Shows You Didn't Expect Would Be Cancelled

[aaron sica]

[quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Jan 22 2005, 07:37 PM\']Still doesn't establish how "name" he was. 

Doug

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No, but it establishes the theory of PJTP...

I believe Robb Weller worked for ET as well....

[splinkynip]

Robb was co-hosting the Home show on ABC at the time he started WLOD. He left Home show in late 1989 IIRC and was replaced by Gary Collins.

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I used to watch Entertainment Tonight back in the late 80's.... Robb was on weeknights for a few years until 1986 when John Tesh came in.  Robb then moved to weekends and filled in for Tesh when he was out.  He left Home in late 1988 and was replaced with Gary Collins.  I believe he was dropped from the show. He left ET in summer for Win Lose or Draw.  He's got his own company now and does stuff for Food Channel, Discovery, etc.

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Jan 22 2005, 07:37 PM\'][quote name=\'zachhoran\' date=\'Jan 22 2005, 06:30 PM\'][quote name=\'SRIV94\' date=\'Jan 22 2005, 02:25 PM\']
Not sure how "name" Weller was at that point (I knew of him from his stint as host of AM CHICAGO, where he was succeeded by some girl named Opera or Okra or Oklahoma or something like that. . .).

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Robb was co-hosting the Home show on ABC at the time he started WLOD. He left Home show in late 1989 IIRC and was replaced by Gary Collins.

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Still doesn't establish how "name" he was.  

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But it establishes an opportunity for Zach to add his usual worthless amount of information.

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Jan 22 2005, 07:12 PM\']But it establishes an opportunity for Zach to add his usual worthless amount of information.

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Heck, I could type the word "sardine" as an entire post and it would establish an opportunity for Zach.  

Doug

[mbc793]

[quote name=\'MTCesquire\' date=\'Jan 20 2005, 04:11 AM\']Greed.  Once all the kinks got worked out and it finally started to stand on its own two, it disappeared from the Fox lineup.  I remember hearing that the ratings were better than anything else in the Friday @ 9 timeslot, yet it got canned anyway.

Also, Osmond's Pyramid.  Same deal.  Ratings were up, yet it got axed nonetheless.

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I for one wasn't surprised that Osmond's Pyramid got cancelled. It wasn't the same as the Dick Clark Pyramid. I think for me the one I didn't expect to be cancelled was Scrabble from the 80s and in 1993. They were both good versions yet they didn't last (especially in 1993).

[BrandonFG]

Pyramid kinda surprised me, but since there was already heavy speculation about it, I, too wasn't surprised. Despite the flaws, I did still enjoy the show, even though there was room for improvement, and still held out hope for a third season. Hopefully the decent ratings can still merit a revival, and maybe this time it won't take 11 years. ;-)

Another surprise for me, TPiR94 and Feud94. I think the fact that both were off the air by February (in Norfolk) was what got me. I don't think WTKR kept either one beyond New Year's 1995.

[Ian Wallis]

Before we all sit and wonder why ABC canned Break the Bank, read the fine print in EOTVGS. That 2nd-place finish in the ratings was based on the 1975-76 through the end of April -- which means BtB had only three weeks' worth of ratings to work with. I suspect the ratings went down thereafter -- let's face it, if the show was still that highly rated, it's likely either ABC would have moved it to another time slot or another network would have snagged it.

But would ratings really have dropped that much in the ensuing weeks?   I think they still would have been fairly decent.  How many shows would start that high and then drop off that quickly anyway?

I think with some game shows, ratings really didn't have anything to do with cancellation.  Wasn't "The Better Sex" still getting good ratings when they pulled the plug (again, for an expanded soap)?  What about the original "Jeopardy"?  The story we've all heard is that Merv agreed to exchange the last year of the contract to get "Wheel of Fortune" on the air.  Take it further to 1991 - didn't Ross Shafer state that they'd be back soon on the final "Match Game"?

It seems that ratings for daytime shows don't really have as much play in whether they stay on the air as they do for prime time shows.

[Ian Wallis]

The "Have You Got A Nickel" girls supposedly never aired in my area--Chicago got the 4PM ET feed of GONG, which for that one day was different than the 1PM ET feed (not that I would've known the difference). Strangely enough, that ep did find its way into GSN's package (even if some 250 others missed the cut).

Ah yes, but times have changed since then.  With what you see on TV today, I don't think it's that shocking.  In reality, the whole act was pretty tame, but I can see why it would cause a stir in the mid '70s.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Jan 23 2005, 01:23 PM\']

Before we all sit and wonder why ABC canned Break the Bank, read the fine print in EOTVGS. That 2nd-place finish in the ratings was based on the 1975-76 through the end of April -- which means BtB had only three weeks' worth of ratings to work with. I suspect the ratings went down thereafter -- let's face it, if the show was still that highly rated, it's likely either ABC would have moved it to another time slot or another network would have snagged it.

But would ratings really have dropped that much in the ensuing weeks?   I think they still would have been fairly decent.  How many shows would start that high and then drop off that quickly anyway?

I think with some game shows, ratings really didn't have anything to do with cancellation.  Wasn't "The Better Sex" still getting good ratings when they pulled the plug (again, for an expanded soap)?  What about the original "Jeopardy"?  The story we've all heard is that Merv agreed to exchange the last year of the contract to get "Wheel of Fortune" on the air.  

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And Lin Bolen wanted to get her "studs" on and Art Fleming off ASAP.  I still think that she moved "J!" to 10:30 a.m. to kill it--and instead it temporarily killed "Pyramid."  It took moving it to 1:30 p.m. against "As the World Turns" and "LMAD" to do the job (although I guess Merv could've demanded that one last year if he wished).

[Jimmy Owen]

In another thread I mentioned I recently came into possession of some Daytime TV Mags.  In addition to the reader's polls, by the mid-70's they would print the daytime Nielsens.  For the week ending 6/20/76, the top 5 game shows were......

1. Match Game 10.0/33 share
2. Price Is Right  7.1/38
3. $20,000 Pyramid 7.0/25
4. Break the Bank 6.8/25
5. Rhyme and Reason 6.4/24

Nary an NBC game show.  Of course the soaps had impressive ratings as well- ATWT had a 9.7/35 and Y&R a 9.2/37, DOOL had a 7.7/28, so even at that the ABC afternoon games were coming up second or third in the slot.  BTB was beating "The Doctors" on NBC 6.8 to 6.6.

[Ian Wallis]

For the week ending 6/20/76, the top 5 game shows were......

1. Match Game 10.0/33 share
2. Price Is Right 7.1/38
3. $20,000 Pyramid 7.0/25
4. Break the Bank 6.8/25
5. Rhyme and Reason 6.4/24

So I think that proves that "BTB" and "Rhyme and Reason" were highly rated all the way through their runs - and got cancelled anyway.  We can thank Fred Silverman and his love of soaps for that!

[SRIV94]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Jan 23 2005, 12:26 PM\']

The "Have You Got A Nickel" girls supposedly never aired in my area--Chicago got the 4PM ET feed of GONG, which for that one day was different than the 1PM ET feed (not that I would've known the difference). Strangely enough, that ep did find its way into GSN's package (even if some 250 others missed the cut).

Ah yes, but times have changed since then.  With what you see on TV today, I don't think it's that shocking.  In reality, the whole act was pretty tame, but I can see why it would cause a stir in the mid '70s.

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Actually, the shock value wasn't why I was surprised to see it crop up in the package.  Since GSN wasn't able to clear every episode for air (either through music clearance issues or GSN's claim that they only had about half of the NBC run to begin with), and given that it hadn't aired outside of the East Coast initially in September 1977, I was surprised that that episode made the cut compared to other eps.  Sure, by today's standards the bit was tame, but chances were about 50/50 anyway that GSN was going to air that program.

Doug -- and the countdown to 1000 continues

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Jan 25 2005, 09:23 AM\']

For the week ending 6/20/76, the top 5 game shows were......

1. Match Game 10.0/33 share
2. Price Is Right 7.1/38
3. $20,000 Pyramid 7.0/25
4. Break the Bank 6.8/25
5. Rhyme and Reason 6.4/24

So I think that proves that "BTB" and "Rhyme and Reason" were highly rated all the way through their runs - and got cancelled anyway.  We can thank Fred Silverman and his love of soaps for that!

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But back then, before cable and mini-nets, you could get a 25 share and still get cancelled if you were in last place and not holding up your end of the schedule.  A good many UHF stations in those days didn't even bother to sign on until mid-afternoon (if there was a UHF in the market at all) and PBS stations were running instructional programming, meaning the Big 3 could each get a 30 share without a lot of effort.  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.

[ChuckNet]

But back then, before cable and mini-nets, you could get a 25 share and still get cancelled if you were in last place and not holding up your end of the schedule.

In fact, Merv Griffin mentioned in his book that his first show, Word For Word, got cancelled after it dropped to a 35 rating, on which he commented "to show how times have changed, that's twice as high as even the highest-rated show could expect to pull today"...it was all about establishment, in those days.

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[Don Howard]

[quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Jan 25 2005, 03:44 PM\']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.

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Yeah, but did he have to pull Break The Bank? Why couldn't they just have not debuted Hot Seat instead? Of course, moving BtB to 12noon might've brought about other trouble because of stations airing news at that time instead.
About the subject of ratings and numbers of channels then as compared to now, I imagine there are some stations that got a higher rating for Sunrise Semester back in the day than CSI: Pick Your Version gets in 2005.