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A Look Back At The Best Primetime Lineup In The History Of Television
I found this story about the CBS line-up from 50 years ago pretty interesting. And it's hard to argue with the conclusion that this might have been the best single night of TV in the history of the medium. And it all came together because of the highest rated show that was ever cancelled after just one season due to viewer complaints.
It paved the way for the 1972 season and a single night like no other.
"...the Saturday lineup became: "All in the Family" (which had just won its third Emmy as best comedy); "M*A*S*H," coming off a first-year best-comedy nomination, "Mary Tyler Moore" (winner of three of that year’s four comedy-acting Emmys) and rising star "Bob Newhart." Brought in to cap the night: "The Carol Burnett Show," a perennial Emmy winner entering its seventh season. The result was a three-hour block of top-to-bottom classics."
I originally wondered if NBC's "Must See TV" Thursday could give this a run for the money, but not every show was a gem.
Hard to believe this incredible burst of greatness only lasted a single year and that Saturday night is now considered a graveyard for network TV.
50 Years Later, A Look Back At The Best Primetime Lineup In The History Of Television
Notice the warning in the chart from TV Guide's 1972 Fall Preview edition, showing that CBS line-up. In the fine print below, it indicates some shows could be delayed because of the writers' strike. The more things change, etc...
- Paul Jeffries
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Re: A Look Back At The Best Primetime Lineup In The History Of Television
It's almost hard to believe that Saturdays were actually considered the primo night for the major networks. Nowadays (and it's been this way for at least a couple of decades, if not longer), Saturdays are the dumping ground for burning off cancelled shows, repeats of popular shows and newsmagazine programs.
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- paterson1
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Re: A Look Back At The Best Primetime Lineup In The History Of Television
Look at all of the movies that all three networks had during the week. I am thinking most of these were so called movies made for TV but likely they had some older theatrical films as well.
Only time you see movies on OTA now is around Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving. CTV and Global often show some faux cancon movies made for TV on Saturday night. Usually something like a Hallmark movie that was shot here.
Looks like ABC may have had the strongest line up on Friday night.
- dieter
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Re: A Look Back At The Best Primetime Lineup In The History Of Television
CBC carried a lot of those Saturday shows, but on different nights because of Hockey Night in Canada.
- Tomas Barlow
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Re: A Look Back At The Best Primetime Lineup In The History Of Television
The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court and Hill Street Blues was a pretty solid lineup in the 80's for NBC. Not the best ever, but maybe the best of that decade.
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Re: A Look Back At The Best Primetime Lineup In The History Of Television
In the days before VCRs (and simsub) Canadian stations were often the best way to catch a show you couldn't see because it was on opposite another one you wanted to watch. And this was the only real way to view both of them. And in some cases, primetime started at 7:30 PM, giving viewers an extra half hour of choice, with the CBC & CTV often airing American shows before they ran on the Big 3 Networks stateside.
The cable rules pretty much put the kibosh on that, and now almost everything is run concurrently with the U.S. stations.
dieter wrote:
CBC carried a lot of those Saturday shows, but on different nights because of Hockey Night in Canada.
Here's a look at what the CBC was running in that classic year of 1972. Notice where the CBS Saturday classics discussed above wound up. All In The Family and M*A*S*H were both on Friday, while Mary Tyler Moore came up on Tuesday. And Carol Burnett didn't air until Thursday.
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Thread Starter- Capricasix
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Re: A Look Back At The Best Primetime Lineup In The History Of Television
Seeing Emergency! in that guide reminds me of my childhood crush on Randy Mantooth when I was a wee girl 😄
- Ida Spencer
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Re: A Look Back At The Best Primetime Lineup In The History Of Television
In the days before VCRs (and simsub) Canadian stations were often the best way to catch a show you couldn't see because it was on opposite another one you wanted to watch. And this was the only real way to view both of them. And in some cases, primetime started at 7:30 PM, giving viewers an extra half hour of choice, with the CBC & CTV often airing American shows before they ran on the Big 3 Networks stateside.
The cable rules pretty much put the kibosh on that, and now almost everything is run concurrently with the U.S. stations.
CBC carried a lot of those Saturday shows, but on different nights because of Hockey Night in Canada.
Here's a look at what the CBC was running in that classic year of 1972. Notice where the CBS Saturday classics discussed above wound up. All In The Family and M*A*S*H were both on Friday, while Mary Tyler Moore came up on Tuesday. And Carol Burnett didn't air until Thursday.
CBC ran those shows as pre-releases - meaning we got to enjoy them twice. (Back then though, filmed shows sent to all the Canadian networks and stations were on 16mm as opposed to the 35mm versions the Amnets ran! Not only were they grainer, the film chains used to run them were often dark and dirty - and not in a fun way.)