I actually don’t envy people who feel the need to get so worked up over something as relatively inconsequential as a television show. I grew up a game show geek myself/ I spent decades working with exceptionally talented people who create and produce them, and I will readily admit I’m still a viewer and a fan of most. No, I’m not watching every single one that’s currently in production, or every single possible minute of the 24/7 reruns available on Game Show Network, BUZZR or You Tube. I do know many who do, and I’m grateful for their passion and loyalty. Even more so at a time when I thought it actually mattered to whether or not I’d have a job.
But after years and years of dealing with the dispassionate realities of Nielsen panels I’ve come to learn that passionate opinions at best provide color commentary and guidance. I’ve also learned that finding them is neither cheap nor easy. Hence I’m particularly sensitive to when people claim to be or doing something other than what they actually are. When it comes to online complainers, that’s especially true.
There’s no better example out there than the dozens of sh-tposters who have been whining since last month’s Season 55 premiere of THE PRICE IS RIGHT. My algorithm unsurprisingly pivot me to many, and the changes that have been incorporated this year are driving a disproportionate number of them to distraction. They are no longer budgeting for more than one model per episode to display prizes, rotating the existing array less frequently for now. They have significantly reduced the size of the studio audience–already shrunk when it moved from its longtime CBS Television City to a more modern but less grandiose Fremantle-owned production facility in suburban Glendale. Even the “quality” of the prizes–more domestic vacation destinations, smaller and more utilitarian cars and SUVs–draw consistent ire and saber-rattling calls to action to “boycott” the show.
It is to laugh that any such “threat” can be taken seriously. Because anyone who can be that detailed about what irks them is clearly still watching the show. And Nielsen ratings haven’t wavered in any statistically significant way for months. The most recently available data from USDB.com shows the total persons audience holding between 4.2 and 4.5 million from Thanksgiving through Fourth of July, and in weeks where live sports are not a factor THE PRICE IS RIGHT is CBS’ most-watched program. Period.
Now I wouldn’t expect an average viewer to know or care about such detail. But I would expect more from an executive who lived in that world for decades who I would hope at least had a ratings report explained to him, let alone was capable of putting fan feedback into context. That’s clearly not the case with one Roger Dobkowitz.
Dobkowitz is now 81, 18 years removed from his most recent employment as producer of the show, a veteran of 36 years exclusively with what began as Mark Goodson-Bill Todman Productions. After being rotated among several of the company’s productions during its peak prolificness of the 70s he eventually settled in with PRICE, developing an exceptionally close relationship with emcee Bob Barker. He presided over some of the show’s most successful seasons both with viewers and with Emmy voters. He was handsomely compensated for his loyalty and efforts and was even given an opportunity to remain with the show when Barker retired in 2007 and the Goodson imprenteur was being phased out by new owner All American TV and showrunner Syd Vinnedge.
But while Dobkowitz and his colleagues were earnestly attempting to fill Barker’s void with a series of auditions for personalities they had familarity with, including the likes of game show lifer Todd Newton and fanboy local weathermen Mark Kriski and Dave Price, Vinnedge and CBS president Leslie Moonves had developed a fascination with comedian Drew Carey. Carey’s ABC sitcom was just ending when Barker’s retirement was made known–a project that was greenlit and sold by Moonves just before he left Warner Brothers TV to join CBS. Part of the fascination was supported by the fact that Carey actually had hosting experience, both as the gleeful torquemada for the improv comedy import WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY and a short-lived prime time trad game from the fertile mind of Michael Davies called POWER OF 10. POWER OF 10 was a somewhat complicated guesstimating game that offered an impossible-to-achieve $10 million grand prize, but Carey navigated the rules and drama deftly. Maybe Dobkowitz was too busy grieving Barker’s departure to have watched but I did. More importantly, Moonves did as well. So I wasn’t surprised, let alone ticked off, when Carey was chosen to host PRICE.
Dobkowitz made no secret how blindsided he felt and how bad a choice he felt Carey was for his precious production. He also loudly protested any additional changes in aesthetics, music and gameplay that Vinnedge offered. And Lord knows he wasn’t even pointing to any sort of audience feedback to support his opinion. He certainly couldn’t point to an audience decline–available historical data ironically kept by the meticulous geeky PRICEISRIGHTSTATS.COM site– point to practically zero variance between Barker’s third-to-last season in 2005 (10.5 MM HHs) to Carey’s first in 2008 (10.4 MM HHs). Unsurprisingly, Vinnedge–with input from Carey–relieved Dobkowitz of his duties after that 2008 season. As anyone who has ever dealt with changes in management has come to learn, if you spend that much time arguing with the powers that be, you’re deemed expendale.
He is far from the first seasoned executive who has been put out to pasture to complain about how things have progressed since their ouster. Most of the others I know have found the resolve to soldier on or priortize other things in their lives. I’ll own up to having similarly bitter feelings at times about my own career trajectory. But Dobkowitz has been singing this same tune for 18 freaking years, and last week he even found a willing accomplice in THE CLOSER WEEKLY’s Isha Sharma to give his carping a megaphone:
“I am a little worried about The Price Is Right,” Dobkowitz wrote. He argued that the current season “reeks of a show desperately trying to stay on at any cost.” He pointed to what he sees as signs of cost-cutting, including fewer models and changes in how big-ticket prizes are presented.
He didn’t mince his words when it came to Carey, either. “It is time to cut Drew Carey loose,” Dobkowitz wrote.
“I understand many people like Drew’s presence on the show…but it is obvious he ADDS very little to the show…he ushers contestants to their game, recites the rules quickly, and always asks if they want to say hello to anyone at home,” he added.
He argued that money spent on Carey’s reported salary instead could be invested in the show itself, including better prizes, more models and more contestant wins.’
At least Dobkowitz has not joined the lynch mob that continues to insist that the show is casting way too many people of color for their liking and insisting that new Fremantle producers have set quotas along those lines. That, along with the somewhat less frequent requests to see more handicapped people and less with exuberant personalities, give rise to my own acknowledgement that the average PRICE IS RIGHT viewer today is a lot less similar to the average PRICE IS RIGHT producer today–or yesterday, for that matter.
But I really have to ask how many of those vox populi he’s personally heard from who would endorse any of the back-to-the-future “solutions” he’s arguing are necessary. And whether or not they’re actually still watching despite find some common ground with his tired petty grievances.
Or if he’s given thought to the harsh reality that a subtantial portion of the eight-figure audiences that his efforts reguarly attracted at least two decades ag0–who I’d like to believe he realized were disproportionately as 65-plus as today’s are–have literally died off? Just like Barker, Goodson and his mentors?
Or if he’s ever given any thought as to whether those relative few that have become new viewers in the interim are as down on Carey as he is and are clamoring for better prizes and more models lacking any prior history with the show ? You know, other than those we both know that are spending as many waking moments as possible the Barker era reruns on Fremantle’s FAST channel despite having minimal knowledge of what an AMC Hornet Hatchback or Jolly Time popcorn cost–or even were? We know how representative a snapshot of today’s youth that is.
An executive with decades of experience who worked for several different companies along the way might have such capacity for reflection and closure. I know this one does. Roger Dobkowitz–not so much.
The legal statute of limitations is typically seven years. I’d then contend Dobkowitz’s window for such overt and consistent bitterness has been closed for more than a decade. Rog, do you really believe getting an Isha Sharma on your side along with a coupla hundred fanbois is gonna get anyone to take you any more seriously than you have been since you steadfastly stood in the way of anything resembling progress?
If that’s indeed so, then I have nothing left to say or even add other than this:
Until next time…