Why Couldn't Westerns Adapt in the '70s?

[TMC]

Like variety shows, westerns were one of the most often seen types of TV show in the 1950s and '60s. And then they disappeared. And like variety shows, there have been occasional attempts to bring them back with, at most, marginal success. Now there are none. Why did westerns go from such great popularity to disinterest?

To give you some perspective, in 1959 there were 26 Westerns on the three networks in prime time. Compared to one or two - or none - on four terrestrial networks and a bunch of cable networks in recent decades. Westerns were also popular in the movies, too, and while a few get made now there are no where near as many as in Hollywood's Golden Age. So was it just plain old burnout?

Eventually, Gunsmoke ended in 1975. Meanwhile, Bonanza ended in 1973, although had Dan Blocker lived, it might have gone on for another couple of years. It should be noted that TV was cracking down on violence to some degree in the wake of the Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations. So this may have lead to Gunsmoke dropping its "shootout" opening in favor of a shot of Matt Dillon and his horse galloping across the prairie.

[oldschool59]

It wasn't they couldn't adapt but the networks decided to stop producing shows catered to the middle of the country and concentrate on city folk and concrete and steel. No more trees is what one television executive said in the early 70's if Im not mistaken.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by oldschool59

It wasn't they couldn't adapt but the networks decided to stop producing shows catered to the middle of the country and concentrate on city folk and concrete and steel. No more trees is what one television executive said in the early 70's if Im not mistaken.

Why did the immense popularity of Westerns, in the movies and on television, decline at the end of the 1960s?

• Market Oversaturation - There are thousands of Western films in the Hollywood catalog alone. Westerns were made from the early 1900s until the 1960s at a rate 75–100 per year MINIMUM. The genre has been overworked and by the early 1970s it was exhausted. Although there was an attempt to revive it in the early 1980s, that was a failure an date genre has virtually disappeared from the market.
  
  Changing social values - Early Westerns used the Native Americans as villains. That was no longer widely acceptable by the late 1960s. Also roles for women and minorities had changed and the Western had a difficult time changing with them. Westerns no longer reflected the values held in its major market, the United States.
  
  Animal use became more ”problematic” - Animal rights became an issue around the end of the 1960s. Animals, particularly horses, routinely died during the making of Western films or were seriously injured and had to be destroyed. Animal rights supporters began to put heat on Hollywood and using animals became more difficult and more expensive, making Westerns no longer the bargain that they had been.
  
  Wide open spaces were disappearing - By the end of the 1960s, many of the locations used to film Westerns had become built up as Los Angeles and it's outlying areas expanded. It became more difficult to use those areas as sets or for location shoots and so Westerns were going to dim in popularity anyway. Although Mexico was an alternative briefly (until crime and the burgeoning drug trade made it unsafe) and Canada can do in a pinch (Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven was filmed there) A Western needs Western US locations for shooting.

[Schmo]

Most TV westerns had been canceled by the late 1960s. I think “High Chapparal” was the last late-era western to have much success, running from 1967 to 1971.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by Schmo

Most TV westerns had been canceled by the late 1960s. I think “High Chapparal” was the last late-era western to have much success, running from 1967 to 1971.