Shows You Didn't Expect Would Be Cancelled

[Ian Wallis]

Not to discount your feelings about Silverman, but if ABC was in last place against some established soaps--and they felt it was time to expand the higher-rated soaps to an hour, I don't blame them.

Point taken; however, if you look at the other network game shows that were on the air on June 25, 1976, both "Break the Bank" and "Rhyme and Reason" were getting higher ratings than shows like "Let's Make a Deal", "Hollywood Squares", "Gambit" and "Tattletales", just to name a few.

OK - "LMAD" and "Gambit" were gone by the end of the year, but "Squares" and "Tattletales" still had several years to run.  To keep it on the same network, "$20,000 Pyramid", which had just slightly better ratings at the time, carried on another four years.  I'm not suggesting "Break the Bank" could have lasted four more years, but it certainly deserved a much longer run than it got.

[Jimmy Owen]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Jan 26 2005, 09:03 AM\']

Not to discount your feelings about Silverman, but if ABC was in last place against some established soaps--and they felt it was time to expand the higher-rated soaps to an hour, I don't blame them.

Point taken; however, if you look at the other network game shows that were on the air on June 25, 1976, both "Break the Bank" and "Rhyme and Reason" were getting higher ratings than shows like "Let's Make a Deal", "Hollywood Squares", "Gambit" and "Tattletales", just to name a few.

OK - "LMAD" and "Gambit" were gone by the end of the year, but "Squares" and "Tattletales" still had several years to run.  To keep it on the same network, "$20,000 Pyramid", which had just slightly better ratings at the time, carried on another four years.  I'm not suggesting "Break the Bank" could have lasted four more years, but it certainly deserved a much longer run than it got.

[snapback]73215[/snapback]

[/quote]


Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but R&R and BTB were considered by many to be ripoffs of  G-T's "Match Game" and H-Q's "Squares."  The next two games that debuted on ABC just happened to be from G-T and H-Q.  Coincidence?

[aaron sica]

How were the $20,000 Pyramid and Family Feud's ratings when the $20,000 Pyramid got cancelled? This is a subject that's always interested me....Of ABC's what could be considered "morning" block, from 1977 to 1980, it was basically the same - 11am (EST) was Happy Days reruns (supplanted in 1979 by Laverne and Shirley), 11:30 was Family Feud, and noon was $20,000 Pyramid.

When $20,000 Pyramid was cancelled in June 1980, the 11am-12pm hour was replaced by reruns of "Love Boat", and, since Love Boat took up an entire hour, Family Feud moved to the noon spot, where its devotion by stations eventually dropped off:

WPVI-6 in Philadelphia continued to air it at 11:30am, however, it was on a one-day delay. They did this up until "Loving" premiered in June 1983, at which point, for the summer, the show moved to (then)WTAF-29 and aired at noon. Once fall 1983 rolled around, daytime "Feud" was gone from Philly.

WJZ-13 (which was then ABC) in Baltimore also continued to air it at 11:30am too, but once fall 1980 dawned, they moved the "Love Boat" reruns from 10am to 11am and like that, daytime "Feud" was gone from Baltimore.