eddie
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Post by eddie on Mar 3, 2015 16:48:52 GMT -5
It still feels somewhat strange that Pat is not here; I think his departure had something to do with the daytime show being cancelled two years after that. |
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Post by Bryce L. on Mar 3, 2015 18:12:15 GMT -5
I'd say the network swap had far more of a role in the daytime series' demise than Pat's departure did. Apparently NBC's ratings held constant, but fee negotiations between Merv and NBC are what led Wheel to go to CBS.
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WarioSajak
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Co-Owner of Karen's Pool Tables
Daniel, lover of classic "Wheel".
Posts: 1,894
SPIN ID: DB2986720
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Post by WarioSajak on Mar 4, 2015 23:40:43 GMT -5
Pat's departure (to do a late-night talk show on CBS, which he signed up for and announced in 1988) wasn't the catalyst, although in hindsight that's the first step toward the end. While I'm sure some viewers left with him and more likely tuned out due to Rolf's initial stiffness, they don't seem to have been enough to impact the ratings too much. After that... * NBC canned Wheel because while the ratings held constant, direct competitor The Price Is Right kept growing and (as Bryce noted) negotiations between the network and Merv went south. Rolf was unceremoniously sacked, by all indication, by CBS. * The ratings dropped after the move to CBS, despite the audiovisual makeover and switch to playing for cash, then went further down when the show jumped back to NBC in January '91. * After that, Wheel tried two or three play-by-phone contests in an effort to boost ratings. Didn't work. * During at least 1991, and possibly since the move to CBS, advertisers were moving away from the show because it was drawing older demographics than they generally wanted. This led to fewer advertisers (and a less diverse selection of them) as time went on. * NBC canned the show at the end of August, aired repeats for the first three weeks of September, then yanked Wheel off the air for good. The daytime show technically got revived on CBS six years later as Wheel 2000, but that's another story.  |
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eddie
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Posts: 82
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Post by eddie on Mar 6, 2015 12:58:26 GMT -5
If any good came out of this, Pat's move to CBS turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as the show itself moved there that summer. Plus, he didn't want to take on the pressure of doing three shows at once, which meant driving back and forth between there and Burbank where Wheel previously taped. Also the syndicated nighttime version (as well as Jeopardy!) had already proved to be more popular than its daytime counterpart anyway, which is quite easily another factor in the daytime show's sad demise. As CBS had a winnings cap in place at the time, the daytime show had to drastically scale back on its prize budget (and the dollar amounts on the wheel itself) in order to satisfy that condition, thus bringing on the Wheel of Cheapness jokes, due to the fact that $50, $75 and those in the $100s range were used.
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Post by Bryce L. on Mar 6, 2015 13:48:42 GMT -5
I have a very hard time believing that it was truly necessary to bring two-digit values back to keep players from busting the $75,000 limit CBS had in those days. I'd be willing to bet it was more likely budget constraints that led to the slashed values on the Wheel. Furthermore, I honestly think that if you'd kept the NBC Daytime templates, and used them with the Goen-era round structure ($750 TDV Rounds 1 & 2/$1,000 Round 3/$2,000 Round 4+), and had a $10,000 cash prize in the bonus round, you'd still have been under $75,000 for a 3-day retiring champ who won all three bonus rounds.
ETA: With a daytime game show, who funds the prize budget, the producers or the network? |
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WarioSajak
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Co-Owner of Karen's Pool Tables
Daniel, lover of classic "Wheel".
Posts: 1,894
SPIN ID: DB2986720
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Post by WarioSajak on Mar 6, 2015 20:23:23 GMT -5
If any good came out of this, Pat's move to CBS turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as the show itself moved there that summer. "We can meet in the hallway anytime!" Honestly, I think the best thing that came out of the move to Television City was the audiovisual overhaul, since daytime Wheel taped there before the nighttime one and worked out the kinks in the first month or so. All the stuff seen and heard at the start of Season 7 had already been established on the daytime show. (That, and we got a fun segment on Pat's talk show where he walked downstairs to a daytime Wheel taping.) Plus, [Pat] didn't want to take on the pressure of doing three shows at once, which meant driving back and forth between there and Burbank where Wheel previously taped. I think it might have been more that he couldn't do shows on competing networks. Not sure on that, admittedly. Also the syndicated nighttime version (as well as Jeopardy!) had already proved to be more popular than its daytime counterpart anyway, which is quite easily another factor in the daytime show's sad demise. Actually, I don't think so. The nighttime show actually helped the daytime show climb in the ratings for those first few years, and when King World was trying to shop the idea of a syndicated version around they pointed to the daytime show's ratings success. Sure, the nighttime show became more popular, but that didn't draw away from the daytime Wheel at all. The daytime show's end was threefold: aside from the low ratings and low support from advertisers due to drawing older demographics, the networks were moving away from having daytime game shows -- ABC had stopped just before the Goen era ended, CBS canned the only remaining non- Price show in 1993, and while NBC kept trying in '93 they eventually gave up and canned Caesars Challenge two weeks into '94. As CBS had a winnings cap in place at the time, the daytime show had to drastically scale back on its prize budget (and the dollar amounts on the wheel itself) in order to satisfy that condition, thus bringing on the Wheel of Cheapness jokes, due to the fact that $50, $75 and those in the $100s range were used. Bryce already kinda answered this one, but the major difference between the Woolery/Sajak/Benirschke and Goen eras was that the former focused on prizes with the occasional cash prize (the Jackpot wedge from 1986-88, and the occasional Friday Finals bonus) while the latter used the play-for-cash format...and cash always costs money. |
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