The Southern Ontario/WNY Radio-TV Forum » Did The Rules About Prizes On Cdn. Made TV Game Shows Change?

RadioActive · September 12, 2023 10:05 am

I had to laugh when John Moore brought up the subject of old Canadian TV game shows on Tuesday. Now before paterson1 leaps to his keyboard to attack me, I want to point out that those shows from the past are not the same quality as what we get today. The production, the sets and more have all gotten substantially better and are now on par with some of their American counterparts. (Not that there are that many Cdn. game shows, but the ones that do exist are well done.)

But back in the 60s and 70s, they had an undeniable cheapness and not always the best production quality, because their budgets were so low. Even Moore pointed out he would wait to see the mic boom appear in the shot on almost every show.

But while things have certainly improved, I'm curious about the prize values. If there was anything that separated Canadian shows from their U.S. counterparts, it was in what the contestants won. In the U.S., it was cars, luxury vacations and big money. In Canada, it was often a mattress or something that cost almost nothing.

Many years after watching all these things, I discovered this wasn't the producers' fault - there were really dumb laws in place that stated Canadian shows could only give away a specific value of prizes - roughly around $500 or less if memory serves. Hence, the built-in cheapness.

(I remember being at a taping of a game show at CFTO studios as a kid and the warm-up guys trying to get the audience to go "oooh" and "ahhh" over the grand prize of a mattress.)

And even if you won, you still had to answer a "skill testing" question to claim the prize, because in Canada you just couldn't win something without somehow having to prove you'd 'earned' it.

So why bring this up now? The other day I heard a commercial on the radio for the season premiere of "Canada's Got Talent" on City TV. Howie Mandel, one of the judges, dramatically announced this year's winner will get $1 million - the largest prize ever given away on TV in Canada.

Have the rules changed about Canadian giveaways? That could never have happened when I was watching these shows as a kid. And is that stupid provision about the "skill testing question" still in place? If not, nice to see we've given up some of these dumb requirements that never made any sense to me.

Although I'll admit it WAS a nice mattress...

Forward Power · September 12, 2023 10:17 am

Watching an episode of "Definition" on YouTube, I can only imagine what was going through Dave Devall's head when talking about prizes like "a beautiful seven-piece set of knives from the Henckels four-star collection... and from the Gold Leaf series, a gold-plated manicure set!"

BowmanvilleBob · September 12, 2023 10:26 am

Having watched a few episodes from the first season, you'd have to pay me a million dollars to watch another minute of "Canada's Got Talent." May God have mercy on the souls of all those involved with this abomination.

Radiowiz · September 12, 2023 10:28 am

I'd like to say Canada's Got Talent is not a gameshow, but instead it's a talent competition and therefore does not qualify to be a part of the max. payout rule.
However, there's also Battle of the generations, a gameshow paying out $25,000
so,
either the rules have been updated, changed, or dropped altogether.

RadioActive · September 12, 2023 10:32 am

Forward Power wrote:
Watching an episode of "Definition" on YouTube, I can only imagine what was going through Dave Devall's head when talking about prizes like "a beautiful seven-piece set of knives from the Henckels four-star collection... and from the Gold Leaf series, a gold-plated manicure set!"

One of the worst offenders for this was CHCH, which understandably, as an independent, had budgets of almost zero for some of their shows.

When the game show scandal blew up in the U.S., Jack Barry fled to Canada and hosted a show called "It's A Match" on Channel 11 in Hamilton. This one has stayed with me all these years and as a kid, I always watched it. It was kind of like a "Concentration" type show, and you had to remember where certain things were on a rotating wheel board to win money.

They had a school teacher named Rocky Sankoff - amazingly, I still remember his name - who had a photographic memory. He was on the show for weeks and months, without ever losing once. He simply could not be beaten. After every show, Barry would ask him, "Rocky, do you want to come back next time?" and course, he always answered 'yes'.

Until one day, after months on the show, he finally said "no, I want to give someone else a chance." Perhaps the producers had a talk with him or maybe he'd just had enough.

So guess how much he walked away with after all those weeks on the show?

The answer: $64.

Yes, $64. That was his take home winnings after all that work.

And though 64 bucks was worth a bit more back then, it was never a lot of money. I probably would have quit long before that if that's what I was going to get for all that time and trouble. I just hope he didn't spend it all in one place. Although it would be hard not to!

turkeytop · September 12, 2023 10:33 am

Some channel my wife watches has the old B&W game shows from the 50s and 60s. In some of them, the contestants smoke during the show and often cartons of cigarettes are awarded as prizes.

RadioActive · September 12, 2023 10:36 am

Radiowiz wrote:
I'd like to say Canada's Got Talent is not a gameshow, but instead it's a talent competition and therefore does not qualify to be a part of the max. payout rule.

I'm not saying that's wrong, but I'm not sure. I think the rules put a cap on just about every prize awarded in Canada, regardless of what the show or contest was. I'm not entirely sure when it changed but obviously, thankfully, it has. But I would like to know if that skill testing question thing is still in place.

What if you won a million dollars, but got the question wrong?

RadioActive · September 12, 2023 10:43 am

turkeytop wrote:
Some channel my wife watches has the old B&W game shows from the 50s and 60s. In some of them, the contestants smoke during the show and often cartons of cigarettes are awarded as prizes.

That's probably Buzzr TV, a cable station down south.

Canadians can watch it through a VPN set to the U.S. on PlutoTV here.

mace · September 12, 2023 10:48 am

A set of American Tourist luggage was always a frequent prize on Canadian game shows.

RadioActive · September 12, 2023 11:16 am

mace wrote:
A set of American Tourist luggage was always a frequent prize on Canadian game shows.

Today, they would demand it would be a set of Canadian Tourist luggage!

paterson1 · September 12, 2023 11:16 am

I think the rules were changed many years ago. CHUM FM has offered $100,000 for Beat the Bank for well over a decade. One year I believe it was up to $500,000. The CTV two episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire with Pamela Wallen offered one million Canadian if the questions were answered correctly in 2000.

Don't know why some on here always need to revisit the cheap prizes on Canadian game shows 45 years ago. Seems this comes up every few months. As I recall some of the US game shows didn't always have the greatest prizes either. I remember it was Jeopardy! for years gave the losing contestants a supply of Rice A Roni as a parting gift..

Actually if you watch many of the old daytime US game shows from the late 60's to 70's many of them didn't have the best production values with out of focused shots, technical mistakes and cameras that didn't know they were on air with erratic zooms or shots off set. Didn't happen a lot but more than you would think. And there was no effort to edit out the errors.

Paul Jeffries · September 12, 2023 12:28 pm

paterson1 wrote:
Actually if you watch many of the old daytime US game shows from the late 60's to 70's many of them didn't have the best production values with out of focused shots, technical mistakes and cameras that didn't know they were on air with erratic zooms or shots off set. Didn't happen a lot but more than you would think. And there was no effort to edit out the errors.

I remember frequently on The Joker's Wild the lever on the floor for the bonus round would move around quite a bit when the contestant pulled it, as though it wasn't fastened to the floor properly. Although I suspect it was probably more prop than functional.

PJ

Dale Patterson · September 12, 2023 1:22 pm

Wasn't there a limit of $5,000 for Canadian radio prizes at one time? This would have been back in the '70s. Does anyone know?

Last edited by Dale Patterson (September 12, 2023 2:15 pm)

RadioActive · September 12, 2023 1:37 pm

I seem to recall something like that amount.

Which government department is responsible for deciding on these kinds of things? It wouldn't seem to be a CRTC purview, per se, but I'm not sure who or what entity made up the rules - or why - in the first place.

Paul Jeffries · September 12, 2023 2:02 pm

Dale Patterson wrote:
Wasn't there a limit of $5,000 for Canadian radio prizes at one time. This would have been back in the '70s. Dos anyone know?

I believe it went well into the 80s. I remember 1050 CHUM running promos for a contest around 1984-85 stating that they were giving away the biggest cash prize allowed by law. Later it was announced that the grand prize was $5,000, which almost seemed anticlimactic given all the fanfare leading up to it.

PJ

Last edited by Paul Jeffries (September 12, 2023 2:03 pm)

paterson1 · September 12, 2023 3:31 pm

CHUM gave away 4 of these Pontiac Astras during the summer of 1973. This was in addition to all of the other usual things like CHUM beach towels, concert tickets etc. One other promotion I remember they were giving away a brand new Corvette and a 1954 model as well.

So the prizes actually were pretty good and not cheap at all. It was more the Canadian TV networks like CTV that had the miserly prizes. It looks like they could have given away better prizes if they wanted since radio stations did. A lot of people won $1,000 for just saying I Listen To CHUM when they answered the phone. Back then this was a lot of money which would be worth about $7,000 today.

John Landecker felt that prize giveaways and contests were handled much better here since stations couldn't literally buy the audience during rating periods. Also Canadian gameshows avoided cheating and collusion scandals such as those with The $64,000 Question, Tic- Tac- Dough, Twenty-One, Dotto and others. I mean what producer at CTV was going to help a contestant to win a Brother electric typewriter or a set of Encyclopedia Britannica?

Last edited by paterson1 (September 12, 2023 3:36 pm)

RadioActive · September 12, 2023 3:44 pm

If you've ever watched some of those very early Price Is Right episodes from 72-73, you'll see cars (with tax and licence as Johnny Olsen used to say) were only around $3,000 or so (see pic below.) So it's possible CHUM could have given away a car and not exceeded any prize price threshold.

It wasn't that they couldn't give away anything up to $5,000 for an entire promotion. It was that no one prize could be worth more than that. At least that's what I was led to believe.

What I was trying to find out was who decided on that threshold and why it was lifted? Somewhere along the line, things changed. I'm just not sure when.

paterson1 · September 12, 2023 10:33 pm

Also interesting to note that when you win prize money or merchandise in Canada, you don't pay tax, or need to declare it for income tax. In the US merchandise winnings still require tax to be paid, and cash prizes are considered income.

So the cars won on CHUM were tax free and the cars won with the Price Is Right were taxable.

I knew someone who won about $350,000 at one of the Windsor casinos. She got the money that day, and no tax needed to be paid. You will only be taxed if you invested the money and will be taxed on interest earned. She paid off her mortgage, bought a new car, put her boys through college and gave some to family members and most important... she was now debt free. She paid no tax since the money wasn't invested. Her disposable income increased greatly after winning the money.

mace · September 13, 2023 9:03 am

In the U.S. any winnings over $600 is taxable. So you are an average person on TPIR who somehow manages to win the showcase with a car, a trip, plinko cash etc totalling 90K. The guy earns maybe 30K yearly. The IRS considers all those prizes as income. In their eyes, he earned 120K and will be taxed accordingly. Off stage, I believe contestants have the option of declining prizes to avoid the tax complications.

RadioActive · September 13, 2023 9:35 am

mace wrote:
In the U.S. any winnings over $600 is taxable. So you are an average person on TPIR who somehow manages to win the showcase with a car, a trip, plinko cash etc totalling 90K. The guy earns maybe 30K yearly. The IRS considers all those prizes as income. In their eyes, he earned 120K and will be taxed accordingly. Off stage, I believe contestants have the option of declining prizes to avoid the tax complications.

What happens when you get what used to be euphemistically called "The Booby Prize?" I've posted this before, but it's such a great article, it's worth repeating.

Have you ever wondered about those Let's Make A Deal contestants who got zonked and "won" an ostrich? What would happen if they demanded what they won? Turns out, some did, and it created nothing but headaches.

Glen Warren · September 13, 2023 11:14 am

I read an article a few years back that basically stated that winning a prize of any value on game shows like The Price is Right or the old $ale of the Century, Press Your Luck or Wheel of Fortune was like getting whacked, twice...

First, you had to pay the taxes on the winnings (prizes and cash). By the 70s the majority of the daytime network game shows were being produced/recorded in the Los Angeles or Burbank areas of California, so in addition to federal tax schedules, the local and state taxes were also factored in where applicable to the the prize winnings of contestants.

Second, for the majority of game shows that offered or awarded prizes, the value or the prize was based on the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP).

The point that the article was trying to make was that in many cases, a person could conceivably purchase that new car, or washer/dryer or billiards table from a local supplier or retailer at less than the MSRP value. If you won the prize, you paid taxes on the higher (in most cases) MSRP, and state/local taxes were based on the prize MSRP value as well.

I don't know... to me it kinda sounded like sour grapes on the part of the writer when I read it. I mean, If I had been a studio audience member selected to be a contestant and I won a new car, I wouldn't be complaining... it would still be cheaper that paying for that new car...

Last edited by Glen Warren (September 13, 2023 11:14 am)