Personally I think what killed, what I thought was a great form of entertainment, it was everyone was having one. Not every performer, who had a top ten hit, should have a variety show. I remember Captain and Tenelle, Gladys Knight and a number of other singers who tried that form. Those who were good at it were not given a chance because of performers like them ruined it. Mary Tyler Moore had a good variety hour on, Dick Van Dyke, and a number of others who attempted at the hour and did not last. Carol Burnett's second attempt was very bad.

I think that times changed. These shows were popular during the 50's and 60's when the whole family would gather around the TV in the living room and watch TV together. Also, there were only three channels, so TV shows had to appeal to everyone. Nowadays, there are cable, VCRs, and DVDs, so the kids can watch cartoons in their bedroom while Dad and Mom watch an R rated movie in the living room. Families rarely gather around the TV anymore.

Originally posted by hawaii five-o
Families rarely gather around the TV anymore.

That's not true.Well not for my family anyway.We usually watch 2-3 hours of TV (8:00-10:00, Sometimes 8:00-11:00) together each night.

Also, we don't have the kind of performers these days that lend themselves to the variety-hour format. Everything today is either "stand-up" or "sit-com" comedy shows. Also, I believe it's because the variety show stemmed from the old vaudeville days, where various types of entertainers would entertain. TV greats like Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Sid Caesar picked up where vaudeville left off. The good variety shows ran one-hour and I don't think audiences today want to sit still long enough to watch that type of show, they'd rather be glued to "Survivor" or some other lame form of "entertainment".

The TV Western killed the Variety show. The genre flooded the airwaves in the late 50's and by 1960, there were 31 on primetime! Plus, writers and producers began creating new types of programs that weren't just televised vaudeville.
The sitcom, the drama/anthology/cop shows were becoming the new way to entertain.

Pink Lady and Jeff. :rofl:

In England, the old-style variety show format died once and for all when Thames pulled the plug on The Benny Hill Show in 1989. It was felt among many that the show "jumped the shark" upon Dennis Kirkland's assuming the role of producer/director in 1979, and the addition starting the next year of Hill's Angels.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17908266&postcount=73

These shows don't exist anymore for the same reason variety shows don't exist: they were "family" viewing. Back when even people with cable got fewer than 15 channels, and people without cable, who were a much bigger part of the population, got about 7 or 8, and many households had only one TV, networks tried to produce shows that a whole family would watch together. A three-story 1-hr anthology show could have one heavy romance, maybe with a little twist that might go over the youngest kids' heads, or with more than the usual pathos, one plotline with either intrigue, or more physical comedy than usual, and one plotline involving children. You watched the bits that interested you.