Dialing for Dollars

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Dialing for Dollars was a franchised format local television program in the United States and Canada, popular in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. The program's usual format had the host, a local television personality, announce a certain password to the audience at the beginning of the program and then randomly select a phone number from a bowl or drum (from those that had been previously submitted by viewers) and call it. If the viewer was watching the show, they would know that they were being called, answer the phone with the correct password, and would win a monetary prize. If the number did not answer, the prize money would continue to increase.

Dialing for Dollars originated as a radio program in 1939 on WCBM in Baltimore, Maryland, hosted by Homer Todd. With the rapid development of commercial television broadcasting in the U.S. in the late 1940s and 1950s, the format switched to television and was franchised nationally as a popular, low-budget way to fill local market airtime, especially in the late mornings.

By the mid-1970s, the popularity of the Dialing for Dollars format faded as competition from daytime talk shows developed and more sophisticated game shows were syndicated. Another factor in the show's decline was the trend of fewer households having stay-at-home members available to answer the phone during the day. Although still seen in a few markets, Dialing for Dollars left the Baltimore airwaves in 1977, after giving away $800,000 locally in its 38-year run there on radio and television.[1]

Janis Joplin sings about the show in the song "Mercedes Benz":

"Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a color TV?
Dialing for Dollars is trying to find me.
I wait for delivery each day until three,
So oh Lord, won’t you buy me a color TV?"

The program has also been satirized on Second City TV.

  1. ^ Scott Shane, "Television host Stu Kerr dies", Baltimore Sun, July 18, 1994.

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