''CBS Television Quiz'' is a televised

game show A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, sh ...

, running from July 2, 1941, to January 7, 1943, on the CBS television station in New York, WCBW Channel 2 (the forerunner of

WCBS-TV WCBS-TV (channel 2) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside Riverhead, New York–licensed independent station WL ...

). It was the first game show to be broadcast regularly on television. It was an in-house production and broadcast in

black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

. The host was

Gil Fates Joseph Gilbert Fates (September 29, 1914, Newark, New Jersey - May 1, 2000, New York City) was an American television producer. Fates was the executive producer of ''What's My Line?'' Fates produced the game show during its entire quarter-century ...

, with

Frances Buss Frances Mary Buss (16 August 1827 – 24 December 1894) was a British headmistress and a pioneer of girls' education. Life The daughter of Robert William Buss, a painter and etcher, and his wife, Frances Fleetwood, Buss was one of six of their ...

as scorekeeper.

Game play

The ''CBS Television Quiz'' followed an answer-and-question format: contestants were given a clue and were asked to provide a question that the clue would answer. Beyond this, little is known about the show's mechanics. The game show ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...

'' would later use a similar answer-and-question conceit. ''Jeopardy!'' is known to differ from the ''CBS Television Quiz'' in its use of lockout buzzers, which had not yet been invented in 1941 (the first game show to use them was 1946's '' Winner Take All''). Whether Julann Wright Griffin, whom

Merv Griffin Mervyn Edward Griffin Jr. (July 6, 1925 – August 12, 2007) was an American television show host and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer, later appearing in film and on Broadway. From 1965 to 1986 he hosted his own t ...

credited with creating the concept, knew of the ''CBS Television Quiz'' remains an open question.

Broadcast history

Televised game shows prior to the debut of ''CBS Television Quiz'' were "test episodes" for experimental purposes; one of these was ''

Truth or Consequences ''Truth or Consequences'' is an American game show originally hosted on NBC radio by Ralph Edwards (1940–1957) and later on television by Edwards (1950–1954), Jack Bailey (1954–1956), Bob Barker (1956–1975), Steve Dunne (1957–1958), B ...

'' (

NBC Radio The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first t ...

, July 1, 1941), while a show called ''

Spelling Bee A spelling bee is a competition in which contestants are asked to spell a broad selection of words, usually with a varying degree of difficulty. To compete, contestants must memorize the spellings of words as written in dictionaries, and recite ...

'' was broadcast (

BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

, 1938). ''Quiz'' was the first regularly scheduled quiz program, but not the first to be sponsored, and aired on Wednesdays at 8:30 PM EST. On October 2 the series moved to Thursdays, and on January 8 the show was reduced to 55 minutes for the network to present a five-minute news summary at 9:25 PM. ''Quiz'' moved to Mondays on February 2 and was now preceded by a civilian-defense program (later an

American Red Cross The American Red Cross (ARC), also known as the American National Red Cross, is a non-profit humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. It is the desig ...

program), which along with the news summary required the show itself to decrease to 50 minutes. The Red Cross program ended on March 30, allowing ''Quiz'' to re-expand to 55 minutes. After WCBW scaled back their programing at the end of May 1942 following a mandate several weeks earlier by the

War Production Board The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Su ...

to cease building television stations, ''Quiz'' moved to Thursdays and Fridays and was again reduced to 50 minutes. The series ended on January 7, 1943, the day before WCBW temporarily shut down its studios and reverted to broadcasting only filmed material on an irregular basis until May of 1944. Fates would later produce and/or direct many

Goodson-Todman Fremantle (; formerly FremantleMedia) is a British multinational television production and distribution company based in London. Fremantle takes its name from Fremantle International, acquired by predecessor company All American Television in ...

game shows on the network (most notably ''

What's My Line? ''What's My Line?'' is a Panel show, panel game show that originally ran in the United States on the CBS Television Network from 1950 to 1967, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent U.S. revivals. The game uses celebr ...

''), while Buss (later Frances Buss Buch) became CBS' first female director.

Episode status

''CBS Television Quiz'' was aired live, prior to the adoption of

kinescope Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 194 ...

s for recording programs and long before

videotape Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassett ...

. The show does not have any extant audio recordings or photographs, making it one of the few game shows to be completely lost.

References

Bibliography

*Christopher H. Sterling and John M. Kittross, ''Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting'' (

Wadsworth Publishing Cengage Group is an American educational content, technology, and services company for the higher education, K-12, professional, and library markets. It operates in more than 20 countries around the world.(Jun 27, 2014Global Publishing Leaders 2 ...

, 1998; third edition, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002) pages 165-168 *Alex McNeil, ''Total Television'', (New York:

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Ballantine Books Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann in 1998 and remains ...

, third edition, 1964)

External links

* {{IMDb title, 0259132, CBS Television Quiz American game shows CBS original programming American live television series Black-and-white American television shows 1940s American game shows 1941 American television series debuts 1942 American television series endings 1941 in American television 1942 in American television Lost television shows