I get that it’s sort of a slow news cycle in the silly little world of media. The fall TV premieres have pretty much all gone down, the handful of significant holiday theatrical releases (thanks again, AMPTP) are still a way’s off, the dealmakers are partying it up on the Croissette at MIPCOM this week and the rest of the world is focused on the threat to democracy a McDonald’s fry cook in training obsessed with dead golfers’ genitalia may or may not pose.
But even by the minimal standards that I ascribe to an industry perpetually obsessed with puffery, I was genuinely disappointed with the degree of hubris and revisionist history being offered up by DEADLINE’s Lynette Rice in a story that celebrates one Bellamie Blackstone. Clearly being orchestrated by the Sony spin machine, she attempts to tell the uplifting story of how the third-season showrunner of WHEEL OF FORTUNE has applied her, in Rice’s words youth, enthusiasm and unique background in such a way as to deliver these sort of results:
The 42nd season with (Ryan) Seacrest and co-host Vanna White delivered its best premiere month audience (9/9/24-10/6/24) in three years, making it the No. 1 series on television. The premiere month reached 40 million total viewers and viewership grew by 12 percent versus the same period last season.
That’s actually pretty good, especially in this challenging an environment. After all, it’s only once every four decades or so that a show with a 50-year track record changes emcees, with more than a year’s notice and seemingly endless publicity that seized upon Seacrest’s omnipresence on radio and as host of AMERICAN IDOL. A decision that certainly Blackstone was at least a part of.
Actually, more of the credit for coughing up the reported $28 million per year that Seacrest is being paid should be bestowed on her boss, the recently promoted Sony Game Shows president Suzanne Prete. Prete has also benefitted from being in the right place at the right time, riding the mercurial wave of JEOPARDY! showrunner Michael Davies–who preceded her in the Sony family by more than a decade when his EMBASSY ROW productions aligned with the studio–as that show, now in its 61st overall season, had survived the tumultuous behind-the-scenes machinations that followed the death of its longtime host Alex Trebek and was itself broadcast TV’s most-watched show until this recent turn of events. And like any good boss, Prete attempted to offer her rationale for bringing in Blackstone to fill the other half of the void that former dual showrunner Mike Richards left in the wake of his “scandalous” behavior:
When Sony was looking for someone to replace Mike Richards as EP of WoF and Celebrity WoF in 2022, scores of applicants applied for the plum job of running one of the most successful syndicated game shows in TV history. Few, however, were women, recalls Sony Game Shows president Suzanne Prete.
“I want every voice represented because every voice listens and watches our shows,” says Prete. “The fact that Bellamie is a woman is a plus. I hired her because she is the right person. She has experience in comedy as well as game shows. And she was born into production. She grew up in live entertainment.”
The fact that Prete even felt it was necessary to bring up Blackstone’s gender is in itself a tell. Clearly, she either never heard of or conveniently forgot the name Nancy Jones. WHEEL’s Fandom page describes her in detail:
Nancy Jones was a Wheel of Fortune staff member who was present from the 1974 pilots as an assistant to producer John Rhinehart. When the show debuted, she was promoted to co-producer until Rhinehart left on April 29, 1976, at which point she became the sole producer until June 1995.
Yep, a woman did indeed run the show for nearly two decades, at a time when it was a much more dominant number one in television than it is now.
Rice then continued to rattle off all that Blackstone has already accomplished and aspires to do:
Besides producing Pat Sajak’s final episodes, she already added tournament style theme weeks to the classic game and temporary game elements, like an XL wedge on the wheel in season 40 that was worth $40,000 if the contestants solved the bonus puzzle.)
Next up is finding a streamer that will pick up either same-day or next-day episodes; the studio is expected to shop it shortly.
Blackstone is confident there is much more they can do with the IP, like creating spinoffs similar to what Jeopardy! is doing with its pop culture edition hosted by Colin Jost. Sony Kids and the Game Show group, for example, is developing and taking out to market a kids/family version of WoF.
Somehow, the resume of Jones’ successor and Blackstone’s predecessor Harry Friedman was overlooked. Fortunately, Wikipedia is readily available to fill the void:
During his tenure with the show, Friedman attempted to keep the show’s gameplay fresh and exciting with many new additions to the rules. The new gameplay elements and rule modifications that were introduced to Wheel during Friedman’s tenure, in chronological order based on their times of introduction, include the progressive cash jackpot wedge (in 1996), Toss-Up puzzles (in 2000), the increase of the bonus round’s top value from its previous $25,000 to $100,000 (in 2001), the replacement of said round’s former “W-H-E-E-L” prize envelope holder with the current “Bonus Wheel” (also in 2001), the Mystery wedges (in 2002), the Prize Puzzle (in 2003), the Wild Card (in 2006), the Australian million dollar wedge (in 2008), the replacement of the long-standing Free Spin token with the Free Play wedge (in 2009), the ½ Car tags (in 2011), and most recently, retiring the jackpot wedge in favor of the new Express wedge (in 2013).
Friedman was responsible for many of Wheel’s digital extensions, including the launch of the show’s official website, and the development of video games based on the show for Sony‘s PlayStation consoles and Nintendo‘s Wii. He also conceived adaptations of the show for the iPhone, the iPad, and other electronic devices.
In other words, a helluva more than Blackstone has done or has even indicated she’d like to do. He also produced a stunt-filled spin-off called WHEEL 2000, a one-season failure for the dying days of CBS’ Saturday morning kids’ lineup, that didn’t even make it to the eponymous year it championed.
Oh, one more thing:
Friedman has won fourteen Emmy Awards, the most won by a game show producer. (Also, 14 more than Blackstone currently has to her credit).
Not bad for a man, huh?
I know Rice is a student of television and has an appreciation for these kinds of facts, especially those readily available with a few mouse clicks. The fact we learned that Blackstone has a show business lineage is proof positive of that:
Unless you’re a boomer, however, chances are rather slim you’d recognize the significance of her once famous lineage. Her father was Harry Blackstone Jr., a magician and television performer who learned the art of illusion from his dad, The Great Blackstone. Blackstone’s mom, Gay, served as her dad’s assistant on the road and was the lucky sap who got sawed in half when her husband wasn’t making handkerchiefs dance and animals disappear.
I do remember Blackstone, Junior. He was a frequent guest performer on children’s variety shows and occasional talk and variety shows, extending his popularity well beyond the niche of the storied Magic Castle. He was engaging, accessible and charismatic. Much like, say, Ryan Seacrest is today.
With a pedigree such as this, I don’t doubt that Blackstone fille has the potential to get that much and more out of Seacrest and, down the road, perhaps Vanna White’s eventual replacement. Assuming she gets more responsibility for that move than she received with the choice of Seacrest. I have to assume she’s reviewing audition tapes from comedy clubs and magic shows around the world in her spare time right now.
When she makes such an announcement, which in a transition year for Sony could be sooner than later, I fully expect Rice will have an in on the exclusive. I just hope she does a better job at fact-checking and legwork then than she did this time around.
And still one more thing:
That 12 per cent year/year audience boost that seemed to have ignited this piece translates to something in the neighborhood of 1 million viewers. Coincidentally, Sony, even before it finally finds a streaming home for WHEEL, just happened to sell three-year-old episodes to its now wholly owned Game Show Network partner, where ten episodes a week now air in the heart of prime time that include multiple runs of the barter time that is measured by Nielsen to produce that result. In 2023, an average GSN program reached 340,000 viewers. We can debate the exact specifics of the math, but it’s more than safe to assume that a significant chunk of that growth stems from that sale, once again something that Prete at best signed off on and Blackstone, I assume, was at least copied on.
I know all the parties involved with this could have figured this all out themselves. I sure hope when Blackstone has sustained this success for more than a month and gets another laudatory piece somewhere they will. After all, it simply involves research, not magic.
Until next time…