Quiz Show Scandals - Aftermath - Television

Television

The quiz show scandals exhibited the necessity for an even stronger network control over programming and production. Quiz show scandals also justified and accelerated the growth of the networks' power over television advertisers concerning licensing, scheduling, and sponsorship of programs. The networks claimed to be ignorant and victims of the quiz show scandals. The NBC president at the time stated that, “NBC was just as much a victim of the quiz show frauds as was the public.”

Quiz shows just about disappeared from prime time American television for decades. Those that continued to air had substantially reduced prizes, and many shows adopted limits on the number of games a player could win (usually five). Quiz shows became game shows, shifting focus from knowledge to puzzles and word games. A quiz for big money would not return until ABC premiered 100 Grand in 1963; it went off the air after three weeks. Big-money jackpots remained on NBC from 1959-1961 on Jackpot Bowling; however, more large jackpots returned permanently in 1973 with the success of The $10,000 Pyramid and "Big Money" Match Game 73, both daytime shows on CBS.

Syndication showcased even bigger jackpots, usually as part of annual tournaments, such as The $100,000 Name That Tune (1976), The $128,000 Question (1976), a revamped Jeopardy! and its annual $100,000 Tournament of Champions (1984), and eventually the first game show to feature a top prize bigger than the quiz shows at their peak: The $1,000,000 Chance of a Lifetime (1986). Networks would not follow with a million-dollar prize until 1999, when ABC premiered the prime-time game show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Networks were forced to adapt winnings limits to meet Standards & Practices guidelines. During the 1970s, ABC imposed a winnings limit of $30,000, which had been lifted by 1981. CBS also imposed a limit, which increased as follows:

By 2006, with just one network game show remaining on air, and syndicated (including CBS-distributed) game shows having abolished earnings caps, the daytime winnings limit was eliminated in 2006. During Bob Barker's 35th and final season on The Price is Right, a recreational vehicle prize in the Golden Road pricing game was valued at over $100,000. Season 35 featured two contestants winning over $140,000 – $147,517 on the season premiere in 2006, and $140,235 on the season finale (Bob Barker's last show). By 2008, Drew Carey's second season on Price, CBS had increased prize values for Punch a Bunch and the Showcase Showdown to $25,000 each. CBS also had a pilot considered, a revival of Pyramid that featured a million-dollar tournament, although the proposal did not mention if the tournament would be a daytime or prime-time tournament like Price. By 2009, CBS added a second network game show. In 2010, a Tesla Roadster became the first prize on Price worth over $110,000, again on Golden Road, and for Season 39 (2010–11), a new pricing game, Pay the Rent, features a $100,000 grand prize. The 11 highest-winning contestants on the show all won their winnings in the 21st century, and of the 25 contestants who have won $80,000 or more, only two contestants won over $80,000 with the limits in the early 1990s.

NBC's game show limits involved the maximum number of matches a champion could play, with no limit on winnings. One contestant, Barbara Phillips, became the first daytime game show contestant to win over $100,000 by retiring with over $150,000 on the 1980s Sale of the Century.

In 1981, The Joker's Wild aired mostly on TV stations owned and operated by CBS, resulting in a winnings limit of $35,000 with anything over that amount being donated to charity. The limit increased to $50,000 in 1983 and was abolished a year later.

Jeopardy! had its own winnings cap of $75,000 for many years, which did not extend to special tournaments. In a period of two months in the series' sixth season, circumstances surrounding record-setting performances by Bob Blake and Frank Spangenberg caused a change. In Blake's case, he had to give up $7,501 of his then record-setting total in November 1989 to charity. Spangenberg broke Blake's record and became the first-ever contestant on Jeopardy! to top $100,000 in regular game earnings. However, due to the cap Spangenberg was docked $27,597 of his $102,597 in winnings, which also went to charity. For the next season Jeopardy! adopted a $100,000 cap, which then doubled $200,000 after automobiles were awarded for five-time champions (this was before the 2001 doubling of values) and was finally removed after the show removed the five-day limit for champions in 2003. The following year, contestant Ken Jennings began a 74-game winning streak, ending with a payout of $2,522,700.

Wheel of Fortune had imposed a winnings limit of $200,000 (originally $100,000, later $125,000), which was never reached partly due to the show's lack of returning players since 1998. The limit was abolished in 2008 when the show adopted the 2008 Australian version rule where a player could win $1,000,000 under special conditions. This was achieved by contestant Michelle Lowenstein on October 14, 2008, winning $1,026,080.

Networks required game shows to be heavily monitored by their standards and practices departments. Contestants were kept away from anybody who might know questions to be asked. The scandal also marked an end to widespread naming of television shows by their sponsors. Future game shows like The New Price is Right in 1972 and Let's Make a Deal were not sponsored by any one company, although in Millionaire (when Phone-A-Friend was used by AT&T; Ask The Expert uses Skype, and Ask The Audience briefly had AOL) and Price (Hole In One by adidas golf) have carried sponsors. Also on Price, if a prize package comes from, or a contestant wears any merchandise from the Seattle Sounders FC and it is mentioned by host Drew Carey, a disclaimer must be run stating the host's financial interest.

Merv Griffin was irritated by the impossibility of trying to make a quiz show due to the scandals. His wife Julann suggested that he offer a quiz show where competitors were given the answers, but had to supply the correct question (a format which had already been used by Gil Fates on the CBS Television Quiz, which aired from 1941–1942). This led to the 1964 introduction of Jeopardy! and its unusual answer-and-question format.

While controversial at the time, The Hollywood Squares ran a disclaimer stating that celebrities may have been coached on their answers. However, as the goal of the game is for the contestant to determine whether the celebrity gave a correct answer (by agreeing or disagreeing with the stated answer), this was not rigging. (The exceptions were Secret Square questions, where the celebrity had to rely on his/her own intellect.)

In addition, the major television networks took a greater hand in creative production to avoid similar problems in the future. This extended so far as to change television series that were not even game shows, most notably demanding that the premise of the dramatic series Mr. Lucky be changed from a riverboat casino to a restaurant to avoid the idea of games on prime-time TV.

The syndicated series Soul Train, while predominantly a music program, featured a mini-game known as the "scramble board" in which contestants would rearrange the letters on a board to form the name of a prominent black American historical figure to win a small prize. Host Don Cornelius would later admit that the game was rigged so that every contestant would win, as he wanted to portray African-American culture in a positive light and did not want to risk the contestants making fools of themselves on national television.