The New Price Is Right was developed for syndication to the NBC station group with Dennis James as emcee. Bill Todman suggested Dennis James after seeing him as a substitute emcee on Let's Make A Deal. How CBS got wind of the project I don't know, but Bud Grant decided he wanted TPIR for CBS daytime with Barker as emcee. It would explain how TPIR wound up taping at TV City rather than, say, Metromedia Square.
[quote name=\'Jimmy Owen\' post=\'138441\' date=\'Nov 21 2006, 09:59 AM\']
When the access rule started, it was considered a violation of the spirit of the rule in the top 50 markets to have any one show run more than once a week. In fact, the FCC was hoping for locally produced public affairs shows for that slot rather than game shows. HSq and LMAD chipped away at that by going twice a week, then the NBC O&O's put the final nail in that notion in 1980 when they stripped FF. If TPIR had been a strip in 1972, it would have never been picked up by the O&O's for prime access.
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According to Ira Skutch, the Prime Access rule's principal lobbyist was Giraud Chester. The pretense was for more local programming, but in reality the 2 1/2 hours it opened up per week were filled with game shows including TPIR, Concentration, TTTT and others. It turned into a bonanza for game show packagers. Westinghouse then took the idea of local programming literally and developed the PM/Evening Magazine franchise at KPIX, cancelling all game shows on its O&Os and syndicating the format.
Giraud Chester was the executive vice president of Goodson Todman Productions.