Prime Time Access Rule (1971)

[Alan Brady's Hair]

I mentioned this in the Britcom forum, and couldn't find anything else on it, so I thought I'd start a thread. In the early 70s, the US government decided the broadcast networks had too much control over original programming, and ordered them to give back a half hour (usually 7:30-8:00 in the East) to local stations. Sundays were exempted.

Eventually the local stations figured out they could make a ton of money by just strip scheduling game shows and old sitcoms in that half hour, but for a while 7:30 to 8:00 was like a programming Wild West, with all kinds of stuff popping up. The powerful Westinghouse-owned group of stations produced original programming for the half hour, including:

David Frost Revue: a sketch show hosted by the British interviewer;
Street People: an interview show where a guy just walked around with a camera and talked to people he met;
Doctor in the House: Britcom acquired from the UK.

A couple of shows cancelled by the networks in 1971, Hee Haw and the Lawrence Welk Show, took advantage of the need for non-network programming, went into syndicated production and stayed on for 20 years.

Edit: it looks like the rule was largely rescinded in 1996, because the networks had lost a lot of their programming dominance over the years.

[installLSC]

Yep it was a classic FCC screwup. They wanted stations to have alternatives to the networks, and expected the air time to be filled with syndicated sitcoms/dramas and local programming. What they didn't realize (although any observer would have told them so) is that affiliates didn't want to have freedom from the networks. So given the choice between pricey scripted shows or cheap game shows they almost always chose the latter. The irony was, by the time the rule got revoked, stations were making so much money with stripped shows they didn't want the networks back in the 7:30 Eastern slot.

[visaman666]

Seattle TV stations did well with local programming in that slot, like Evening Magazine, on KING.

[Mace Dolex]

Very interesting about that and I remember several independent shows would air in that 7:30pm timeslot.

Charles In Charge
Out Of This World
What A Country
Superboy (1980's)
Super Force
She's The Sheriff
My Secret Identity

[Regulus]

I remember there were some fairly decent shows on the 7:30 Spot when the rule took effect. among my favorites were Primus which was produced by Ivan Tors (Flipper, Gentle Ben, and Ripcord among others and Festival of Family Classics which was produced by Rankin-Bass (Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy and Frosty the Snowman among a boatload of Holiday Specials. As mentioned earlier these weren't around for long, within a year they were replaced with Game Shows. Some of the Festival of Family Classics episode are available on DVD but Primus is nowhere to be found, not even on those "Trading" Sites (That's ioffer.com and sell.com for those of you in Rio Linda!) . I'd buy this show in a heartbeat if it ever gets released.