Game show

History

Over the course of the 1950s, as television began to pervade the popular culture. Game shows quickly became a fixture. Daytime game shows would be played for lower stakes to target stay-at-home housewives. Higher-stakes programs would air in prime time. During the late 1950s, high-stakes games such as Twenty One and The $64,000 Question began a rapid rise in popularity. However, the rise of quiz shows proved to be short-lived. In 1959, many of the higher stakes game shows were discovered to be rigged. Ratings decline led to most of the prime time games being canceled. Only the daytime games survived during this period. Soap operas remained a fixture of daytime television through the 1960s along with reruns. More recently, popular game shows have included Jeopardy which began 1964 and the original Match Game first aired in 1962. Let's Make A Deal and Hollywood Squares both began in 1963 and the 1960s also marked the debut of The Dating Game and The Newlywed Game.

Though CBS gave up on daytime game shows in 1968, the other networks did not follow suit. Color Television was introduced to the game show genre in the late 1960s on all three networks. The 1970s saw a renaissance of the game show as new games and massive upgrades to existing games made debuts on the major networks. "The Price Is Right" was a United States game show. "The New Price Is Right" marked CBS's return to the game show in 1972, "Big Money" was aired along with "Match Game 73" and "Pyramid" debuted in 1973. "Wheel Of Fortune" aired in 1975. Another "The Match Game" derivative was aired in 1972, with "Family Feud" following in 1976. With "Prime Time Access Rule" debut occurred in 1971. Game shows have had another outlet in prime time. As most American television stations picked up syndicated game shows to fill the newly created "access period." These game shows originally aired once a week, but by the late 1970s and early 1980s most of the games had transitioned to five days a week.

Game shows were the lowest priority of television networks and frequently were rotated out every thirteen weeks if they were unsuccessful. Most tapes were destroyed until the early 1980s. Over the course of the late 1980s and early 1990s as fewer new hits were produced, game shows lost their permanent place in the daytime lineup. ABC gave up on game shows in 1986. NBC lasted until 1991, but attempted to bring them back in 1993 before cancelling its game show block again in 1994. To the benefit of the genre, the move of Wheel of Fortune to syndication in 1983 and the modernized revival of Jeopardy! in 1984 was highly successful, leading to the two games becoming fixtures in the prime time "access period" and several failed attempts at imitation. Cable television also allowed for the debut of game shows such as Supermarket Sweep (Lifetime), Trivial Pursuit and Family Challenge (Family Channel), and Double Dare (Nickelodeon). It also opened up a previously underdeveloped market for game show reruns; Game Show Network debuted in 1994.

After the popularity of game shows hit a nadir in the mid-1990s (at which point The Price Is Right was the only game show still on daytime network TV), the British game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? began distribution across the globe. Upon the show's American debut in 1999, it was an instant hit and became a regular part of ABC's prime time lineup until 2002. Several shorter-lived high stakes games also were attempted around the time of the millennium, such as Winning Lines, The Chair, and Greed. During this period, several game shows returned to daytime in syndication (e.g., Family Feud, Hollywood Squares, and Millionaire).

The popularity of game shows in the United States was closely paralleled around the world; Reg Grundy Organisation, for instance, would buy the international rights for American game shows and create detailed reproductions in other countries, especially in his native Australia. In the UK, game shows have had a more steady and permanent place in the television lineup and never lost popularity in the 1990s as they did in the United States, due in part to the fact that game shows were highly regulated by the Independent Broadcasting Authority in the 1980s and those restrictions were lifted in the 1990s, allowing for higher-stakes games to be played.

Prizes

See also

External links

Category:Television genres