Game Show Network history

Quiz Kids and Information Please asked listeners to mail questions in for panelists to answer, with a few dollars awarded for people whose questions were stumpers. It only made sense that when commercial television in the United States began on July 1, 1941, the programming line-up for the day included a special broadcast of this show.

Cash and Carry, hosted by Dennis James, was the first regularly scheduled network game show, debuting in 1946.

In 1954, the FCC’s battle to sink the game show business reached the Supreme Court, which ruled that game shows were not illegal lotteries and couldn’t be outlawed.

In 1983, Wheel of Fortune with new hosts Pat Sajak and Vanna White introduced a nighttime version that became the biggest hit in syndication history.

Both deals were completed on December 7, 1992, eleven days before Mark Goodson's death.

On June 6, 1994, Mark Goodson Productions pulled out of the venture.

The Game Show Network (GSN), the only 24-hour cable channel in the United States dedicated to game shows and interactive game playing, was founded in 1995.

Both networks had launched major marketing campaigns in late 1997.

To accomplish this goal, GSN launched its first-ever consumer-marketing and brand-awareness campaign in March 2000.

"Game Show Network You Know You Know Clio." Business Wire, June 7, 2001.

On March 15, 2004, Game Show Network began using the abbreviation "GSN" and introduced the tagline "The Network for Games." GSN began expanding its programming to include reality television games and various competition-based programs.

David Goldhill succeeded Rich Cronin as GSN president on August 1, 2007.

A high definition simulcast feed of the network was launched on September 15, 2010.

In March 2011, DirecTV (which by this point had taken over Liberty Media's then-65% stake in the network) sold a 5% stake in the network back to Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Although DirecTV nominally remained the majority owner, it had ceded control of the network to Sony, and had the right to force Sony to increase its stake in GSN to 58%. On November 8, 2012, DirecTV sold an 18% interest in GSN to Sony.

GSN partnered with Vubiquity to launch "GSN On Demand" on August 15, 2013.

DirecTV's stake in Game Show Network would move to AT&T when it acquired the service in 2015.

In April 2017, David Goldhill stepped down after nearly 10 years as GSN president, the longest tenure for any president to date.

By 2018, the network's programming returned to focus on traditional game show formats, culminating in a rebranding that restored the network's full name.

In April 2020, Game Show Network re-introduced Master Minds, a retool of an earlier original show called Best Ever Trivia Show featuring Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings, and now hosted by the returning Brooke Burns of the GSN version of The Chase.