NBC Daytime 1989- Daytime Decline or Network Evolution?

[jerseyfla]

It's no secret 1989 was the beginning of the decline of Game Shows on Network Daytime Television with the cancellations of longer running network game shows like Card Sharks, Super Password, Sale of the Century, and Win Lose or Draw. The short lived revival of Now You See It which was really a hold over for the big move of Wheel of Fortune going from 14 year daytime home NBC to CBS.

It got me thinking about something bigger...


I want to focus on NBC as they had what I call a really underrated and powerful game show lineup that spanned from April 1987 until March 1989 when SOTC and Super Password were cancelled in favor of a Golden Girls rerun and a new soap opera flop Generations. The next hit was the loss of Wheel of Fortune as Merv Griffin and NBC could not come to an agreement and so Merv moved Daytime Wheel to CBS in July. Then come the Fall, Win Lose or Draw would be cancelled for a 227 rerun. Scrabble would be cancelled the following Spring leaving Classic Concentration as NBC's only network game show until a few flops premiered that Fall.



To expand on NBC as a network as a whole, not only were they completely blowing up their daytime schedule but it seems like the network itself was in a transition as well leaving the 80s and coming into the 90s. NBC became the pioneer in phasing out Saturday Morning Cartoons as Fall 1989, long running staple Disney's The Gummi Bears was moved to ABC and replaced with Saved By The Bell, the beginning of what would become the TNBC block in 1992. The next Fall (1990), 80s NBC Saturday Morning staples The Smurfs and Alvin and The Chipmunks were gone forever. In the Sports realm, they suffered a massive loss as they (and ABC) lost the Major League Baseball contract to CBS and 1989 would be the final year of the 34 year run of the MLB Game of the Week along with the MLB Postseason. Although NBC would get back at CBS by taking away their NBA TV contract the next Summer, it was still a big change for network television sports. And finally, 80s iconic Prime Time shows like Miami Vice, St. Elsewhere, The Facts of Life, ALF, and Family Ties were all gone by 1990 and replaced with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Blossom, Seinfeld, and Law and Order.


Can you think of any network having such a large transition in its overall daily schedule? 

[Kaos]

Three words: David Letterman Mornings.

[johnnyo]

May 14, 2018 21:04:02 GMT -5 jerseyfla said:

I want to focus on NBC as they had what I call a really underrated and powerful game show lineup that spanned from April 1987 until March 1989 when SOTC and Super Password were cancelled in favor of a Golden Girls rerun and a new soap opera flop Generations.

Just commenting on this part of your post, I agree that it was a powerful game show line-up, and I really enjoyed watching it at the time. I was in college from Sep 85 through Dec 89, and so I went from being out of the house all day in high school to having a few days a week when I would be able to watch daytime TV in between classes.

I had also starting watching Day of Our Live one summer in high school, and was keeping up with it for a while when we got a VCR while in I was in high school. Even after I stopped being a regular viewer of DOOL, it was easy to pick it up the story again in college.

I even tried to schedule classes around Super Password & DOOL. When I could, I would schedule an 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM class that met three days a week. Then it was rush back to the dorm for Super Password at 12 noon, down to the cafe for lunch from 12:30 to 1, and then back to the dorm to watch as much as DOOL as I could before heading off to a 2 PM class.

When SP & SOTC were canceled in 1989, I was nearing the end of my college days. I expected to be at a job soon and busy again all day, so I knew I would be transitioning away from regular daytime game show watching anyway, so it was less of a blow for me at the time. In New York, WNBC picked up the syndicated "Couch Potatoes" to run at 12 PM, but it was a poor substitute. I did watch Generations at the beginning, but stuck with it only very briefly.

Now today, between YT and BUZZR, I am enjoying the opportunity to watch these game shows again. On BUZZR, the syndicated SOTC and the 1984 episodes of SP were ones I missed the first time around, so it is all new to me. I have also been watching random Concentration episodes on the YT app every day over lunch. Good times once again!

Regarding your larger point, it seemed to me that the overall NBC transition began with Rolf replacing Pat on daytime Wheel. It was a small development, but it foreshadowed the larger changes on the horizon.

[wildjackmonroe]

It sucks, because I think Super Password got better as it went on and could have easily gone on a few more years. But in that case, knowing how sick Bert Convy eventually became, it might have been for the best that it ended when it did. We would have easily had an Allen Ludden scenario like on Password Plus, all over again. It's amazing though that NBC finally had a show with longevity at noon again, which I don't think happened since the original Jeopardy. I wonder if NBC daytime Wheel had a better host than Rolf... say if they got Bob Goen sooner, would it have lasted a bit longer on there.

As for some other series mentioned like Facts of Life and Family Ties... as much as I love both shows, they pretty much ran their course and while it's sad to see favorite shows end (and I could imagine if I were old enough in 1988 and 1989 respectively, I'd have been upset about their endings), it was really time for them to conclude. FT, according to everyone associated with the show, was supposed to end with the decade. I don't have the emotional attachment or familiarity with the cartoons airing Saturdays on NBC... I was 4 going into 5 in 1990 when they originally aired, so I don't really have a reaction to that. I grew up with the T-NBC lineups and just watched animated stuff on the other networks, primarily ABC.