Before I get into the nitty-gritty of this blog, let me just state for the phonograph that I have nothing against women having executive positions in the workforce. And I also have nothing against Lin Bolen as a person.
Now that that's out of the way, let's get started.
Lin Bolen has the distinction of being the first female head of daytime television, a position which she took in 1972 as Vice President of Daytime Programming at NBC. Now, at that time, NBC was airing many successful game shows and soap operas (such as "Concentration", "Sale of the Century", "Hollywood Squares", "Jeopardy!", "The Who What or Where Game", "Three on a Match", "Days of our Lives", "The Doctors", and "Another World", among the many. However, Bolen decided to replace some of the long-running programming with newer shows in an attempt to raise the ratings.
The first victim was "Concentration," which had been on the air for 15 years, being canceled on March 23, 1973. The following Monday came "Baffle", a revival of the late 60s syndicated game show "PDQ", hosted by sportscaster Dick Enberg. "Baffle" failed to draw in the ratings, partially because it was up against "The $10,000 Pyramid" on CBS (which also debuted on March 26, 1973).
The next victim was "Sale of the Century," which had been a popular show for four years, but had declined in the ratings after CBS debuted "Gambit". Sale's replacement was "The Wizard of Odds", debuting on July 16, 1973, which brought the American debut of some Canadian named Alex Trebek. The show only lasted one year, replaced on July 1, 1974 by "High Rollers," also hosted by Trebek.
The biggest victim during Bolen's run would have to be the original "Jeopardy!", hosted by Art Fleming. At that time, Jeopardy! was dominating the 12:00 noon timeslot, mainly due to students who watched the show during the lunch break. The show moved to 10:30 a.m. on January 7, 1974, replaced in the noon timeslot by the new game show "Jackpot," hosted by Geoff Edwards (more on how Bolen messed that up later). Also debuting on January 7 was a new soap opera called "How to Survive a Marriage," which was replacing the canceled "Return to Peyton Place" (a revival of the 1960s ABC primetime soap "Peyton Place"). "Marriage" was notorious for its show the first "nude" scene in a daytime soap opera (the nudity was only implied, as both actors were covered by a blanket). The soap was only on the air for 15 months (more on its cancellation later).
Meanwhile, Baffle's cancellation on March 29, 1974, led to the debut of the semi-popular game show "Celebrity Sweepstakes" the following Monday. Sweepstakes was a variation of the popular "Hollywood Squares" (although Sweepstakes was not produced by the same company as Squares). On June, 1974, "Three on a Match" was canceled, replaced the following Monday by "Winning Streak" (both shows, incidentally, were hosted by Bill Cullen, the dean of game show hosts). "Streak" debuted at 10:30 a.m., while "Jeopardy!" was moved to 1:30 p.m., now up against ABC's "Let's Make a Deal" and CBS' "As the World Turns." Both Streak and Jeopardy! ended their runs on January 3, 1975.
On July 29, the popular talk show "Dinah's Place!" was replaced by the popular musical quiz "Name That Tune", hosted by Dennis James, who was SO out of place hosting this show. I should also point out that Bolen was looking for younger males to host her new game shows, so if they couldn't be young, she tried to make them hip-looking, and they ended up looking embarrassing (Bill Cullen was also a "hip" victim on "Winning Streak"). Tune sang its last song on January 3rd as well.
And this is only part one. In the next part, we'll talk about the expansions of soap operas, the debut of the ONE game show that lasted for more than two years under Bolen's run, and some more failures that would lead to the downfall of NBC daytime.
No comments:
Post a Comment