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NBC really was struggling wasn’t by this point? Only 4 shows in the top 30 with their only 10 top entry being their Sunday night movie title.

Was this the 1st ABC scored as overall #1? Seems the older CBS sitcoms from the early 70’s were starting to age and flail here. AITF dropped to #11 after 5 seasons at #1. Obviously a show like Rhoda lost a good chunk of its viewers with its bad creative decisions this season but even MTM’s final season, Carol Burnett, Maude, Bob Newhart, and Phyllis all look like they’re  floundering.

@Paul Raven was correct CBS moving kind of struck a knife to their once highly successful and high rated Saturday night line up especially moving shows around on a whim. 

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CBS  reinvented themselves with AITD and MTM. They followed up with MASH, Bob Newhart, Rhoda, Maude, Good Times, Jeffersons etc But they failed to replenish the sitcom stockpile.

Admittedly that is hard to do when you have so many hits, that available timeslots are few.

ABC faced the same problem when they failed to replace the likes of Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Three's Company, Barney Miller etc with new hits.

And how did NBC get to #1? On the strength of sitcoms.

The network with the most successful sitcoms in the 60's,70's and 80's was always #1.

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A number of these fall previews for ABC fall '74 had already been on Youtube but this one was new to me.

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I believe that 1974 schedule was a complete bust for ABC. Only The Rookies and Streets of San Francisco made any impression.

Paper Moon, Get Christie Love, New Land, Texas Wheelers, Kodiak, Sonny Comedy Revue, Nakia  all bombed.

It looked like ABC would be in the basement for years to come.

But Happy Days, Six Million Dollar took off and ABC slowly started building hits. By mid season 76 they hit #1.

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That Jaws rating put it at #2 of movie premieres to that point, only beaten by Gone With The Wind 3 years before,

It also placed #14 of overall ratings behind 7 episodes of Roots, 3 Superbowls, a Superbowl pre game show and the two parts of Gone With the Wind.

Mork and Mindy was the lead-in with Jaws starting at 8.30 pm. Salvage 1 #61 /13.1/21 was placed at 7pm replacing failed sitcoms Out of the Blue and New Kind of Family.

NBC programmed a 2hr Disney-20,000 Leagues Under The Sea 7-9 16.2/24 and Part 2 of the movie MacArthur 9-11 10.6/15 #65 lowest rating show of the week.

CBS put up a good fight with their usual schedule

60 Minutes #3

Archie Bunker #11 23.5/34

One Day at A Time 22.4/31

Alice 21.3/29

Jeffersons 19.4/27

CBS New Special about Teddy Kennedy #63 12.9/20.

As well as Sunday ABC won Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Mon

ABC 240 Robert/Football

CBS White Shadow /MASH #4/WKRP #9/Lou Grant

NBC Little House #6 Freedom Road Pt. 1 19.1/31

Tues

ABC Happy Days/Laverne & Shirley/3's Company #2 /Taxi #8 /Hart to Hart

CBS The Baby Makers 12.4/20 #62  (pre-empting California Fever)/One on One 17.3/29

NBC Casper 19.1/31 /Witches Night Out (pre-empting Sheriff Lobo)19.1/30 /Freedom Rd Pt 2 14.2/24

Wed

ABC Eight is Enough 18.0/30 /Charlies Angels 19.5/30 /Vegas

CBS Bugs Bunny Halloween 14.9/25 /Raggedy Ann 14.4/24 (pre-empting Last Resort/Struck by Lightning) Two Worlds of Jenny Logan 16.1/28

NBC Real People 20.3/33 /Diff'rent Strokes 19.2/31 /Hello Larry 17.2/28 /Best of SNL

First time Eight/Angels had been beaten.

Thurs

ABC Laverne & Shirley/Benson/Barney Miller/Soap/20/20

CBS Waltons/Hawaii Five O/Barnaby Jones

NBC Buck Rogers 16.3/25 /Quincy/Kate Loves A Mystery 15.1/26 

NBC running 3rd at 8 and 10 ( even though Quincy was beating H 50)

Fri

ABC Battle of Network Stars 18.9/32 Guinness World Records #58  13.7/23 (Fantasy Island had move back to Sat after a disastrous run Fri @8.

CBS Hulk/ Dukes #10 /Dallas #5

NBC Shirley #60 / Other Side of the Mountain #59  13.7/23

 

Sat

ABC Ropers #57 13.8/24 /Detective School  #64 11.5/20 / Love Boat/Fantasy Island

CBS Race for your Life Charlie Brown /Avalanche #56 14.1/26

NBC Chips/MacArthur Pt 1 15.6/28 

 

 

 

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Ropers was a smash in it's short run the previous season, but that was on Tues following 3's Company/Taxi . 

I wonder, once it was picked up were their new writers? Did they use scripts from the original 'George & Mildred'?

The same thing would happen a few years later with 'Joanie Loves Chachi' which was an instant hit following Happy Days, but a new timeslot and writers and the show bombed.

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Week ending March 5 1978

Second season shows are tested CBS finishes first week in March with stronger than usual 1 9.5, but not enough to beat ABC

The prime -time ratings pattern continued to hold steady for the week ended March 5, and attention increasingly turns to second season entries as the networks probe one another's weaknesses or cover their own.

As usual, ABC -TV won the week, scoring a 20.5 average rating. But CBS -TV was closer than usual with a 19.5 average garnered with the help of several strong specials and movies in addition to some of its dependable series regulars. NBC followed its habit of plummeting when its "évent "entries failed. In this case it was the miniseries, Loose Change, which scored only 24 and 22 shares on Monday and Tuesday, leaving the network with a 16.9 average rating for the week.

Looking at new series and new time slots, ABC's Six Million Dollar Man on Monday (8 -9 p.m. NYT) continued to falter with a 22 share, while What's Happening, in its new slot on Saturday (8 -9 p.m.), also remained shaky with a 23 share. Starsky and Hutch is still healthy with a 38 share in its new slot following Charlie's Angels on Wednesday, and How the West Was Won also had a 38 on Sunday (8 -9 p.m.).

Against West CBS's Rhoda and On Our Own came in poorly for the second week in a row of face to face competition, with each pulling 25 shares after a 41 share lead in from 60 Minutes.

ABC's special two -hour presentation of the upcoming series tryout, Having Babies, scored a 27 share on Friday (9 -11 p.m.) against strong competition from both the other networks (the movie "Ski Lift to Death" on CBS and Rockford Files and Quincy on NBC).

For CBS, its new Monday night leadoffs, Good Times and Baby I'm Back, scored so -so 27 and 28 shares respectively. But the second half of the night had its best performance since the new line -up came in- M *A*S *Hwith a 45, One Day at a Time with a 41 and Lou Grant with a 36.

Celebrity Challenge of the Sexes and Shields and Yarnell showed no signs of reviving on Tuesday, with 16 shares each, but the new Tuesday movie slot held up with a 41 share from Clint Eastwood's "Magnum Force."

The network's entire Saturday line up continued to limp in, as Bob Newhart Tony Randall, The Jeffersons, Maude and Kojak all scored sub 30 shares (with the exception of Newhart's 29, in fact, all scored sub -25 shares).

NBC premiered its new Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show on Tuesday (8 -9 p.m.),when it pulled a 24 share. The second episode of Quark had a 27, three points down from its premiere. There might be the temptation to conclude that the 29 share turned in by the National Love, Sex and Marriage Test on Sunday (9:30 -10 p.m.) proves the appetite for "sophisticated" subject matter is not insatiable after all, except that its competition was not only CBS's strong comedy block but also ABC's rerun of "The Way We Were," which pulled a 35 share.

Of NBC's other midseason entries -CPO Sharkey, Black Sheep Squadron, James at 16 and Class of '65 -CPO Sharkey turned in the highest score of the week, a 27.

 

*NBC were in dire straits at this point relying on movies and specials which could hit or bomb in equal measure. 

Fred Silverman had his work cut out for him when he arrived that Summer.

He favored sitcoms and series as the schedule's foundation and NBC had no sitcoms to build on and few solid series.

He also had a big backlog of specials/mini series that had been committed to air. Also NBC had a long standing relationship with Universal so he was forced to work with that studio.

He struggled to get quality producers on board as they were either tied into deals with ABC/CBS or were wary of having their shows on the 3rd rated network.

He still felt variety had a place on the schedule however and that lead to duds like Susan Anton, The Big Show and Pink Lady and Jeff.

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