Reg Grundy Organisation

Reg Grundy's started his media career in radio, before moving to television producing Wheel of Fortune which launched on Nine Network in 1959. Another show with this title, based on a US format, celebrated its 25th anniversary in Australia a week before its cancellation in July 2006. In the late 1980s, Reg Grundy established Grundy Worldwide Limited. He created and operated local, independent television production and distribution companies in Europe, Asia and North and South America. Pearson Television (now FremantleMedia Limited) acquired the Grundy group of companies on 3 April 1995. On 30 August 2006, FremantleMedia announced they would merge Grundy Television with their other Australian production company, Crackerjack Productions, to form a single "super" production company called "FremantleMedia Australia", the new company to be managed by Crackerjack's management team with Mark Fennessy as Chief Executive Officer, and his brother Carl Fennessy as Chief Operating Officer. Simon Spalding, Fremantle's Director of Asia Pacific Operations, said in an interview that Grundy Television's premises in Sydney would be refurbished and that, once complete, all Sydney-based staff would be located there. He claimed that this would help to create a 'deeper' production facility and was not a cost-cutting exercise. Spalding also said that although the Grundy name would be disappearing, he was looking at how FremantleMedia could retain the Grundy name and the heritage associated with it. == Programmes ==

Reg Grundy Productions was the American wing of the worldwide television production company Grundy Worldwide, founded by Australian television producer Reg Grundy. Reg Grundy Productions was responsible for the production of two highly successful daytime game shows on NBC during the 1980s, the revival of Sale of the Century and Scrabble, and produced a revival of Scrabble in 1993. The company also produced Time Machine (a history-themed game show similar in format to The Price Is Right) and Scattergories for NBC, ''Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak for ABC and Small Talk for The Family Channel. Of the game shows Grundy produced in America, only Sale and the original Scrabble were hits; Time Machine lasted 16 weeks, Bruce Forsyth's Hot Streak, and Small Talk had 13-week runs each and Scattergories and the revival of Scrabble'' were cancelled after five months (the latter returning only on a limited basis). Frequent announcers of the company's game shows included Jay Stewart, Don Morrow, Gene Wood and Charlie Tuna. Bill Mason (who was EP of Sale of the Century, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune New Zealand) operated the American-based Grundy operation, and was the executive in charge of production for all of the Grundy-based game shows in the States. Former co-creator of game show Concentration, Robert Noah was also the driving force behind several of the aforementioned game shows, including Time, Sale and Scrabble. The company also produced re-edited versions of the highly successful soap operas Prisoner and (in some markets) Neighbours. In the United States, Reg Grundy Productions was headquartered in west Los Angeles, near Century City, and was responsible for launching the career of television and talent agent entrepreneur Sean Perry, whose father Jim Perry, hosted Sale of the Century. Pearson’s acquisition of the Mark Goodson library would bring its classic game shows such as The Price Is Right and Family Feud under the same umbrella as those of Grundy. ==United Kingdom==

Reg Grundy Productions opened up a UK branch in 1975 known as "Reg Grundy Productions (G.B.) Limited". The UK branch produced two big BBC programmes – Going for Gold and Small Talk. They also produced three cult shows for ITV called Keynotes, Celebrity Squares and Man O Man. In 1997, Grundy UK began producing a majority of Channel 5's launch programmes, producing shows such as 100%, Whittle, Night Fever, Fort Boyard, ''Win Beadle's Money, One to Win (a revival of Going for Gold), Greed and The Desert Forges''. In 1999, the existing programmes produced by Pearson Television subsidiary Fremantle (UK) Productions were moved to Grundy UK, which included the two Bruce Forsyth game shows such as Play Your Cards Right and The Price Is Right as well as a Tim Clark game show called Give Us a Clue, a Michael Barrymore game show called Strike It Lucky, a Paul O'Grady game show called ''Lily Savage's Blankety Blank, a Dale Winton game show called Dale's Supermarket Sweep'' and Liza Tarbuck's version of Blockbusters. By 2006, all remaining shows produced under the Grundy name were transitioned off to Talkback Thames. == References ==