Author Topic: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?  (Read 12219 times)

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Offline Drew72

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Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« on: April 14, 2019, 09:12:08 PM »
It's been years since we've seen the Million Dollar Spectaculars and I'm thinking they broke the budget with the multiple winners in the Carey era.  Any chances we'll see Prime Time Specials again... even if they aren't Million Dollar Spectaculars?  I really enjoyed the ones back in 1986 which had larger payouts and bigger prizes than the daytime version.  You think something like that version would fly in the 2019 TV world?  Much rather watch that then some of the garbage prime time game shows ABC runs in the summer time.
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Offline ThatDonGuy

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2019, 09:26:55 PM »
I don't see it happening while the daytime version is still in production. All of the shows on ABC - and they are adding Press Your Luck and Card Sharks this year - are shows that haven't been on the air in years, if not decades, and are more for the nostalgia value than anything else.

Offline SteveGavazzi

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2019, 09:31:47 PM »
All of the shows on ABC - and they are adding Press Your Luck and Card Sharks this year - are shows that haven't been on the air in years, if not decades, and are more for the nostalgia value than anything else.

When you have as many game shows running as ABC does, it isn't happening because people liked them 30 years ago -- it's happening because people are watching them now.
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Offline GSNSmashFan3

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2019, 09:39:12 PM »
Those primetime specials that were done for CBS' trio of reality shows in 2016 could have been a fun little annual tradition, but I suppose they didn't do too well in the ratings since there doesn't appear to be any plans to do them again.
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Offline JayC

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #4 on: April 14, 2019, 10:52:16 PM »
It would probably take the ABC game shows being super successful for CBS to consider having primetime Prices to run against them. Otherwise I think the next chance for one would be when the show celebrates its 50th season.

Offline gamesurf

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #5 on: April 14, 2019, 11:35:43 PM »
Primetime Price is Right never lit the ratings world on fire, even when they were regularly scheduled. And Match Game and $100K Pyramid aren't beating the shows they're running against.

The #1 strength of those shows is, of course, they're economical. Compared to budgets of scripted comedies, they're cheap. Throwing something like a Lincoln Navigator onstage may seem "expensive" for TPiR, but it's pretty cheap compared to someone like Mindy Kaling who works for a half a million per episode.

They scale easily--it's not that much more difficult to make 20 episodes than it is to make 10 once you have the set and production team in place. They don't require continuity, they can be slotted anywhere against anything--perfect when all you need is a lead-in to the nightly news. They lets the network can advertise new, non-rerun content without having to commit to all the resources a sitcom or police procedural would need. The ratings never blow anything out of the water, but they usually do marginally better than reruns.

Major ratings hits like Wheel/Jeopardy/Family Feud are the exceptions to the rule, but for primetime game shows the ratings often don't tell the whole story. Gotta look at the bigger picture.
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Offline EvilChameleon

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #6 on: April 14, 2019, 11:37:17 PM »
It seems like Big Money Week is their new Million Dollar Spectacular, just in the day, and only for the aforementioned big money, not big prizes as well.

Offline urbanpreppie0004

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #7 on: April 14, 2019, 11:39:13 PM »
Wasn't the last set of million dollar spectaculars part of a writers strike programming slate also?

I also recall that previous sets of spectaculars were brought on to fill gaps in CBS' bad programming lineup- which they seem to be ok with right now.

Offline gamesurf

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #8 on: April 15, 2019, 01:47:55 AM »
Wasn't the last set of million dollar spectaculars part of a writers strike programming slate also?

I also recall that previous sets of spectaculars were brought on to fill gaps in CBS' bad programming lineup- which they seem to be ok with right now.

Yep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_the_2007–08_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike_on_television#Strike_effect_by_type_of_show

Sucked for those whose livelihoods were affected by the instability, of course, but it wasn't a bad time to be a game show fan. CBS got Primetime Price and extra seasons of Big Brother and Amazing Race, ABC got Duel and Wipeout, and NBC got...errr, Amne$ia and My Dad is Better Than Your Dad. Oh, and the American Gladiators reboot.

At this point CBS is doing pretty well for themselves in primetime, and my guess is they'd be more likely to try to fill small schedule holes with something new, cheap, and light like "Celebrity Undercover Boss" rather than reach out to Drew and co and try to make an "event" of something that's otherwise identical to what's already in daytime. But you never know. The events that trigger primetime shows tend to sneak up on you, they all depend on the whims of the people at the CBS programming department.
Quote from: Bill Todman
"The sign of a good game, is when you don't have to explain it every day. The key is not simplicity, but apparent simplicity. Password looks like any idiot could have made it up, but we have 14 of our people working on that show. There is a great complexity behind the screen. It requires great work to keep it simple."

Offline JayC

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #9 on: April 16, 2019, 12:09:25 PM »
Primetime Price is Right never lit the ratings world on fire, even when they were regularly scheduled. And Match Game and $100K Pyramid aren't beating the shows they're running against.
The Armed Forces specials in season 30 did well enough to get the MDSs the next season and the MDSs did do well enough to do two sets in seasons 31 and 32 and they aired reruns of some of the Armed Forces specials and the MDSs after the 6th one in season 31. Of course that was during a time when more people watched traditional television and the MDSs scaled back after that until the writers' strike brought us the set in season 36 and there were no more primetime Prices after until the reality show specials in 2016 and none since.
As for the ABC game shows, they do decently enough to keep them on every summer and now there's going to be even more. Of course, it's cheaper and easier programming than other options.

So is it just because CBS doesn't feel the need for primetime Price, or is it also a matter of Drew and the show's staff not wanting to do additional episodes beyond the daytime show?

Offline imhomerjay

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #10 on: April 16, 2019, 01:59:45 PM »
CBS relies heavily on Big Brother, with (at least in the past) more hours devoted to that than ABC devoted to games. This year the balance may flip a bit, but it’s still in the ballpark. It’s also different in that ABC isn’t taking one of their existing shows and putting it in prime time.

CBS’s stable of procedural dramas (the NCIS universe et al) hold up a bit better in repeats than ABC’s serialized shows like Grey’s Anatomy. They can pad their schedule a little better and still get a bit of an audience, and have been using more scripted summer originals over the past few seasons—admittedly to mixed results. But those shows have also often carried streaming deals, which made it more financially advantageous.


Offline EvilChameleon

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #11 on: April 16, 2019, 04:02:52 PM »
What we need is a new CBS nighttime show to fail so bad, that they don't even air the rest of the episodes, and instead fill that time with Price.

And even that may not be enough.

Offline gamesurf

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #12 on: April 16, 2019, 07:22:01 PM »
What we need is a new CBS nighttime show to fail so bad, that they don't even air the rest of the episodes, and instead fill that time with Price.

And even that may not be enough.

While I would like to see more Price, I think it's short-sighted to root for CBS primetime to fail... in the long run, stability at CBS is good for the show, and instability at CBS is bad. If CBS is in a position where they're so desperate that the only option they have to bail them out in primetime is Price, I would take it as a very bad sign for the network.

Price is Right is a band-aid for short-term fixes, but there is no reason to believe it would be a serious ratings contender against most primetime stuff. Even Bob's regularly scheduled MDS's usually were usually slotted in Friday and Saturday nights where there was almost no real competition.

If a show fails in the way you've described, in a timeslot where CBS presumably thought they would be competitive, it would leaves a gaping wound in CBS' schedule. The band-aid Price would provide isn't going to do much to fix that. There's plenty of other options they should be considering to fill that gap before they reach for the box of band-aids...

ABC's shows are doing okay, but they're certainly not immune to serious counter programming. They do well enough when paired against reruns, but they struggled towards the end of last season once things like Big Brother started, and something like an NFL game eats them up and spits them out.
Quote from: Bill Todman
"The sign of a good game, is when you don't have to explain it every day. The key is not simplicity, but apparent simplicity. Password looks like any idiot could have made it up, but we have 14 of our people working on that show. There is a great complexity behind the screen. It requires great work to keep it simple."

Offline imhomerjay

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #13 on: April 17, 2019, 01:15:53 PM »
What we need is a new CBS nighttime show to fail so bad, that they don't even air the rest of the episodes, and instead fill that time with Price.

And even that may not be enough.

Those things happen. They have shows on the shelf and can plug in reruns as an option. Happens fairly regularly across the networks when you take a long-term view.

Trying to scramble to get Price ready for such an occurrence would probably be somewhere around “plan z.”

Offline whowouldeverhurtawhammy

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Re: Chances of Prime Time Specials Again?
« Reply #14 on: April 18, 2019, 12:27:39 AM »
Those things happen. They have shows on the shelf and can plug in reruns as an option. Happens fairly regularly across the networks when you take a long-term view.

Trying to scramble to get Price ready for such an occurrence would probably be somewhere around “plan z.”

It makes me wonder why they didn't try giving primetime Price a shot when @#$% My Dad Says got the boot a few years back after only a few episodes...
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