Let’s try another: what group won the first Grammy award for best hard rock/metal performance? The correct answer would have earned Michael Shutterly $1 million this summer, when he sat in the hot seat on the ABC quiz show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Homebound headbangers probably leapt from their couches, chanting “Jethro Tull” at their TV sets. But the question stumped Shutterly, who passed–and still took home a cool half mil for knowing, among other things, that Esquire is not a business magazine. There was a question on Bill Clinton’s dog, but nary a word about 19th-century vice presidents.
In a lot of ways, TV quiz shows aren’t what they used to be. But thanks to the success of “Millionaire,” which debuted for a two-week run in August and will return for another two-week prime-time stint Nov. 7, many in the TV business think the genre is poised for a comeback. “Millionaire,” based on a one-year-old British program and hosted to perfection by the ever-playful Regis Philbin, has been the biggest new hit in television this year. “The show came out of the opening stalls at a million miles an hour,” gushes a giddy Philbin, 68. “I’m the king of daytime and the king of prime time–what do you people want from me?” During the second week of its run, the show won its time slot every night, and both Sunday airings of the program finished as the top-rated shows of their respective weeks. “Millionaire’s” final episode was watched by a whopping 22.4 million people. Says New York media analyst Marc Berman: “They’ve hit a gold mine.” ABC certainly got more than it bargained for. After acquiring American rights to the show’s format, executive producer Michael Davies, a 33-year-old Brit, quit his executive job at the network to produce “Millionaire” himself. But it wasn’t an easy sell. ABC’s most recent attempt at a prime-time game show, “The Big Moment,” flopped this spring. And even after Davies persuaded his former employers to give “Millionaire” a shot, the net’s research department predicted very modest ratings. So much for research.
Think rival networks are doing a little research of their own these days? Right you are. Game shows are cheaper to produce than sitcoms or dramas, so high ratings mean humongous profits. Though network execs are quick to insist that they’ve had prime-time quiz shows in development for years, it’s clear that “Millionaire’s” success has both front-burnered existing projects and spawned fresh ones. NBC is reviving “Twenty-One,” the notorious head-to-head quiz-off at the center of the ’50s quiz-show scandals. CBS has accelerated plans to reintroduce the classic panel show “What’s My Line?” and recently acquired rights to “The $64,000 Question.” Fox has the new “Greed”; VH1 is talking about reviving “$25,000 Pyramid” as a rock-and-roll trivia contest, and powerhouse producers Carsey-Werner have signed Paul (Pee-wee Herman) Reubens to host a TV version of the popular computer trivia game “You Don’t Know Jack.” And that’s just what’s behind door No. 1.
Why quiz shows? Why now? Well… why not? “It’s not surprising that games would be tried again in prime time–and work,” says NBC Entertainment president Garth Ancier. “In the early days of the medium, games were a big part of TV. And the rule of television is that when something’s missing, it’s usually a good time to bring it back.” Time was, quiz shows ruled the air. Huge audiences tuned in to marvel at the contestants’ encyclopedic knowledge and homespun charm. In 1956, a Cincinnati Reds baseball game was delayed so fans and players could watch Georgia grandmother Myrtle Powell reel off the names of six big-leaguers with 3,000 or more hits. “How far can the TV quiz go?” NEWSWEEK asked on one cover in 1958.
We soon had an answer. “The shows in the ’50s were based on the contestants,” says Ron Simon, curator at the Museum of Television and Radio in New York. “Producers were much more conscious of the personality than the actual contest–and that led to a downfall.” Pressure to keep popular winners on the air inspired varying degrees of chicanery. Shows like “$64,000 Question” were suspected of helping players along by handing out books with nudging suggestions to study certain pages carefully. “Twenty-One” devolved into an embarrassing charade, literally scripted from beginning to end. With their manipulations exposed, quiz shows got the gong.
Games have been largely absent from network prime time since. Daytime offerings have come in and out of fashion (lately they’ve been out), and the syndicated games “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” have ruled the 7-to-8-o’clock hour for more than a decade. But nothing’s rivaled the heady days of the past, in either ratings or format. Not until “Millionaire,” that is. “It is absolutely a salute to the idea of ’50s television,” says executive producer Davies. Like many of the early quiz shows, “Millionaire” pits one player at a time against the best the show’s writers can dish out. Successive questions double in value–answer 14 straight, win it all. And a contestant on a roll might appear on consecutive nights, encouraging repeat viewership.
Millionaire" also takes pains to cultivate the populist flavor that made early programs so much fun. “Game shows are a great example of the American Dream,” says Alex Trebek, host of “Jeopardy!” for the past 16 years and perhaps the dean of the quiz-show community. “Anybody can be a hero. Anybody can be famous. Anybody can be rich. And it can all happen in one half hour.” Quiz shows are also meritocracies. “As they say on the commercial, our contestants make money the old-fashioned way,” says Trebek. “They earn it.”
But what sets “Millionaire” apart from other modern shows is how much its contestants can earn. Payoffs in the past were enough to change lives–permanently. William Peter Blatty won big on “You Bet Your Life” in 1960, quit his job and wrote “The Exorcist.” Today a big winner on “Jeopardy!” might bank, say, $16,000 or so before taxes. Hey, we’ll take it. But a million bucks? That’s the real deal. Still, even big winners might want to hold off on the Dom Perignon. Doug Van Gundy, 33, of Marlinton, W.Va., is a musician and poet whose annual income generally hovers around $11,000. He won $250,000 on “Millionaire.” What’s he doing with the money? “Losing it in the stock market, as we speak,” he says with a laugh. Shutterly, the 46-year-old lawyer who took home twice as much, says he’s tried not to change his lifestyle. He, like Van Gundy, gets recognized on the street, and he’s even heard from strangers with their hands out. “Someone sent me a letter asking me to be the head of his Internet company,” Shutterly says.
Both contestants, by the way, loved Rege. “He’s very personable,” says Shutterly. “Like a favorite uncle–especially when he gives you $500,000.” ABC Entertainment chairman Stu Bloomberg calls Philbin “our secret weapon.” The value of a terrific host to a game show cannot be overstated, particularly at a time when experienced talent on both sides of the camera is in short supply. “It takes as much genius to create a game show as it does a great sitcom,” says Michael King, CEO of King World, which produces “Jeopardy!” “Wheel of Fortune” and “Hollywood Squares.” “There’s only been a handful of people since the beginning of television that did it successfully, and most of them are gone.” “Millionaire” producer Davies didn’t invent his show, but he has been steeped in the genre since he got his start as a writer on “Let’s Make a Deal,” working for, as he puts it, “the great Monty Hall.” “My partner and I are sort of like these freaks of nature,” says Davies. “I laugh constantly that I’m the only game-show producer who lives in SoHo. That’s got to hurt the property values.““Millionaire’s” phenomenal success, along with the vitality of shows like “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel,” shows there’s an appetite for games. But one million-dollar question remains: how big is that appetite? Skeptics point to the fact that “Millionaire” posted huge numbers during the summer, airing against reruns. The test will come when it hits the schedule during the ultracompetitive November sweeps. But even with a third of the ratings “Millionaire” won the first time around, it’ll still be “very profitable,” says Davies. And as for the coming tidal wave of games, it may just wash back out to sea. ABC’s Bloomberg isn’t worried. “I wish them all–not luck, actually. I hope they all fail,” he says. “But I think we have the right ingredients.” ABC also has a head start, thanks to Davies–a guy who played a hunch and hit the jackpot.
Prime-time game shows are poised for a comeback. Here’s a brief history:
1950: Debut of ‘What’s My Line?’ Mystery guests include future presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
1955: The first of the big-money game shows, ‘The $64,000 Question,’ debuts
1957: Phyllis Diller jump-starts her career on ‘You Bet Your Life,’ hosted by Groucho Marx (above)
1959: Quiz shows are exposed for giving answers to contestants such as Prof. Charles Van Doren (above) on ‘Twenty-One’ and Patty Duke on ‘$64,000 Challenge’
1963: Do you want what’s behind door No. 1 or door No. 2? Monty Hall (above) wants to make a deal.
1976: Kissing women on ‘Family Feud’ is just Richard Dawson’s (above) shtik. Survey says? They don’t seem to mind.
1977: On a ‘The Price Is Right’ episode, a contestant comes on downand out of her top
1978: The Unknown Comic (above) suffers the indignities of ‘The Gong Show’ with a bag over his head
1982: Vanna White (below) turns more than just letters on ‘Wheel of Fortune’
1999: ‘Millionaire’ contestant David Honea is mistakenly booted off the show after giving the right answer to a question. He’s invited back and wins $125,000.
title: “Show Us The Money” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-14” author: “George Hendrickson”
The U.S. economy has stalled at a particularly inconvenient moment in the world economy. The last time we were in a recession–in the early 1990s–the rest of the world was doing well. Germany, Japan and the Asian tigers were all booming. Plus the U.S. dollar was cheap, which made American exports affordable around the world. The result: foreigners picked up the slack, and the American recession was the least painful since 1945.
But now Japan is stagnant and the other Asian economies are still hurting from the ‘97-‘98 crisis. In Germany growth is slowing. And the dollar is at a historic high, making American exports very pricey. So the rest of the world won’t be able to cushion America’s fall.
Slow growth abroad has turned out to be a boon for America in one important respect. During the 1990s, the country became the world’s most-beloved investment. Japanese, German, Latin American investors all put their savings in America rather than in their own countries.
Thank goodness, because we need the cash. Over the past decade, Americans’ savings have plunged, and we now spend far more than we earn. The resulting gap, called the current-account deficit, has to be made up by foreigners investing and lending to us. Last year Americans (people, companies and government) spent $435 billion more than they earned–a historic high amounting to almost 5 percent of America’s GDP. America takes in two thirds of all the capital exported from countries with money to spare. (Foreigners buy mostly government and corporate bonds.) If even a fraction of this cash stopped coming in, it could produce a spiral of problems: a falling dollar, which produces rising interest rates, which weakens stock prices and further slows the economy. Practically every time an advanced country has run a large current-account deficit this vicious cycle has emerged–Denmark in the early 1980s, Sweden and Britain in the early 1990s. And none of them had current-account deficits anywhere close to America’s.
While this sounds scary–and is–there are two sources of hope. First, economic reality: foreigners don’t invest in the United States out of altruism. America is the place where everybody around the world wants to put his money. It provides an unusual combination of strong returns and secure investment (more true of bonds than stocks, of course). But maintaining this magnet puts an enormous pressure on the U.S. economy to remain the most competitive economy in the world. Restructuring and creative destruction are not so much a choice as a necessity in America today.
Second, political reality. America is the world’s only superpower. This means the rules of the game favor it. For example, it is the only country that pays its international debts in its local currency. So exchange rate swings that sunk Britain, Sweden and Denmark have little effect on America. Also, in times of crisis, investors move into what they regard as safe havens. That’s why, despite the fact that the current crisis is U.S.-manufactured, American Treasury bills and currency have stayed in high demand. Despite all predictions to the contrary, the euro has weakened against the dollar in the last few weeks. Economists have called this an anomaly. But it isn’t. As Nandu Narayanan of Trident Investments puts it, “In the short term, currency markets are a beauty contest.” And America remains the hottest babe around.
All the myriad aspects of American power–military might, political credibility, media power–help burnish the image of an almighty America. Take the widely accepted belief that U.S. companies are the world’s most competitive. Often this is true. But the American media’s glowing coverage of these firms and their supposedly divine CEOs–broadcast and amplified across the globe–surely adds to their luster. After all, there are efficient companies in Europe and even Japan. They just don’t make the cover of Fortune every other month.
In the long run, America will have to take bigger and more fundamental steps to stay competitive. It will have to make a new push–and new concessions–for freer trade. It will have to boost its appalling savings rate. It will have to reduce its mountains of corporate and personal debt. But that’s all for the medium and long term. For now, let’s just hope the beauty queen’s makeup doesn’t rub off any time soon.
title: “Show Us The Money” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-09” author: “Gerald Mosley”
The U.S. economy has slowed at a particularly inconvenient moment in the world economy. The last time we were in recession–in the early 1990s–the rest of the world was doing quite well. Germany, Japan and the Asian tigers were all booming. Plus the U.S. dollar was cheap, which made American exports affordable around the world. The result: foreigners picked up the slack, and the American recession was the least painful since 1945.
This time around Japan is stagnant and the other Asian economies are still hurting from the ‘97-‘98 crisis. In Germany, growth is slowing. And the dollar is at a high, making American exports very pricey. So the rest of the world will be hard-pressed to cushion America’s fall.
Slow growth abroad has been a boon to America in one important respect. We have become the world’s favorite investment in the 1990s. Japanese, German, Latin American investors have all put their savings in America rather than their own countries. Thank goodness, because we need the cash. These days Americans spend more than they earn. So we depend on foreign investments and loans to make up the difference–especially since our savings rates have plunged in the last decade. Last year Americans (people, companies and government) spent $435 billion more than they took in, a historic high. We took in two thirds of the capital exported from all countries that had money to spare–twice what we used to take in only five years ago.
If even a fraction of this money stopped coming into the United States, it could produce a spiral of problems: a falling dollar, which forces higher interest rates, which weakens stock prices and causes a sharper slowdown. It’s a classic vicious cycle.
There are two sources of hope. First, economic reality: foreigners don’t invest here out of altruism. America is the place where everybody around the world wants to put his money. You get solid returns and a secure investment. But this puts relentless pressure on the American economy to remain the most competitive in the world.
Second, political reality: America is the world’s only superpower. Especially in times of crisis, investors move into what they regard as safe havens. That’s why, despite the fact that the current crisis is U.S.-centered, the dollar and American Treasury bills have been in high demand. “Politics and psychology play a large role in all this,” says Robert Hormats of Goldman Sachs. All the myriad aspects of American power–military might, political credibility, media power–help burnish the image of an almighty America. Let’s hope the makeup doesn’t rub off too soon.
