Then I watch Buzzr and scratch my head.
Buzzr has some sort of data that guides its decisions after nearly a decade, but I'm left scratching my head periodically.
Here are a few of the decisions, past and present, that leave me baffled. I'm sure there are many decisions that confused other Buzzr viewers. And there may be reasons, known reasons, for some of those decisions. In the world of game show fandom, plenty of people will claim they know, and state their opinion as fact. Much like the rest of the world, I suppose.
Let's start with a big one: Buzzr is now broadcasting The Price is Right for two hours every afternoon.
Yes, this puzzles me. I'm not puzzled by its inclusion on Buzzr. I'm not puzzled by the time slot. What confuses me is why it took so long.
When I first gained access to Buzzr, I was tickled. It had its many flaws and drawbacks, but it was geat news for me. But I was puzzled. Why wasn't TPIR included in its schedule, given the streaming service is owned by the same company that owns and produces TPIR?
I had theories as to why it wasn't part of the equation. Given the show was still in production, perhaps the agreement with CBS to broadcast new episodes year after year included a provision that no other outlet could stream old episodes, from any decade. That seemed far fetched, but I couldn't think of a better reason for Buzzr to resist broadcasting the most powerful game show in its catalog on its lackluster, fledgling game show outpost. (The Game Show Network licensed TPIR during a brief period early in its history, of course, although that doesn't mean anything 15+ years later.)
I figured there had to be a way to bring TPIR in some form to Buzzr. Wouldn't it be advantageous to have reruns of past Drew Carey seasons on Buzzr in prime time? You'd draw hardcore game show fans and TPIR fans to Buzzr in a way no rerun of Match Game or Card Sharks could. Sure, you might draw 10 viewers away from the latest season of Survivor on CBS, but I refuse to believe there was a serious downside to showing Carey reruns in prime time.
And if anyone thought that Carey reruns would somehow hurt CBS, then run old Barker episodes on Buzzr.
I just couldn't understand why TPIR had no place in the Buzzr schedule. Then, much to the surprise of many, I believe, Pluto TV lands a 24-hour TPIR channel featuring Bob Barker's early '80s episodes.
And yet, no TPIR on Buzzr. So weird.
We all know how this ends. Pluto eventually adds a separate TPIR channel for Carey, which only seems to air Carey's first season episodes. I rarely watch, but I have yet to see an episode with George Gray as the announcer.
And Barker episodes not only continue non-stop to this day on Pluto, just about every quirky Pluto clone seems to carry Barker's episodes. And they're not all carrying the same episodes simultaneously. Roku's version of a free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) service, as they are known, so says Wikipedia, has the best Barker channel, as it skips some of the commercial breaks, while other FAST services seem to drop ads at every break in the show.
And finally, after all that, Buzzr decides the time has come to add two hours of Barker TPIR to its schedule every afternoon. (Yes, there have been moments when Buzzr would show a black-and-white episode of the game from the 1950s...which bears little resemblance to the show American has known for the past 50 years.
There are business reasons behind why Buzzr didn't drop episodes from its Barker/Carey catalog immediately, I suspect, but the fact it took about eight years and thousands of hours of non-stop streaming of TPIR on Pluto and other FAST services before Buzzr finally deemed it worthy of inclusion on its own network, I don't know. But I'd love to hear the answer.
There are other odd Buzzr decisions that leave me puzzled, and I won't go in depth on any of those, but I'll list a handful of them in a future post.
