Dumb Daytime Moves--Black Friday, 1980 and David Letterman

Oh, boy...

Game show fans know what I'm going to be talking about next.

The year is 1980.

NBC is last in the ratings.  I would have said "dead last," but even that's saying too much.

Its morning and early afternoon lineup consists of six game shows of varying popularity...

• 10:00 a.m.--Card Sharks (hosted by Jim Perry; debuted April 24, 1978)
• 10:30 a.m.--The Hollywood Squares (hosted by Peter Marshall; debuted October 17, 1966)
• 11:00 a.m.--High Rollers (hosted by Alex Trebek; debuted April 24, 1978)
• 11:30 a.m.--Wheel of Fortune (hosted by Chuck Woolery and Susan Stafford; debuted January 6, 1975)
• 12:00 noon--Chain Reaction (hosted by Bill Cullen; debuted January 14, 1980)
• 12:30 p.m.--Password Plus (hosted by Allen Ludden; debuted January 8, 1979)

In June of 1980, NBC made the decision to cancel three of these shows to make room for a new talk show hosted by David Letterman.  Let's look at each of the shows that were axed on June 20, 1980. (what would have made it worse was if they were axed a week earlier)

The Hollywood Squares
Perhaps the flagship game show of NBC at the time, Hollywood Squares' decline started in October of 1976, when it was moved from its long-time time slot of 11:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., up against "The Price is Right."  But it really started going downhill after it moved to 1:00 p.m. (up against "All My Chlidren"), with some stations preempting it for newscasts or other syndicated programming.  More moves to 12:30 p.m. (in March of '79), and back to 10:30 a.m. (in August of '79), plus the departure of Paul Lynde in 1979 ultimately sealed the show's fate.  The show, which was still popular in its weekly syndicated version, would expand to five days a week, and move to Las Vegas (I'll probably get back to this later), which would end up being its last season, ending its long run in 1981.

High Rollers
If I was running NBC back then, I would not have canceled this show...at least not on Black Friday.  Like "Card Sharks", which debuted on the same day, it allowed players to win a fortune in cash and prizes by luck.  In this case, the roll of the dice determined a player's destiny, and champions could end up winning over $30,000 in a single game.  Of course, by the end of this run, the prizes started to get a bit strange, including the infamous $10,000 fishbowl in the show's finale (whether or not Alex Trebek is intoxicated, I'll let you be the judge of that).  Speaking of Trebek, he would not have a regular hosting job for another year (in which he got two--"Battlestars" for NBC, and "Pitfall" in his native Canada...just don't mention that latter show to him if you meet him face-to-face)

Chain Reaction
"Chain Reaction" was a show that, I think, would have lasted a little longer if the bonus round wasn't so messed up.  Now, I don't have a problem with the game itself (where celebrities ask a question by forming one word at a time).  The problem was with the payoffs.  In its first week, players had only 60 seconds to get 8 answers.  Starting at $1, each answer was worth half-a-zero, with every second answer completing the zero.  They changed this after the top payoff for the week was only $100 (in fact, the very first episode had only a $10 payoff).  The second week greatly increased the bonus round winnings, with 90 seconds to get 9 words with each word getting more money ($1 for the first, then adding a zero for the next three, then each of the next four worth an extra $1,000, and the ninth and final answer worth the full $10,000).  The third format had the more normal $100 per answer, and $10,000 for all ten answers, which was changed AGAIN a few weeks later to having the player start with $100, and only needing nine answers to win the money.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, those shows were replaced by "The David Letterman Show," broadcast live from New York from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. ("Card Sharks" moved to 12:00 noon to accommodate this).  While critical reception was good, audience response was lukewarm at best, and by August, the show was cut to sixty minutes (with "Wheel" moving back to 11:00 a.m., and "Password Plus" moving to 11:30 a.m.).  The show's ratings continued to decline and was ultimately axed on October 24, 1980.  However, this would not be the last time we would see David Letterman on NBC.

Now, there was even talk of axing "Wheel of Fortune" to make room for Letterman, but somebody must have informed Silverman that "Wheel" was the highest-rated show in its daytime lineup (and probably the highest-rated show on the network overall), so "Wheel" was thankfully spared.