Discuss This Article On Our Forums

ABC's surge to the top of the Nielsen ratings in the mid-1970s led to a corresponding drop in the ratings for NBC. Fred Silverman, who was responsible for the rise of ABC, left that network to become president of NBC during the summer of 1978. The first true test of his ability came in the first few months of 1979, when all three networks premiered their midseason replacements. Unfortunately for Silverman, NBC's new shows performed terribly and the network ended the 1978-1979 season in even worse shape.

As the 1977-1978 season came to a close in late April of 1978, several things were clear. First, ABC once again reigned supreme in the Nielsen ratings, thanks to the strength of sitcoms like Happy Days and Three's Company plus dramas Fantasy Island and Soap. Second, NBC was once again mired in third place with only one program, Little House on the Prairie, in the top ten and only four in the top thirty. Third, CBS was somewhere in between ABC and NBC, thanks to solid performances from M*A*S*H, All in the Family and Alice, plus 60 Minutes.

However, even before the 1977-1978 season ended, the networks had already begun looking towards the future. More specifically, the 1978-1979 season. Work on NBC's new schedule was hampered by the fact that incoming president Fred Silverman, who had previously performed wonders for both ABC and CBS, wouldn't arrive until June. Thus, any schedule produced before Silverman's reign began would most likely undergo heavy changes prior to the start of the new season.

If there was one thing that all three networks appeared to be focusing on as they plotted and pieced together their fall line-ups, it was sex. The success of programs like Charlie's Angels and Three's Company -- filled with sexual innuendo alongside pretty and perky women -- and the racy Soap had led the networks to one inescapable conclusion: sex sells. Said producer Garry Marshall, "It used to be that when the set jiggled you called the repairman: now when it doesn't jiggle, you turn it off" [1].

20th Century-Fox's director of television comedy development, Lynn Rother, explained further:

Even the titles of many of the projects under development for the 1978-1979 season pointed towards the preoccupation with sex: Coed Fever, Rollergirls, California Girls, Wayward Girls and The Arrangement (about a young couple living together without being married) [3]. Rollergirls was given a spring tryout by NBC in anticipation for inclusion in its fall schedule.

ABC was the first of the networks to announce its 1978-1979 schedule, on May 1st, 1978 [4]. Only three shows, The Six Million Dollar Man, Fish and Baretta, were cancelled. Five new programs were added to the schedule: half-hour sitcoms Apple Pie, Mork & Mindy and Taxi plus hour-long dramas Battlestar Galactica and Vega$. Several returning programs were given new timeslots, including Carter Country, Soap and Starsky and Hutch.

On May 2nd, CBS announced its schedule, dropping seven shows and adding eight [5]. Three of those dropped shows -- Maude, The Bob Newhart Show and The Carol Burnett Show -- ended because their respective stars (Bea Arthur, Bob Newhart and Carol Burnett) had decided to call it a day. Cancelled outright were The Tony Randall Show, Kojak, Baby, I'm Back and On Our Own.

The eight new programs offered by CBS were hour-long variety series Mary, half-hour newsmagazine People, hour-long dramas Kaz, The Paper Chase, The American Girls and Flying High plus half-hour sitcoms In The Beginning and WKRP in Cincinnati.

NBC's schedule, announced May 15th, was presumed to be a work in progress that would change once Fred Silverman arrived [6]. The network dropped roughly a third of the network's current programming and added eight new shows. Gone were Chico and the Man, The Bionic Woman, The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, Police Woman, CPO Sharkey, What Really Happened to the Class of '65? and James at 15 (a.k.a. James at 16).

New on the schedule were half-hour comedies The Waverly Wonders and Legs, an hour-long sitcom called Coastocoast (a.k.a. Coast to Coast), an hour-long comedy/drama called Grandpa Goes to Washington and hour-long dramas The Eddie Capra Mysteries, W.E.B., The Sword of Justice, plus an hour-long variety series featuring Dick Clark. Operation Runaway, an hour-long drama that NBC was giving a spring tryout, was also on the proposed schedule.

As expected, when Fred Silverman took the reigns of NBC, he drastically altered the network's fall schedule, attempting to move away from programs that focused on sex:

This new direction saw Silverman drop Coast to Coast outright and change the focus of both Legs and Operation Runaway. Legs, formerly a sitcom about two chorus girls, was retitled Who's Watching the Kids? and would now be about two chorus girls raising their younger siblings. Operation Runaway was also dropped from the fall schedule for use in the spring [8].

Added by Silverman was an hour-long documentary series called Lifeline, which would follow doctors nationwide as they went about their daily lives. Several programs were also shifted to new timeslots. But soon NBC's schedule was in place and all three networks were ready to resume their annual battle for viewers. Although the 1978-1979 season officially began on Monday, September 18th, the networks -- especially ABC -- spent the previous two weeks showing specials and sneak previews. The race was underway.

Within a month of the start of the new season, the networks began handing out pink slips. Shows that were cancelled in October were for the most part off the air by November and the networks juggled their schedules to fill the empty timeslots. The November "sweeps" period, filled with stunt programming, and the onset of holiday-themed specials in December helped offset the loss of new and returning shows.

CBS pulled Mary from its schedule after only four episodes at the behest of star Mary Tyler Moore. To fill the 8-9PM Sunday hour, the network simply moved All in the Family, Alice and Kaz forward and placed Dallas in the 10-11PM timeslot, beginning October 22nd. The cancellation of The American Girls, which had preceded Dallas on Saturdays, gave CBS the opportunity to create a Saturday movie block starting November 4th.

Further expanded its movie block, CBS moved Good Times from Saturdays to Wednesdays to replace new sitcom In the Beginning. Newsmagazine People was cancelled and WKRP in Cincinnati was placed on hiatus after their November 6th broadcasts. The 8-9PM timeslot was quickly filled by the premiere of The White Shadow on November 27th.

ABC canned its new Saturday sitcom Apple Pie and Carter Country was shifted from 8PM to 8:30PM to replace it, starting on October 28th. Welcome Back, Kotter was moved from Mondays to take over for Carter Country. Also cancelled was Operation Petticoat, which had premiered in September of 1977, and had followed Welcome Back, Kotter on Mondays. ABC filled the 8-9PM Monday timeslot with specials until November 13th when Lucan returned for a brief second season.

NBC junked W.E.B. after its October 5th broadcast, filling the Thursday 10-11PM timeslot with Weekend until David Cassidy--Man Undercover took over on November 2nd. The Waverly Wonders was canned after its October 27th broadcast, replaced by the premiere of Diff'rent Strokes the following week.

For the most part, any changes made between October and December were simply stop-gap measures meant to hold things together until the networks unrolled their midseason schedules. Certainly, if any of the programs substituted for early cancellations drew high ratings, the networks would be thrilled. In November, Les Brown of The New York Times guessed that the three networks would premiere a total of fifteen midseason replacements beginning in January of 1979, with CBS and NBC fielding the most new shows [9].

Brown reported that one of the first things Fred Silverman did when he arrived at NBC in June of 1978 was to order roughly 60 pilots for midseason, rightly realizing that all of NBC's new fall shows would fail [10]. Over at CBS, midseason was a chance to "solidify" the network's second-place standing in the Nielsen ratings, according to CBS Broadcast Group president Gene F. Jankowski [11]. The network's plan included the use of "limited run" series:

Of the networks, NBC was expected to make the most drastic changes to its schedule for midseason, followed by CBS, while ABC would have the fewest alterations.

ABC, secure atop the Nielsen charts, was the first to unveil its final midseason plan. On November 27th, the network announced a slate of four new series that would debut in January of 1979 and the revamping of Donny & Marie as The Osmond Family Hour, plus several timeslot changes for existing programs [13]. Additionally, How The West Was Won would return as a weekly series running two hours on Monday evenings. The new shows included three half-hour sitcoms -- Makin' It, Angie and an untitled small-screen version of the hit film National Lampoon's Animal House -- and an hour-long drama called Salvage I starring Andy Griffith.

NBC's midseason changes, announced November 29th, were much more significant than ABC's [14]. The network, floundering in third place, would cancel half of its existing prime time schedule, including all of the new programs introduced in September still on the air. On the chopping block were Grandpa Goes to Washington, Swords of Justice, Lifeline, Dick Clark's Live Wednesday, The Eddie Capra Mysteries, Who's Watching the Kids, plus replacement series David Cassidy--Man Undercover and returning series Project U.F.O.

Kept on the new schedule was another replacement series, Diff'rent Strokes, while newsmagazine Weekend was given a weekly slot. The network would introduce nine new programs, including five dramas and four sitcoms. The dramas: Supertrain, Little Women, Cliffhangers, Mrs. Columbo about the wife of detective Columbo; and Sweepstakes. The sitcoms: Hello, Larry, Turnabout, Brothers and Sisters and B.J. and the Bear.

CBS revealed its midseason plans on December 5th, 1978 [15]. Five new shows would be added to the network's schedule and many others would be shuffled to new timeslots. Rhoda and The American Girls were cancelled while Good Times was placed on hiatus and WKRP in Cincinnati returned from hiatus. Also canned was The CBS Wednesday Movie, which opened up two hours of prime time space for the network. Four of the five new shows would be sitcoms: The Stockard Channing Show, Onward and Upward, Flatbush and Coed Fever. The fifth, The Dukes of Hazzard, was an hour-long adventure series.

Discuss This Article On Our Forums