Three On A Match (game Show) - Broadcast History

Broadcast History

Three on a Match had the unenviable position of being the sixth show NBC had aired in the 1:30 PM (12:30 Central) time slot since December 30, 1968, when the network lost Let's Make a Deal to rival ABC, which placed it in the same slot it had aired in on NBC. A soap opera (Hidden Faces), three game shows (You're Putting Me On, Words & Music, and Memory Game), and a comeback attempt by Art Linkletter (Life with Linkletter) were the preceding shows that failed over a two-and-a-half-year period. Three on a Match replaced Memory Game, a Joe Garagiola vehicle.

Three on a Match was not only the first show since the Deal defection to run for more than a year against the ABC version and CBS' top-rated As the World Turns (then a half-hour soap opera). It also brought several affiliates that had preempted the slot back to the network feed for that half-hour, which pleasantly surprised NBC executives.

Although finishing solidly in third place, Cullen's perennial popularity drove the appeal of Three on a Match which, typical for NBC games in that era (and especially those staged in New York), emphasized game play over large prizes and ostentatious sets. On April 23, 1973 the series became NBC's only game to be exempt from the network's five-game limit for returning champions.

However, by spring 1974 daytime head Lin Bolen, who had overseen the cancellation of several games started before her arrival a year and a half earlier, asked Stewart to overhaul Three on a Match. The two decided instead to start from scratch with a new game, titled Winning Streak.

The new show replaced Three on a Match and swapped time slots with Jeopardy!, a decision that would prove to be fatal to both programs. Both shows ended on January 3, 1975.