Las Vegas Gambit Part 2
Вставка
- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- In June 1980, NBC cancelled Heatter-Quigley's flagship show The Hollywood Squares and the revival of High Rollers in favor of a 90-minute (later 60) talk-variety show hosted by future late night icon David Letterman. When Letterman's effort failed miserably after a four-month run, the network obviously decided to make amends to the packager by reviving Gambit.
Plugging the show in at 10 a.m./9 Central, NBC found out, however, that many affiliates would not give the show a chance, due to the increasing popularity of syndicated talk shows like Donahue and Hour Magazine, which station managers thought would draw larger audiences (and, more importantly, larger local advertising revenues) than NBC offerings. Further, even though CBS ran sitcom reruns against Las Vegas Gambit, many of their stations carried those aforementioned syndicated offerings and often won their markets with those, instead of the network feed.
Las Vegas Gambit lasted 13 months. Over the next several months, NBC would rid itself of all the other games on its daytime schedule except for Wheel, which became NBC's sole daytime game show until January 1983.
@Noveltooner
That makes a lot of sense; I do remember looking at old Broadcasting Magazines and seeing High Rollers ads for a fall '84 launch.
Thanks. :)
this version of gambit is basically a mix of the front end of the first show & high roalers.
Amazing. "carch 21" before "Catch 21," meets "High Rollers."
Even the dice are the same from the Trebek HR, as the Martindale HR use gold-colored "Monopoly" style dice for the Big Numbers.
@supersaver87 That's because the handwriting was already on the wall, and Merrill Heatter was trying to sell a new syndicated version of "High Rollers." It wasn't an uncommon practice; when "Snap Judgement" was given its cancellation notice, the original game was dropped and Goodson-Todman slipped "Password" in there instead (although it was still called "Snap Judgement"). That helped sell the reivial of "Password" to ABC.
I do remember WNBC airing this, yes. They cleared all the NBC game shows, they were the main O&O.
even the sound effects are similar to HR. Might even be the same table :)
10AM EST on the NBC stations that cleared it.
What was the idea of adding an element from "High Rollers" to "Las Vegas Gambit"? If they were going to do that, they could have as well brought "High Rollers" to Vegas.
I never understood why they felt the need to switch to the High Rollers bonus round...I mean, it's good, but it doesn't fit nearly as well as the first one did.
@Julius121081 Nope, but then indy WTAF (now Fox owned WTXF) aired it along with other NBC shows that Channel 3 preempted.
What about in Detroit? Did it clear?
Where's part 3?