Game Shows Already Fade In Popularity.

Back in the Paleolithic days of network television, CBS's "The $64,000 Question" was the hottest game show in prime time, climbing to the No. 1 spot during the 1955-56 season. So staggering was the success that from 1956 through 1958, there were 26 game shows in prime time -- clones like CBS's "The $64,000 Challenge" and NBC's rival "Twenty One."

None of them ever had the sizzle of the original.

Four decades later, history is repeating itself. Multiple broadcasts of ABC's prime time "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" routinely finish among the top five shows of the week -- an unprecedented performance. Moreover, "Millionaire" has put the once-struggling network not only into first place in the season-to-date averages, but during the key February sweeps.

ABC's rivals, just like CBS's in the 1950s, are sending in the clones. But one already has been canceled, and none are enjoying anywhere near the success of the ABC powerhouse.

CBS just pulled the plug on "Winning Lines," making it the first prime-time game show casualty. Fox's "Greed," meanwhile, is slumping.

Only one clone, NBC's "Twenty One," shows much staying power. The show has just been moved to a permanent Monday slot, replacing the all-purpose magazine show "Dateline" starting at 9 p.m. ABC, meanwhile, is said to be considering a syn- dicated version of "Millionaire" for the fall of 2001.

As ABC's rivals scramble to capture the lightning of "Millionaire," there are growing indications that the craze for prime-time game shows has peaked.

"'Winning Lines' reached the saturation point," said Tom Decabia, a media buyer for Schulman/Advanswers N.Y. "The question now is, do they want to kill it (the genre) by adding more? 'Millionaire' in syndication would make the burnout time much faster."

This is not the first time the networks have had too much of a good thing. TV Westerns once dominated prime time, but faded when clones of "Gunsmoke" and "Bonanza" started overwhelming the schedule.

The most recent example of unsuccessful TV cloning was the race to develop comedies based on NBC's highly successful sitcoms "Friends" and "Seinfeld." Few of these shows about spoiled singles in New York succeeded, resulting in a decline for the sitcom genre in prime time. TV experts all agree that history will repeat itself with a glut of game shows.

"'Millionaire' looks more and more like the exception," said David Poltrack, CBS executive vice president for planning and research. "The others look marginal and will not grow."

Too many game shows blur the landscape. "They all start to look alike," Poltrack said. "No one has been able to match all the elements of 'Millionaire.' When the first one comes on strong, it is difficult for all that follow. None of them are living up to the original, and they are all starting to show some kind of fading, while 'Millionaire' is not as yet."

Aside from the ratings problems, there are longer-term issues evolving with the success of "Millionaire" and the lemming-like stampede to come up with a successful rival. Game shows are crippling the development process for, sitcoms and dramas in Hollywood.

These series usually take longer to develop a large audience than a show like "Millionaire" -- but the success of ABC's game show has made programming executives less patient.

"(Game shows) keep dramas and comedies off the schedule that could be the next 'Seinfeld' and 'ER,' or a show like 'Everybody Loves Raymond,' which took three years to reach its current status," Poltrack said. "These kind of shows will be handicapped by these instantly profitable reality game shows."

That spells bad news for Hollywood's creative community. With everyone rushing to create a new game show, there is less work for writers, directors, actors and other high-paid personnel needed for traditional prime-time programming.

Moreover, the short-term economics of game shows could ultimately damage the longterm health of a network. Game shows have virtually no back-end profit potential -- in other words, they don't perform well as reruns and it's difficult if not impossible to sell already-run games to TV stations in syndication. For sitcoms and dramas, syndication can add up to hundreds of millions in future profits.

Yet advertisers love the big ratings that some game shows have been able to draw, not to mention the non-controversial nature of the programming. That means the game show mill won't be grinding to a halt just yet.

Further, even though there have been complaints that the prize money is soaring, game shows are cheap to produce, immediately profitable and can, in the case of ABC, dramatically turn around a network even if the rest of its schedule is weak.

"Twenty One," despite being a shadow of "Millionaire," is cost-efficient for NBC, which owns the show and does not have to share any profits with production partners. It is much cheaper to produce than two sitcoms or a one-hour drama that could fill the same one-hour time slot.

Fox officials are operating under the same economic model as NBC, but "Greed" doesn't have the same ratings as "Twenty One." "Greed" was tied for 53rd place with a 7.2 rating for the week ending Feb. 13. For the week ended Feb. 20, it dropped to 61st place with a 6.5 rating. Even so, "Greed," which Fox owns, is outperforming the Fox shows that it replaced, which still makes the low-budget show appealing.

"They are like utility fielders," Poltrack said. "You try to develop one when you have failure, but nobody wants them to permanently fill too many spots."

The quest to capture the magic of "Millionaire" is expected to continue, although somewhat more slowly than the initial rush. CBS has turned to its vaults and has begun developing updated versions of "The $64,000 Question" and "What's My Line." But the network has pushed off their debut until the summer. Instead, after seeing the success of multi-night broadcasts of "Millionaire," CBS has decided to air its new underworld drama, "Falcone," on multiple nights.

ABC is also in the clone business. It is developing a companion show for "Millionaire" with the producer of its hit game show.

Hollywood's production companies are busy as well, developing game shows of their own to sell to the networks. Warner Bros. Television recently bought the rights to an Australian game show, "The Million Dollar Chance of a Lifetime."

"As long as they remain cost effective, you will see more in the summer," Poltrack said. "They are good alternatives in the summer for reruns, and you will have a lot of people copying the 'Millionaire' format to see if they will catch on."