Game Show Network: Encyclopedia II - Game Show Network - History

Game Show Network - History

GSN, in addition to its Goodson-Todman library, features other classics such as Jeopardy!, Press Your Luck, The Newlywed Game, Love Connection and the classic Dick Clark-hosted versions of Pyramid, along with more recent fare like Greed, The Weakest Link, Dog Eat Dog and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

The late night programming block, known as "Black & White Overnight," features game and panel shows from the 1950s and 1960s. Currently showing in this block are What's My Line? and Beat the Clock. In the past it has featured I've Got a Secret, To Tell the Truth, The Name's the Same and other black-and-white classics. The black-and-white shows made up much of the channel's weeknight lineup in the mid-'90s, moving solely to Sunday nights in the late '90s and finally to overnights.

Among the most well-known classic shows previously aired on the network: Wheel of Fortune, The Joker's Wild, Tic Tac Dough, the original version of The Hollywood Squares, The Gong Show, The Dating Game and The Price is Right.

GSN has also produced several original series. In the channel's early days, club a.m. was a three-hour block consisting of five shows, surrounded by thirty minutes' worth of interstitial trivia, interviews with game show producers, personalities, contestants and fans, and interactive call-in games, all hosted by Laura Chambers and Steve Day. Prime Games was a similarly formatted show aired weeknights and hosted by Peter Tomarken. Wide World of Games was a Saturday night marathon of shows built around a common theme.

After a few years, these shows were replaced by Game TV, a half-hour interview show hosted by Marianne Curan and Dave Nemeth; Game World, which showed highlights of current game shows from around the world; and standalone 30-minute call-in games like Super Decades and Trivia Track. Later, the channel attempted a Gong Show remake called Extreme Gong, in which the viewers could phone in their votes as to whether to 'gong' acts off the air; and Throut and Neck, where viewers controlled video game characters with their phones. The network also programmed Burt Luddin's Love Buffet, a combination of scripted scenes and a "game show within the show." All these efforts have long since departed from the network's schedule.

More traditional game show offerings since 2000 have included All New 3's a Crowd, Whammy! The All-New Press Your Luck, Friend or Foe? (a game based around the Prisoner's Dilemma), Russian Roulette, WinTuition, Cram, and National Lampoon's Funny Money. The most successful GSN original game show has been Lingo, a Chuck Woolery-hosted remake of an '80s Canadian format in which teams guess five-letter words in a combination of Mastermind and bingo. The network has produced four seasons, and has announced a fifth for 2006.

On March 15, 2004, at 10:00 PM ET, GSN stopped using the name "Game Show Network" on-air, in contrast with the network expanding its programming to include the genre of reality television and various other competitions. GSN's current tagline is "The Network For Games." (However, the entity's corporate name remains Game Show Network, LLC.) The newly renamed GSN also introduced their original series World Series of Blackjack, Celebrity Blackjack, Extreme Dodgeball, Poker Royale, Ballbreakers, and the short-lived Fake-a-Date and Vegas Weddings Unveiled.

GSN also added reruns of The Mole, Average Joe, Arsenio Hall's Star Search, Kenny vs. Spenny, Spy TV, Win Ben Stein's Money, and Street Smarts. As of January 2006, Only "Win Ben Stein's Money" and "Street Smarts" currently remain on the schedule.

On April 4, 2005 GSN introduced a new daytime lineup featuring several older game shows that had not been seen on the network for some time, including the two most recent versions of Password (Password Plus and Super Password), the 1990-91 version of To Tell The Truth, and the Bill Rafferty-hosted versions of Blockbusters and Card Sharks. This daytime lineup was accompanied by the "Men From GSN" advertising campaign, a Desperate Housewives parody featuring a group of women cooing over such game show hosts as Richard Dawson and Bert Convy. For a brief time in the spring of 2005, GSN also ran five-episode marathons of older game shows on Saturday nights, under the "Saturday Night Classics" banner.

Also in the spring of 2005, GSN acquired approximately 100 more episodes of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, including the Who Wants to Be a Super Millionaire? specials.

In June 2005, GSN acquired the rights to all seven seasons of reality series The Amazing Race for a reported US$50,000 per episode. Beginning July 11, 2005, the episodes aired twice daily, in succession. The show's exposure has recently been cut back to once a day, five days a week. January 2006 saw the debut of Anything to Win, a documentary series with no game show connection; however, the network is currently developing a revival of I've Got a Secret as well as other traditional game show projects.

Despite the forays into reality series, made-for-TV sports and documentaries, GSN's programming has always remained mostly game shows. As the only U.S. cable/satellite network largely devoted to game shows for adults, GSN is a prototypical niche operation. It remains to be seen whether such a concentrated focus is commercially viable in the long run. Currently, GSN is available in only about half of all U.S. households. However, the network's financial performance has improved in recent years.

Of interesting note, GSN is the only U.S. broadcaster known to actually cut portions of credits from the shows it airs. Normally, on other networks, the end credits are split-screened along with a promo, if not shown by itself, but have always shown the entire credits that are provided by a program.

The United Kingdom satellite and cable network Challenge is the closest British equivalent to GSN; it has similarly expanded its programming in recent times to take in programmes which are not, strictly speaking, game shows. It shows British versions of several of the US shows on GSN; for example, Play Your Cards Right (based on Card Sharks), Family Fortunes (based on Family Feud) and the original UK version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.

Game Show Network - The Dark Period 1997–1998

The "Dark Period" is an unofficial nickname coined by the channel's internet fanbase referring to the period from October 11, 1997 to April 18, 1998, after GSN's Goodson-Todman library rights expired, with the exception of The Price is Right and the 1994-1995 season of Family Feud. Episodes of TPiR that featured fur coats, or other animal-related prizes were not aired, following Bob Barker's animal-rights wishes; therefore, the show's GSN premiere was delayed until mid-1996 in order to remove such episodes from the rotation. (It left the network in 2000.)

During the so-called "Dark Period", the schedule consisted of game shows that are part of Sony's library, like Chuck Barris' shows (The Newlywed Game, The Gong Show) and Pyramid, plus lesser-known shows such as Juvenile Jury and The Diamond Head Game. The network did air The Joker's Wild, Tic Tac Dough and the Bill Cullen version of Chain Reaction (the USA version aired as well), as well as the 1976 version of Break the Bank.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki