Jackpot (game show)

Broadcast History

NBC's head of daytime programming, Lin Bolen, scheduled Jackpot at Noon Eastern (11:00 AM Central), the time slot previously held by Jeopardy! for nearly eight years. Jeopardy! had attracted an audience that included businessmen and college students who watched during lunch; its move to 10:30/9:30 caused a loss of those viewers, and Jackpot, aimed at a more traditional female audience, could not replace them. The show was initially greenlit under the proposed title Bank-O, which was also the pilot's title, but was renamed at the last minute.

Jackpot replaced The Who, What, or Where Game through a scheduling shuffle involving Jeopardy! and Baffle. The popularity of CBS's The Young and the Restless eroded Jeopardy!'s audience, and Jackpot inherited those ratings problems. The show earned respectable ratings through 1974 and at one point appeared more promising than The $10,000 Pyramid during its final month on CBS.

However, The Young and the Restless entered the daytime Nielsen top ten by early 1975. Edwards hosted Jackpot simultaneously with Treasure Hunt, taping in New York City while Treasure Hunt taped in Los Angeles, making him one of the first hosts to work bi-coastally. In response to slumping ratings, Bolen used a focus group, which expressed strong dislike for the riddle format; she gave Stewart an ultimatum to replace riddles with a straightforward question-answer format or be canceled, and Edwards was told not to question the decision.

Other information

Milton Bradley produced one edition of the board game in 1974, with two different covers—one with just the logo and one with a drawing of a female contestant—but identical gameplay. The NBC version used the instrumental theme 'Jet Set' by Mike Vickers, later used as the opening theme for This Week in Baseball. The USA and syndicated runs used the Shoot for the Stars theme by Bob Cobert. The unsold 1984 pilot used Bebu Silvetti's 'Spring Rain', previously the theme for Stewart's The Love Experts.

Did You Know?

• The 1985 series had announcing duties shared by John Harris and Ken Ryan, the latter also the announcer on the USA/Global collaboration Bumper Stumpers.