"Bewitched"do in the Nielsens?

Oh,I forgot to add.What were the rankings in the Nielsens for the 1969-1970,1970-1971 and 1971-1972 seasons?

This website should answer this and many other questions you may have about Bewitched:

http://www.harpiesbizarre.com/declineofbewitched.htm

In the later years, there was considerable reuse of early scripts, to the point where not just the plots were similar, but entire lines were repeated, word-for-word. This is especially noticeable in # 254, which is a remake of # 50. The entire climax scene is almost word-for-word the same in both episodes.

Two words: dressy wessy. That a series of such previous greatness was literally reduced to a poor copy of itself is a sad decline, but between All In The Family and Emergency, there weren't many viewers left to witness it. Out with a whimper on two counts.

Ratings for 8 years:

2,7,8,11,12,25,38,46

Actually the ratings were very good even the last two years re the demographic
aspect of it, even when it went against All in the Family, they were more like top 20 ratings in that perspective which is what the advertisers use to determine the rates they pay, so the 20 to 45 demographic is the ratings that count, and they were very good on Bewitched for all 8 years.

That is why ABC renewed the show for a 9th season & actually went begging to Liz Montgomery's home to get her to change her mind about doing a season 9, she listened politely after they offered the moon & said no thank you.

I feel this Bewitched in decline is a lot of rubbish, the show remained strong & of very high quality from season 1 thru 8 & episodes 1 thru 254.

Any comparison of seasons is a relative thing & has nothing to do with how good an actual season was in of itself.

Larry Tate :)

Oh,I forgot to add.What were the rankings in the Nielsens for the 1969-1970,1970-1971 and 1971-1972 seasons?

You will of course be able to provide a source for the rankings you posted for the show in its last two seasons...?

Why Nielsen themselves of course.

I read it in an article posted on Harpies about 5 or 6 years ago, i made a notation of the numbers at the time.

An interesting side note is that the number of actual people watching Bewitched was far higher in the last 2 or 3 years then it had been in the first two or three years of the show, so more people were watching at the end then at the beginning with Bewitched more popular with the general population then ever.

Larry Tate :)



You will of course be able to provide a source for the rankings you posted for the show in its last two seasons...?

That must be why ABC yanked the reruns in the middle of the summer, cuz soo many people were watching.

They stopped showing the reruns in the summer of 1972 for the same reason all prime time programming on ABC ceased from that point on July.1st till early Sept.,1972..........the Summer Olympics in Munich that was televised by ABC pre-empted all such programming.

How that could be unknown to any Bewitched fan is beyond me, it was even in Bewitched Forever by Herbie J.

Larry Tate :)



That must be why ABC yanked the reruns in the middle of the summer, cuz soo many people were watching.

I can confirm that the ratings are indeed published in Herbie J. Pilato's book - I just checked, as I haven't read it in awhile.

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t303/ISXX/nielsen.jpg

source (http://wapedia.mobi/en/Bewitched)







I'll leave it to readers to decide which statistic makes more sense.

First off i assume that wapedia is the same as Wikipedia encyclopedia only for mobile users, in other words garbage in & garbage out with it being not credible as anyone can basically post anything on there as factual without backing it up making it meaningless and more a source of urban legends then anything with any factual validity.

I would never take Wikipedia as a valid source for any factual aspect re Bewitched or pretty much anything.

As well the rating means nothing in regards to the demographic aspect i already touched on nor the fact that far more viewers were watching the show in Season 8 then in the first 3 Seasons at least, so the viewership realities there in speak for themselves as to fans clearly still loving the show & wanting to see it.

As well the ratings have nothing to do in the first place with quality, so to say that the ratings declined and therefore the show did as well in quality is not credible as one has nothing to do with the other.

Any ratings decline in standing was to do with the changing of tastes to the All in the Family style of show as well as the monster competition Bewitched had the last year in AITF, to which Bewitched was moved to compete against them by ABC in a counterprograming move, put one of your best against their best, commonly done then as well as now.

Larry Tate :)

I take everything I read on Wikipedia with a grain of salt, because anyone can edit it.

Yea Wikipedia is not reliable. #46 sounds about right for the final year. No way would ABC want to renew a show that was ranked in the '70's.

Saying that though, there is no way that Bewitched was being watched by more people in the last few years than it was in the beginning. Not unless you are talking about the syndicated reruns or the reruns of the show that ABC reran on weekday mornings as well. I actually remember watching them in the morning. lol If you factor all of that then it was probably seen by more people but a show ranked #46 and that was going up against the #1 show in America was not seen by as many as it was in 1964-65 when it was the most popular show on ABC. :)

Is it just me or does it seem like ratings start to decline once Dick York leaves the show?

Is it just me or does it seem like ratings start to decline once Dick York leaves the show?
I think that hurt the show alot. Also Marion Lorne's death hurt it. Bewitched was just running out of stories by then. It was still watchable but it was nothing like it was in the Dick York years.

HEY!!! from 1969-72 a lot of the shows revolved around Tabitha. Me being a young lad--I loved Tabitha--and still DO!

I think that hurt the show alot. Also Marion Lorne's death hurt it. Bewitched was just running out of stories by then. It was still watchable but it was nothing like it was in the Dick York years.

HEY!!! from 1969-72 a lot of the shows revolved around Tabitha. Me being a young lad--I loved Tabitha--and still DO!
Tabitha was cute. Adam not so much. lol

Actually Tabitha was the biggest reason to watch the last few years. I liked her more than the new Darrin. lol

An interesting fact is that the ratings for the first week Dick Sargent was on the show were a #25 even though the vast majority of Bewitched fans did not know DS had taken over for Dick York, so they were expecting DY and the ratings were the same as they would be the rest of the year once they knew it would be DS, holding steady at #25 overall.

I think there were a lot of reasons the ratings fell not just the cast change.
Part of it was DY leaving, partly any show quality notwithstanding will lose ratings after 4 or 5 years, the shift in viewers tastes from fantasy & rural shows to more sexy, real & provocative shows was a major reason as well.

Bewitched is timeless and as a result was not the type of hip, mod,happening type of show that was in at that time like Laugh in, or The Smothers Brothers for example.

Larry Tate :)

Is it just me or does it seem like ratings start to decline once Dick York leaves the show?

At that point still in it's original run of course there was no syndication as of yet.

The total viewers watching TV in the US in 1972 was much higher then in 1964 when TV was just growing out of it's infancy.

As a result although the % or share of that viewer ship was not as great as in 1964, the actual viewers eyes on the tube persay who actually sat watching Bewitched was higher in 1972 then 1964.

I read this in an article on Harpies about 5 years ago as well.

Larry Tate :)

Yea Wikipedia is not reliable. #46 sounds about right for the final year. No way would ABC want to renew a show that was ranked in the '70's.

Saying that though, there is no way that Bewitched was being watched by more people in the last few years than it was in the beginning. Not unless you are talking about the syndicated reruns or the reruns of the show that ABC reran on weekday mornings as well. I actually remember watching them in the morning. lol If you factor all of that then it was probably seen by more people but a show ranked #46 and that was going up against the #1 show in America was not seen by as many as it was in 1964-65 when it was the most popular show on ABC. :)

When did Bewitched go into syndication, anyway?

When did Bewitched go into syndication, anyway?
I'm not sure. I know that ABC aired it on weekday mornings from 1968 until 1973. That's where I really first started getting into it.

In those years,since in the 1970's "All in the Family"broke new barriers as far as language goes,and sometmes used language like "hell"or "damn",taboo in the 1960's,did "Bewitched"follow suit,or 1)did it remain like it was in the 1960's, or 2)use ,like "The Doris Day Show" 1969 episode "Singles Only",and "The Bill Cosby Show"1969 episode "This Mouth is Rated X"and use special sound effects to obliterate the rough language?In other words,in those years,did they use any rough(at the time,on TV today,its a lot raunchier)language on "Bewitched"?Yes or No.Just curious.Thanks.

Bewitched was syndicated in September,1973 by Screen Gems and then by barter to Dancer,Fitzgerald & Sample of NY in 1988.

ABC held daytime rerun rights for a year till Sept., 1973 as was the norm at that time for Networks.

TV shows never went into syndication until their original prime time runs were concluded.

Larry Tate :)

When did Bewitched go into syndication, anyway?

...the series was in a slight ratings decline even after the first season; to try to successfully compete with "BEWITCHED" (after making the mistake of scheduling "PASSWORD" directly opposite Liz & Dick in season one), CBS introduced their "THURSDAY NIGHT MOVIES" in the fall of '65- and, depending on what "movie event" they presented, they occasionally put a dent in "BEWITCHED"'s ratings...enough to knock the series out of the "Top Five", which it never occupied again. And then there was that slight problem of scheduling "THE TAMMY GRIMES SHOW" right before "BEWITCHED" in season three...after four weeks, a prime-time edition of "THE DATING GAME" replaced Tammy, but the network finally decided to move Liz up a half-hour. That, and the fanatical following for NBC's "STAR TREK" (again, opposite "BEWITCHED" during season three) caused the show's ratings to dip just a bit- which, incidentally, was succeeded by "IRONSIDE" in the fall of '67, with "STAR TREK" shoved over to Friday...yet Raymond Burr managed to make another small "dent" in the show's ratings over the next few years. By the time Dick Sargent replaced Dick York in season six, that's when the total number of viewers started to decrease considerably; another factor was ABC's daytime repeats at 12 Noon(et). A little saturation often goes a long way...

Finally, the series moved to Wednesdays at 8pm(et) in the fall of '71- and that really wasn't the best programming idea in the world, because CBS now had an advantage with "THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW", and NBC scheduled "ADAM-12" at the same hour: that's why ABC chose to move "BEWITCHED" to Saturdays at 8....opposite "Archie Bunker", which finished the series once and for all.

"BEWITCHED" entered syndication after ABC's multi-year agreement with Screen Gems/Columbia to schedule daytime repeats on weekdays [and Saturday mornings at 10am(et) during the 1972-'73 season] ended. I remember when WNEW-TV, Channel 5 in New York, began showing it in September 1973 on weeknights, around 6pm.

:tv:

#46 sounds about right for the final year. No way would ABC want to renew a show that was ranked in the '70's.




What isn't being disputed is that Bewitched was averaging a 10 share in its final year. A 10 share doesn't put a show in the middle of the ratings pack. A 10 share is what's left over for a show coming in third out of three. What is also very important to recognize about the move to Saturday is that All In The Family is not the most telling part of the equation--Emergency! is. AITF was the #1 show in the land on the night of the week with the fewest viewers, and the other two networks had to put something against it. NBC aggressively counter programmed and it paid off. I can source ratings from later in 1972 that put Emergency! right about where it is claimed Bewitched was hovering in the ratings at the time. So do the math. All In The Family got a huge chunk of the Saturday audience, Emergency! got enough of it to survive and (likely after Liz' polite 'no' to a 9th year, taking that story at face value) Bewitched was sent in as cannon fodder.

Saying that though, there is no way that Bewitched was being watched by more people in the last few years than it was in the beginning...a show ranked #46 and that was going up against the #1 show in America was not seen by as many as it was in 1964-65 when it was the most popular show on ABC.

True dat, and I can only guess that the claim is being based on something like this: Milton Berle was being watched by far more people when his show finally tanked in 1956 than when it was #1 by leaps and bounds with humongous audience shares in 1948. The reason why is pretty obvious. But the growth in the number of TV households between 1964 and 1972 is infinitesimal compared to the time between '48 and '56. And a share is still a share.

What isn't being disputed is that Bewitched was averaging a 10 share in its final year. A 10 share doesn't put a show in the middle of the ratings pack. A 10 share is what's left over for a show coming in third out of three. What is also very important to recognize about the move to Saturday is that All In The Family is not the most telling part of the equation--Emergency! is. AITF was the #1 show in the land on the night of the week with the fewest viewers, and the other two networks had to put something against it. NBC aggressively counter programmed and it paid off. I can source ratings from later in 1972 that put Emergency! right about where it is claimed Bewitched was hovering in the ratings at the time. So do the math. All In The Family got a huge chunk of the Saturday audience, Emergency! got enough of it to survive and (likely after Liz' polite 'no' to a 9th year, taking that story at face value) Bewitched was sent in as cannon fodder.



True dat, and I can only guess that the claim is being based on something like this: Milton Berle was being watched by far more people when his show finally tanked in 1956 than when it was #1 by leaps and bounds with humongous audience shares in 1948. The reason why is pretty obvious. But the growth in the number of TV households between 1964 and 1972 is infinitesimal compared to the time between '48 and '56. And a share is still a share.
Yea I agree with that last part. Most people had TV by 1964. Back in the early days, it was thought that it might be a passing fad. I never knew anybody that didn't have tv. As for the ratings, I don't know what Bewitched was ranked during the last season. I do remember Emergency and it created a good fan base of it's own dispite being opposite AITF. I know that it was ranked # 30 by 1975 so I assume that it was ranked in the 30's throughout most of it's run. Maybe ABC figured that they couldn't compete and so they wanted to throw a show that already had an audience against AITF. They tried it again the following season with The Partridge Family and AITF destroyed it. ABC really was never able to compete from 8-9 on Saturdays throughout the rest of the '70's.

One Liz did agreed to do a 9th season of Bewitched during season 8 & only after the season was over in late March , 1972 did she change her mind and say no to a season 9, so much for it being sent in for cannon fodder after Liz said no whose story which i might add was in variety & like type magazines at the time.

If the #72 is in dispute then so is the 10% share so to say it is not in dispute is inaccurate.

Emergency's ratings would only be relevant for the entire season not just late in the season.

Point being again that ratings have zero to do with if a show was good or not, and the over all numbers would not tell the story about the 18 to 49 demographic numbers which are the ones that have always counted.

The population increase from 64 to 72 of 17 million also had a lot to do with the relative numbers from the two eras in viewer ship and a viewer is still a viewer.

Larry Tate :)

What isn't being disputed is that Bewitched was averaging a 10 share in its final year. A 10 share doesn't put a show in the middle of the ratings pack. A 10 share is what's left over for a show coming in third out of three. What is also very important to recognize about the move to Saturday is that All In The Family is not the most telling part of the equation--Emergency! is. AITF was the #1 show in the land on the night of the week with the fewest viewers, and the other two networks had to put something against it. NBC aggressively counter programmed and it paid off. I can source ratings from later in 1972 that put Emergency! right about where it is claimed Bewitched was hovering in the ratings at the time. So do the math. All In The Family got a huge chunk of the Saturday audience, Emergency! got enough of it to survive and (likely after Liz' polite 'no' to a 9th year, taking that story at face value) Bewitched was sent in as cannon fodder.



True dat, and I can only guess that the claim is being based on something like this: Milton Berle was being watched by far more people when his show finally tanked in 1956 than when it was #1 by leaps and bounds with humongous audience shares in 1948. The reason why is pretty obvious. But the growth in the number of TV households between 1964 and 1972 is infinitesimal compared to the time between '48 and '56. And a share is still a share.

Two words: dressy wessy. That a series of such previous greatness was literally reduced to a poor copy of itself is a sad decline, but between All In The Family and Emergency, there weren't many viewers left to witness it. Out with a whimper on two counts.

I saw ep #50 on a local station last week. "dressy wessy" was a direct ripoff of "wishy washy/dishy washy" from #50. The major change I suppose was that the wife in #254 was the business person whose husband was long-suffering, a gender switch from #50. Well, at least Darrin didn't get a bowl of cereal over his head at the end of #254 as he did in #50.

In those years,since in the 1970's "All in the Family"broke new barriers as far as language goes,and sometmes used language like "hell"or "damn",taboo in the 1960's,did "Bewitched"follow suit,or 1)did it remain like it was in the 1960's, or 2)use ,like "The Doris Day Show" 1969 episode "Singles Only",and "The Bill Cosby Show"1969 episode "This Mouth is Rated X"and use special sound effects to obliterate the rough language?In other words,in those years,did they use any rough(at the time,on TV today,its a lot raunchier)language on "Bewitched"?Yes or No.Just curious.Thanks.

:lol: Leave It to Beaver took approach #2 once in the Season 4 finale "Substitute Father". Beaver called some classmate of his a horrible name, but no one watching could hear it over the class bell, though his teacher Miss Landers did and had to have Wally come in for a talk w/ her about it, since Ward was out of town.

And she WASN'T very nice about it,thinking that Beaver and Wally tried to put something over on her.But let's get back to "Bewitched"please.Did it use any raunchy language in the 1969-1972 episodes?

Yea I agree with that last part. Most people had TV by 1964. Back in the early days, it was thought that it might be a passing fad. I never knew anybody that didn't have tv. As for the ratings, I don't know what Bewitched was ranked during the last season. I do remember Emergency and it created a good fan base of it's own dispite being opposite AITF. I know that it was ranked # 30 by 1975 so I assume that it was ranked in the 30's throughout most of it's run. Maybe ABC figured that they couldn't compete and so they wanted to throw a show that already had an audience against AITF. They tried it again the following season with The Partridge Family and AITF destroyed it. ABC really was never able to compete from 8-9 on Saturdays throughout the rest of the '70's.

As a boy in the 1970's, I remember watching 'Emergency' on Saturday nights and remember it being a big hit with kids my age. I remember playing outside and playing like we were characters from 'Emergency'. For NBC, this was great counter programming-capture the audience who would never watch 'All in the Family'-kids.

Also, in 1964, ABC considered the third network. In some smaller cities, they didn't have an affiliate and had to put their programming on the CBS or NBC stations at a time that less desirable, so less people would have seen them.

I don't think curse words entered prime time TV shows (at least sitcoms) until All in the Family came along. Definitely not Bewitched, or sitcoms around that time. So I think all that didn't start until the 70s.

As a boy in the 1970's, I remember watching 'Emergency' on Saturday nights and remember it being a big hit with kids my age. I remember playing outside and playing like we were characters from 'Emergency'. For NBC, this was great counter programming-capture the audience who would never watch 'All in the Family'-kids.

Also, in 1964, ABC considered the third network. In some smaller cities, they didn't have an affiliate and had to put their programming on the CBS or NBC stations at a time that less desirable, so less people would have seen them.
Yea that is right. I forgot about that. Abc did have to struggle just to get into some markets back then.

I didn't watch Emergency all the time because I usually did watch the CBS shows on Saturdays. When they were in repeats, I did watch Emergency though. It was a good show. I even had an Emergency lunch box one year.

In those years,since in the 1970's "All in the Family"broke new barriers as far as language goes,and sometmes used language like "hell"or "damn",taboo in the 1960's,did "Bewitched"follow suit,or 1)did it remain like it was in the 1960's, or 2)use ,like "The Doris Day Show" 1969 episode "Singles Only",and "The Bill Cosby Show"1969 episode "This Mouth is Rated X"and use special sound effects to obliterate the rough language?In other words,in those years,did they use any rough(at the time,on TV today,its a lot raunchier)language on "Bewitched"?Yes or No.Just curious.Thanks.

You are right about All in the Family breaking barriers with its language but that only applies to sitcoms. In the 60's some dramas such as Jack Webb's Dragnet, The Fugitive and even Perry Mason it wasn't uncommon every once in awhile to hear words like "hell" , "damn" or even "virgin". However this was NOT done every week though.

One of the more interesting bits of trivia I learned from my time at this site is that 1965 was the year the two common curses made their sitcom debut. In May of that year Doris Packer softly said "The damned thing probably doesn't even work." referring to a gift watch on My Favorite Martian. That November Larry Hagman (Tony) told Barbara Eden (Jeannie) to "Get the hell off my towel" in an early episode of I Dream Of Jeannie. And yes, obviously such language continued to be very rare for at least the next 5 or more years...but those are first examples of saltier sitcom language.

One of the more interesting bits of trivia I learned from my time at this site is that 1965 was the year the two common curses made their sitcom debut. In May of that year Doris Packer softly said "The damned thing probably doesn't even work." referring to a gift watch on My Favorite Martian. That November Larry Hagman (Tony) told Barbara Eden (Jeannie) to "Get the hell off my towel" in an early episode of I Dream Of Jeannie. And yes, obviously such language continued to be very rare for at least the next 5 or more years...but those are first examples of saltier sitcom language.
Thanks, I stand corrected!

There were never any curse words on Bewitched but there were many uses of innuendo & double entendre such as in "It's nice to have a spouse around the house" Darrin described he, Samantha & Mother Nature as "Now that's some threesome".

There were many others too all through the series.

Larry Tate :)

And she WASN'T very nice about it,thinking that Beaver and Wally tried to put something over on her.But let's get back to "Bewitched"please.Did it use any raunchy language in the 1969-1972 episodes?

I'm surprised that they got away with some of the innuendo they did - going back to the pilot. Sam says she needs to clean the kitchen, and Darrin says, "Tomorrow", to which Sam replies, "That's what you said last night." :lol: Of course, I always loved that "sexy" saxophone music that sometimes played - hilarious!! :lol:

Also, in 1964, ABC considered the third network. In some smaller cities, they didn't have an affiliate and had to put their programming on the CBS or NBC stations at a time that less desirable, so less people would have seen them.

Also back in those days many ABC stations were on UHF and in those pre-cable days very few bothered to tune them in. This was also a "minor" problem for CBS and NBC as well but not a big as it was with ABC.

You are right about All in the Family breaking barriers with its language but that only applies to sitcoms. In the 60's some dramas such as Jack Webb's Dragnet, The Fugitive and even Perry Mason it wasn't uncommon every once in awhile to hear words like "hell" , "damn" or even "virgin". However this was NOT done every week though.

I remember Captain Kirk on 'Star Trek' saying 'Let's get the hell out of here'. It was on the episode with Joan Collins.