Question about Barry & Enright syndication bicycling

[Casey Buck]

Barry & Enright's late 70s/early 80s syndicated shows (TTD, TJW, Bullseye, and Play the Percentages) premiered when tape bicycling from station-to-station was still in effect. But yet, those shows were not self-contained, and had returning champions, while other syndicated game shows were self-contained and had no returning champions.

So, how were the shows sent to the stations? Did Colbert Television Sales send a whole batch of tapes to each station individually to air in a specific order? Were they secretly satellite-fed prior to Entertainment Tonight's debut?  Or did the stations just receive the episodes in the normal bicycled way in no particular order, and causing mass confusion to the audience?

[Ian Wallis]

I can offer a theory, which is only speculation.

Since episodes weren't satellite fed in those days (that we know of), the episodes were aired in order but had different air dates in each city.  Case in point:  WIVB Buffalo started airing new Joker's Wild episodes in late August 1977.  WROC Rochester started a couple of weeks after that, and CITY Toronto a couple of weeks after that.  Each started with the premiere.  Maybe they only had a set number of tapes but because of different debut dates in nearby cities, those stations may have just shared the same tapes.

In the show's second season, WIVB dropped it and WKBW picked it up, but didn't start showing it until mid-season.  They started with the second-season premiere.