August 29, 2023

Report: “You Bet Your Life” with Jay Leno canceled

First casualty of Writer’s Strike; Fox readies replacements for stations 

The ongoing Writer’s Strike in Hollywood has claimed its first victim – a game show strip.

A piece in TVNewscheck published last Wednesday revealed a little nugget – the end of Jay Leno’s revival of You Bet Your Life after two seasons as the strike shut down production of the show distributed by Fox First-Run, the syndication arm of Fox Corporation.

In the article about Hollywood studios scaling back on first-run syndication leaving local stations to seek alternatives, the author mentioned several new game shows premiering next month but “going away is You Bet Your Life with Jay Leno, which Fox couldn’t keep in production once the writers strike started.” 

Two weeks into the strike, Leno decided to pause production in support of the striking writers, who wrote for You Bet. Leno, a WGA member himself, said “As a member of the Writers Guild for almost 40 years, I truly understand and stand in solidarity with my fellow union members. For that reason, we are suspending production of our game show, You Bet Your Life, until such time when an agreement can be reached.”

Fox First-Run scored a coup in September 2020 by signing the former Tonight Show host to helm the revival of the Groucho Marx classic as Fox cleared the show on its owned-stations in a variety of early fringe (afternoon) and access (early evening) slots for a September 2021 premiere. Originally, Fox-owned WFLD aired You Bet in an hour block weekdays at 3 p.m., but in March 2022 downgraded the show to late-night at 11 p.m. due to low ratings. 

Nationally, You Bet did averaged around a 0.7 Nielsen household rating, though recent numbers haven’t been available. While this space wasn’t too kind to the show (referring to it as Don’t Bet Your Life With Jay Leno at one point), his version did manage to outlast other failed attempts by Buddy Hackett and Bill Cosby by lasting two seasons as opposed to their single season each. Ironically, You Bet was renewed for a third season earlier this year, but the program would’ve been in indefinite reruns for the foreseeable future due to the strike – one Fox opted not to foist on stations. 

As a replacement, Fox is offering two new game shows the article was referring to: People, Place, and Thing hosted by Melissa Peterman, and Who The Bleep Is That, a show from the producers of TMZ as both were tested on Fox stations recently. Also available is off-GSN repeats of Debmar-Mercury’s People Puzzler, where WFLD will air weekdays at 1 and 1:30 p.m. beginning September 11. 

Other game shows Fox has in their syndication portfolio are the returning Pictionary and 25 Words Or Less.

As for the dual strikes’ impact on other syndicated programming, it is not known if other fare – mainly celebrity-driven talk shows – would be impacted by the time the new season begins next month. The labor stoppage has impacted network late-night talk shows as all have grinded to a halt. 

Earlier this year, CNBC canceled Jay Leno’s Garage after seven seasons. 

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