CBS 1956? NBC 1956?

[GQ28]

Do anybody know the line up back then?

[GQ28]

Anybody?

[Marvo301]

CBS 1956 schedule

Sunday
7:00 PM Lassie
7:30 PM Jack Benny Show/Private Secretary
8:00 PM Ed Sullivan Show
9:00 PM G.E. Theater
9:30 PM Alfred Hitchcock Presents
10:00 PM $64,000 Challenge
10:30 PM What's My Line?

Monday
7:15 PM News
7:30 PM Adventures of Robin Hood
8:00 PM George Burns and Gracie Allen Show
8:30 PM Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts
9:00 PM I Love Lucy
9:30 PM December Bride
10:00 PM Studio One

Tuesday
7:15 PM News
7:30 PM Name That Tune
8:00 PM Phil Silvers Show
8:30 PM The Brothers
9:00 PM Herb Shriner Show
9:30 PM Red Skelton Show
10:00 PM $64.000 Question
10:30 PM Do You Trust Your Wife

Wednesday
7:15 PM News
7:30 PM Giant Step
8:00 PM Arthur Godfrey Show
9:00 PM The Millionaire
9:30 PM I've Got A Secret
10:00 PM 20th Century Fox Hour/U.S. Steel Hour

Thursday
7:15 PM News
7:30 PM Sgt. Preston of the Yukon
8:00 PM Bob Cummings Show
8:30 PM Climax
9:30 PM Playhouse 90

Friday
7:15 PM News
7:30 PM My Friend Flicka
8:00 PM West Point Story
8:30 PM Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater
9:00 PM The Crusader
9:30 PM Schlitz Playhouse
10:00 PM The Lineup
10:30 PM Person to Person

Saturday
7:00 PM Beat the Clock
7:30 PM The Buccaneers
8:00 PM Jackie Gleason Show
9:00 PM Gale Storm Show
9:30 PM Hey Jeannie
10:00 PM Gunsmoke
10:30 PM High Finance

[Marvo301]

NBC 1956 Schedule

Sunday
7:00 PM Tales of the 77th Bengal Lancers
7:30 PM Circus Boy
8:00 PM Steve Allen Show
9:00 PM Goodyear TV Playhouse/Alcoa Hour
10:00 PM Loretta Young Show
10:30 PM National Bowling Champions

Monday
7:30 PM Nat King Cole Show
7:45 PM News
8:00 PM Adventures of Sir Lancelot
8:30 PM Stanley
9:00 PM Medic
9:30 PM Robert Montgomery Presents

Tuesday
7:30 PM Jonathon Winters Show
7:45 PM News
8:00 PM Big Surprise
8:30 PM Noah's Ark
9:00 PM Jane Wyman Show
9:30 PM Armstrong Circle Theater/Kaiser Aluminum Hour
10:30 Break the $250,000 Bank

Wednesday
7:30 PM Eddie Fisher Show
7:45 PM News
8:00 PM Adventures of Hiram Holiday
8:30 PM Father Knows Best
9:00 PM Kraft Television Theater
10:00 PM This Is Your Life
10:30 PM Twenty-On

Thursday
7:30 PM Dinah Shore Show
7:45 PM News
8:00 PM You Bet Your Life
8:30 PM Dragnet
9:00 PM People's Choice
9:30 PM Ford Show Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford
10:00 PM Lux Video Theater

Friday
7:30 PM Eddie Fisher Show
7:45 PM News
8:00 PM Life of Riley
8:30 PM Walter Winchell Show
9:00 PM On Trial
9:30 PM Big Story
10:00 PM Gillette Cavalcade of Sports
10:45 PM Red Barber's Corner

Saturday
7:30 PM People Are Funny
8:00 PM Perry Como Show
9:00 PM Caesar's Hour
10:00 PM George Gobel Show
10:30 PM Your Hit Parade

[GQ28]

Thank you very much. Perry Como up against Gleason at 8PM. I heard that Como was killing Gleason in the ratings with the Honeymooners C39. Wow they sure showed game shows at a late time slot back then.

[TV Knowledge Fan]

...as for the competitiveness of the two [ABC only had a few major successes that season, including "LAWRENCE WELK'S DODGE DANCING PARTY" on Saturdays, "CHEYENNE" on alternate Tuesdays, "DISNEYLAND" and "THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE & HARRIET" on Wednesdays, and "THE LONE RANGER" on Thursdays, in its final season], CBS was the "#1 network" in the 1956-'57 season, while NBC was a close second.

Now that season, CBS was concentrating on more "kid-oriented" programming at 7:30pm(et) on weeknights...and they had great success with "THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD", "SERGEANT PRESTON OF THE YUKON", and "MY FRIEND FLICKA" (even though first-run episodes ended in the spring of '57). "NAME THAT TUNE" was a popular family-oriented game show, and "GIANT STEP" was a variation of "THE $64,000 QUESTION", from the same producers [only with kids, and college scholarship money as their ultimate goal]. NBC, the last network who stuck with the traditional 7:30 pairing of a quarter-hour of musical variety {Eddie Fisher, Dinah Shore}, followed by 15 minutes of news [the rise of Chet Huntley & David Brinkley], decided to follow the other networks and program half-hour entertainment shows in that time period after the summer of 1957, moving "THE HUNTLEY-BRINKLEY REPORT" to 6:45pm(et), as CBS had previously done with "DOUGLAS EDWARDS WITH THE NEWS" in the fall of '55 {half-hour nightly news shows weren't scheduled by CBS and NBC until September 1963, and ABC until January 1967!}. Dinah Shore and Eddie Fisher were featured in their own hour-long variety shows in the fall of '57.

The HUGE success of "THE $64,000 QUESTION" convinced CBS to schedule more "big money" quiz shows [albeit sparingly], including "THE $64,000 CHALLENGE" (a "sequel" to the "QUESTION", where former winners could earn more money by challenging celebrity contestants in their chosen field, i.e. Vincent Price vs. jockey Billy Pearson on the subject of art), "GIANT STEP" (that lasted one season, opposite "DISNEYLAND"), and "HIGH FINANCE", a short-lived Dennis James-hosted quiz following "GUNSMOKE". On the other hand, NBC decided that "big money" equaled "big ratings", and featured "THE BIG SURPRISE" {again, from the people behind "THE $64,000 QUESTION"), "TWENTY ONE" {which moved to Mondays- replacing "MEDIC" repeats- in December, and became the network's highest-rated quiz program, due to Charles Van Doren's earnings of $129,000 by February 1957...and the one that just about destroyed the momentum of "big money" game shows by 1959, because Van Doren eventually admitted he cheated}, and "BREAK THE $250,000 BANK" {"BREAK THE BANK" with BIG MONEY}. More "big money" game shows were to follow....

In the field of sitcoms, nobody could touch CBS- "I LOVE LUCY' was in its final season (no matter how much money the network offered Lucy & Desi to continue for a seventh season, Desi was determined to shift the series into a monthly hour-long format- "THE LUCILLE BALL-DESI ARNAZ SHOW" [aka "THE LUCY-DESI COMEDY HOUR" in future repeats]- for the fall of '57, and CBS was finally content to schedule prime-time repeats, which they bought from Desi, for another two seasons, as well as the new monthly episodes), with the continuing success of "THE GEORGE BURNS AND GRACIE ALLEN SHOW" (even though Gracie's health was starting to falter, to the point where she retired in 1958, leaving George to unsuccessfully continue the series under his own name on NBC for another season), "DECEMBER BRIDE", "THE BOB CUMMINGS SHOW" (aka "LOVE THAT BOB" in repeats, which moved back to NBC in the fall of '57), and "THE GALE STORM SHOW". NBC had trouble cultivating sitcoms that season- only William Bendix's "THE LIFE OF RILEY" [which they produced and owned] and "FATHER KNOWS BEST" were "sure winners". Max Liebman's "STANLEY", a live comedy starring Buddy Hackett {and kinnies do exist}, was no match against "ARTHUR GODFREY'S TALENT SCOUTS". "THE ADVENTURES OF HIRAM HOLIDAY", based on Paul Gallico's short-story character and adapted for TV by Phil Rapp {"The Bickersons"}, starring Wally Cox, was a flop.

Their strength was in variety shows: Steve Allen (who sometimes got the best of Ed Sullivan in the ratings), Perry Como and Sid Caesar {"CAESAR'S HOUR"} were doing quite well....until Lawrence Welk became Sid's competition, and he bitterly left NBC at the end of the season.


more to follow-

[GQ28]

During the 55-56 season Como was beating Gleason so bad in the ratings that, led to one of the reasons why Gleason scrapped the Honeymooners and went back to the original verity format during the 56-57 season.

[treky]

so, "GUNSMOKE" was on at 10 on saturdays, huh? I knew it was on saturdays but I never knew what time.

(and one of it's viewers was my father-it was his favorite show back then. In fact, he was shocked when I told him once that it was on for 20 years-he thought it went off sometime in the early 60s)

[Marvo301]

You're Welcome!

[TV Knowledge Fan]

...at 10pm(et) from 1955 through '67 (the 1961-'67 episodes were an hour, while the original half-hours were repeated as "MARSHAL DILLON" on Tuesdays at 7:30pm from 1961 through '64, continuing into local syndication), then on Mondays from 1967 through the end of the series, in 1975.

Now, Jackie Gleason's decision to return to his original live hour-long variety format [with "THE HONEYMOONERS" continuing as brief sketches within the show] in the 1956-'57 season was considered the only way to compete against Perry Como...in the end, Jackie went off the air for a brief period, while Perry flourished on Saturdays through 1959, when he moved to Wednesdays for Kraft Foods {as "PERRY COMO'S KRAFT MUSIC HALL"}.

Oh yes, CBS also had their own version of Groucho Marx's "YOU BET YOUR LIFE": "DO YOU TRUST YOUR WIFE?" (also on film), featuring ventriloqiust Edgar Bergen and his dummies {Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd, Effie Klinker}. However, primary sponsor Liggett & Myers [L&M cigarettes] was not satisfied with the ratings it got following "THE $64,000 QUESTION", and cancelled it in March of '57. Producer Don Fedderson managed to sell a daytime version to ABC for the fall of '57, fronted by a young comedian named Johnny Carson...and it soon became "WHO DO YOU TRUST?", which lasted through 1963 {Woody Woodbury took over after Johnny took over "THE TONIGHT SHOW" in '62}.

At one point, NBC had some of the best hour-long live anthology drama showcases- "GOODYEAR TELEVISION PLAYHOUSE", "THE ALCOA HOUR", "ARMSTRONG CIRCLE THEATER", 'THE KAISER ALUMINUM HOUR" and "KRAFT TELEVISION THEATER". But in 1957, NBC executives decided to begin jettisoning those series..."ARMSTRONG" moved to CBS to alternate with "THE UNITED STATES STEEL HOUR" on Wednesdays, through 1963, and Henry J. Kaiser decided to cancel his "ALUMNIUM HOUR" because he thought most of the productions were "too depressing" and not "Americana-oriented", buying half-sponsorship on ABC's 'MAVERICK" the following season. "ALCOA/GOODYEAR THEATER" became a half-hour filmed anthology on NBC the following season {produced by Four Star Television in 1957-'58 [later syndicated as "A TURN OF FATE"], and Screen Gems/Columbia from 1958 through '60 [those episodes were syndicated as "AWARD THEATER"]}.

CBS had the highest-rated live anthologies (yet equally impressive)- "WESTINGHOUSE STUDIO ONE" on Mondays, "THE UNITED STATES STEEL HOUR" on Wednesdays, "CLIMAX!" {sponsored by Chrysler} and "PLAYHOUSE 90" [the first live weekly 90 minute drama series] on Thursdays. On film, "GENERAL ELECTRIC THEATER" (featuring Ronald Reagan as host and G.E.'s spokesman) and "ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS" [for Bristol-Myers] on Sundays, and "SCHLITZ PLAYHOUSE OF STARS" (title condensed to "SCHLITZ PLAYHOUSE" in the fall of '56) on Fridays.

[GQ28]

Originally Posted by treky

so, "GUNSMOKE" was on at 10 on saturdays, huh? I knew it was on saturdays but I never knew what time.

(and one of it's viewers was my father-it was his favorite show back then. In fact, he was shocked when I told him once that it was on for 20 years-he thought it went off sometime in the early 60s)

My Grandfather use too watch Gunsmoke every Saturday, back then.