhere; I believe the previous timeline discussion puts him at Scrabble. The only deviation is what happens if the nighttime version doesn't get greenlit--surely Wheel doesn't last until it sputters to the end in 1991. Maybe it gets kneecapped with Sale of the Century and Super Password.

This doesn't pertain to the iron butterfly effect, but I think it was a mistake to have the nighttime version adopt shopping just with slightly higher money until round three. Playing for cash is such a different animal that it would have separated from the daytime mother ship and would have injected a bit of excitement plus you don't have the thumb-twiddling of what to do with $500.

[BrandonFG]

I’ve said this before but I don’t know if it does as well if it hits syndication in ‘80 or ‘81. Feels like the genre had a bit of a “recession” in the early-80s. NBC canceled a few shows in summer 1980. Blockbusters was a modest hit, and Gambit lasted a year.

ABC and CBS only had one show each until CBS rolled out Tattle Tales, Pyramid and Child’s Play in ‘82. Then NBC with a few shows on 1/3/83.

Meanwhile in syndication, out of the handful of shows that premiered in 1980 or ‘81, only Face the Music and Bullseye got renewed. I don’t think Wheel does much better if it comes out around that time, although I have no idea how it became such a breakout hit considering they didn’t even have NY or LA onboard till midseason.

EDIT: FU Autocorrect
EDIT2: Forgot FtM ran two seasons

[TheInquisitiveOne]

I’ve said this before but I don’t know if it does as well if it hits syndication in ‘80 or ‘81. Feels like the genre had a bit of a “recession” in the early-80s. NBC canceled a few shows in summer 1980. Blockbusters was a modest hit, and Gambit lasted a year.

ABC and CBS only had one show reach until CBS rolled out Tattle Tales, Pyramid and Child’s Play in ‘82. Then NBC with a few shows on 1/3/83.

Meanwhile in syndication, out of the handful of shows that premiered in 1980 or ‘81, only Bullseye got renewed. I don’t think Wheel does much better if it comes out around that time, although I have no idea how it became such a breakout hit considering they didn’t even have NY or LA onboard till midseason.

What you and Travis just said brings up an excellent point.

If nighttime Wheel did start around ‘80 or ‘81, the show would've caught Feud, Joker, and TTD at or slightly past their respective apexes. (Around that period, Joker held it’s “Million Dollar” Tournament of Champions, and TTD was in the “Thom McKee Era,” to get an idea of how hot those shows were at the time. Feud was simply being Feud.) Wheel would likely have been lost in the shuffle.

By 1983, those three shows got long in the tooth, and Wheel became the “shiny new toy” in nighttime syndication. The big markets (NY, LA, Chicago) caught wind when they saw the smaller markets watching in droves. It was as if King World knew when to strike, though I don’t think it was their strategy to sit and wait on it.

This really felt like “right place, right time.”

The Inquisitive One

[Jeremy Nelson]

If Wheel gets canceled as part of the Letterman shuiffle, I think it still ends up on TV in syndication sometime during the 1980s. Ratings may have been middling, but I see syndicators still looking to find a show to knock off Feud, especially as that show's ratings decline. Maybe it returns to NBC daytime since they had a penchant at that time for ending shows then bringing them back 18 months later, especially so if Letterman is still a daytime flop.

If Chuck and Merv play nice, that doesn't stop Merv from still seeing Pat on the daily news. Maybe it's not with the same eye since he's not unhappy with Chuck in this timeline, but he still ends up somewhere. I still think Scrabble goes to someone with more experience, like Geoff Edwards or Alex Trebek, but maybe he ends up with Go since "find an affable weatherman" doesn't become a reactive plan.

[steveleb]

The reason those earlier syndication deals didn’t happen is that their respective executives ran the idea up the flagpole with their clients in the top markets and got a tepid response.  To them, the show was meh and had zero promotability.  Plus neither shop was particularly strong on first run, which was crucial to leveraging new shows into opportunistic time slots.

And without the daytime version continuing the production cost nut they would have needed to cover was not very likely to have been met in year one.  From my own knowledge of how the math worked on 100k pyramid we needed to hit only about 80 per cent of what a standalone project would have required, including barter.  In 1980 barter was not yet a factor.  Again, this worked against Wheel.

A decent parallel to look at is $50,000 Pyramid, which in the latter stages of its ABC  run was in the same run had similarly modest ratings to Wheel.  Even with Dick and celebrities they could only get an ad agency distribution company to take the risk.  There was no startup cost since the set was never struck.  The best time slots they could muster in top markets was daytime on two Tribune stations and a handful of early fringes on midsize affiliates—and that’s with failures like Truth in November that stations were motivated to replace. 

Simply put, a cancelled Wheel looking to move to first run strip in 1980 likely never gets greenlit, and I don’t believe the opportunity for an upstart like King to resurrect it ever occurs.