For those who don't recall - I only have a slim memory of the marathon myself - GSN ran the final eps of many old game shows on that day to spoof the Y2K hubbub. Charles Nelson Reilly hosted in his usual manic manner, as GSN had fun with the hysteria about the computer glitch that would kill us all. (Of course, the Y2K glitch didn't kill anybody. It didn't do much of anything.)
That got me googling for other stuff on Y2Play. Which led me to this Multichannel story, dated December 5, 1999, about how GSN hoped to benefit from the craze for Regis Philbin's Millionaire.
To those who know a bit about GSN's history, the story is a more than a little ironic. Multichannel quotes GSN execs Michael Fleming and Jake Tauber on how the network had "turned the corner on profitability."
Sadly, GSN hadn't come close to turning any such corner. That's why Fleming and Tauber would both be relieved of their duties in little over a year, with Rich Cronin brought in to straighten out the mess. Among other moves, Cronin would use a whole lotta reruns of - you guessed it - Regis Millionaire to draw badly needed viewers to the network. His programming veep Bob Boden would also oversee key originals for GSN, like Lingo and Russian Roulette.
An upbeat note in the story: GSN had just ordered a new season of Inquizition, called the network's "highest rated original show." In fact, it was one of the best originals GSN ever produced.
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