Laura C. Brown

Laura C. Brown is a media studies PhD candidate in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin, where she is writing a dissertation about the shifting power dynamics of the American broadcast television industry in the 1960s. She has held leadership positions with The Velvet Light Trap and Flow: A Critical Forum on Media and Culture, has served as the Curatorial Assistant for Film at the Harry Ransom Center, and holds a position on the graduate student council of the Library of Congress’ Radio Preservation Task Force. Laura earned an MFA in Film & Television Studies and a BA in History, both from Boston University.

A Comedy of Errors:
NBC’s Sitcom Failings of the 1970s

On a December 1976 episode of NBC’s The Tonight Show, host Johnny Carson marched out of his studio and across the hall to confront Don Rickles, a guest on the previous night’s show that was guest-hosted by Bob Newhart. Carson was “upset” with Rickles for breaking his treasured cigarette box, a staple on his Tonight Show desk for many years. Carson stormed onto the set of C.P.O. Sharkey, Rickles’ sitcom, and began to (somewhat) jokingly attack the comedian for his previous night’s antics. Not long after confronting Rickles over his vandalism, Carson began to take jabs at Rickles’ sitcom, eventually leaning over Rickles, cautioning another cast member that “[If] this show goes like the others, you’re out of work come January!”^[1] While Johnny Carson (despite the claims of his Carnac the Magnificent character) was by no means clairvoyant, he was not entirely wrong in issuing this warning: C.P.O. Sharkey was cancelled after two seasons and aired its last episode in April 1978.

In the 1970s, American broadcast television network NBC aired—and cancelled—over twenty-five sitcoms that lasted one season or less. Many of these programs were pulled from the schedule after only a handful of episodes aired. While the 1970s were not a particularly high point in NBC’s sitcom history, the network did find success in other areas of programming. At the beginning of the decade, NBC found itself with a schedule that was dotted with popular programs, such as Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, The Flip Wilson Show, Adam-12, and Ironside. Although these shows would eventually fade from the NBC schedule, over the course of the decade the network would go on to add other hit shows to its lineup, such as Little House on the Prairie, Emergency!, and The Rockford Files. NBC could also rely on a small stable of staples, particularly The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and The Wonderful World of Disney, to round out its popularity. However, at the time, a handful of successful shows[2] did not a television network make (although, NBC’s storied history as America’s first network and its corporate ties to media and electronics giant Radio Corporation of America (RCA) likely provided an underpinning that, in all probability, contributed to the network’s continued presence). Outside of these hits, NBC had a hard time finding and holding on to an audience for other chunks of its schedule, and a seemingly revolving door of executives in the upper echelons of the network attempted to ameliorate this. A number of factors, including inconsistent leadership, FCC regulations, and programming trends, contextualize NBC’s larger plight in the 1970s. After discussing this broader context, this article will delve into NBC’s programming issues. Specifically, this article posits three reasons for the poor performance of NBC’s sitcoms during this decade: a lack of a clear sitcom and network identity, poor scheduling, and failed emulation.

NBC in the 1970s: Internal and External Complications

Over the course of the 1970s, NBC had three different people at the helm: Julian Goodman (1966-1974), Herb Schlosser (1974-1978), and Fred Silverman (1978-1981). While these three executives each left their marks on NBC in one way or another, none were able to ultimately pull the network to the top of the ratings charts—a position the “peacock network” had enjoyed with relative consistency in the prior two decades, but with less and less frequency as the 1970s continued. Julian Goodman, who started in the newsroom and worked his way up the NBC corporate ladder, enjoyed a lengthy career as NBC president. During his tenure, Goodman was able to steer the network to varying levels of success, most notably negotiating a $1 million contract to keep Johnny Carson as the host of one of the network’s crown jewels, The Tonight Show.^[3] When it was announced that Herb Schlosser, NBC’s then-Vice President of West Coast Programming, would replace Goodman as head of the network, rumors immediately started swirling that the change in command was not only caused by NBC’s low ratings, but also because RCA, NBC’s parent corporation, was looking to have their network “operated by a man oriented more toward entertainment programming, such as Mr. Schlosser, than toward news.”^[4] NBC denied these rumors and insisted that Goodman’s replacement was part of larger “adjustment[s] to changing conditions in broadcasting as a whole,”^[5] and it is worth noting that Goodman was appointed as NBC board chairman in April 1974, a position that allowed him to further fight for broadcasters’ rights and protection for journalists.[6]

At the end of 1978, after Schlosser was unable to turn the network’s ratings prospects around enough to the board’s liking,[7] he was replaced by Fred Silverman, who interestingly had previous stints as a programming executive at both CBS and ABC.^[8] Silverman, considered a “programming whiz,” was brought in as means to “save NBC.”^[9] In his attempts to “save” the network, Silverman offered a “high-minded platform” with an emphasis on news, information, and sports.^[10] Additionally, Silverman did not want to violate general taste standards, and wanted to refresh the medium with innovation in substance and style. As part of this, Silverman cancelled “sexploitative” programs and acted as a crusader against the “jiggle programming” that he had helped popularize at ABC (such as Battle of the Network Stars and Three’s Company).^[11] However, in Silverman’s quest to clean up the televisual landscape, he neglected to turn around NBC’s sitcom offerings; in fact, the vast majority of sitcoms that premiered under Silverman were unable to find an audience, and were ultimately cancelled in quick fashion (see Appendix). This relative inconsistency in the upper echelons of the network reflected inconsistencies in NBC as a brand.

Each time NBC hired a new president, there were shifts in the network’s brand of programming. When Schlosser replaced Goodman in 1974, he turned the network’s branding away from one that was more news-oriented to one that focused more on entertainment. When Goodman was unable to turn around NBC’s falling ratings and Silverman took over, he shifted the network’s brand back to one that was focused on the news and other “high-minded” content. These drastic shifts in NBC’s branding, which will be addressed in further detail later in this article, led to inconsistencies in programming strategies. While CBS and ABC also had shifts in upper management during the 1970s, each time a new president came in, they more or less continued the network’s pre-existing brand, albeit with some minor tweaking. With the exception of CBS’s Robert Wood, who helped instigate the “rural purge”—a mass-cancellation by all three networks to cancel “rural-themed” programs in favor of more urban-centric programming that would attract younger viewers—changes in the network brand and programming strategies enacted by the management at ABC and CBS were done in smaller, more evolutionary tones. However, each new president at NBC drastically swung the network from one end of the entertainment/enlightenment spectrum to the other, without giving the audience much warning of where the network would be headed next. Because NBC’s branding and programming strategies were modified every few years over the course of the 1970s, how could the network expect any audience loyalty to an entity that was constantly changing?[12]

When studying American broadcasting history, it is also important to consider regulation; in the 1970s, the impact of the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules (“Fin-Syn”) should not be overlooked. This set of rules, which were an attempt by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to increase diversity of programming on television and to limit the three major networks’ control of the television market, were adopted in 1970.^[13] While Fin-Syn had a deep impact on a network’s ability to profit from syndication, it is the “financial interest” portion of these new rules that is the perhaps most applicable to our study of the development and production of programming in the 1970s. As a means of decreasing vertical integration and broadcast network control in the television landscape, Fin-Syn worked to maintain a separation between the bodies that owned and produced a program and the bodies that distributed programs, which would create more competition in the televisual landscape.^[14] To do this, Fin-Syn rules put restrictions on the amount of time in a network’s broadcast schedule that could be allocated to network-owned programming. Therefore, in order to meet these new ownership restrictions while still maintaining a full schedule of programming, networks began to rely more heavily on independent production companies. This meant that less of a network’s programming was produced in-house, which ultimately created an industrial distance between the network and a large portion of its prime-time programming. While the history of networks purchasing programming from external production companies dates back to the 1950s, this large-scale removal of network involvement in production could be seen as a move into uncharted territory. It is important to note, however, that a broadcast network still ultimately made decisions about which programs were scheduled for broadcast, regardless of whether a show was produced by a network subsidiary or was purchased from an external production company.

The late 1960s and early 1970s also saw a shift in the television landscape that can be traced back to an alteration of CBS’s business model that occurred about twenty years prior. In 1948, as a means to topple NBC radio’s long-standing ratings dominance, CBS executed a series of “talent raids.”^[15] That summer, CBS owner and CEO William Paley approved a newly-devised economic plan that would treat performers not as individuals, but as incorporated businesses. Now, stars could be sold as “packages,” which allowed them to pay a lower corporate tax rate instead of the often-higher income tax rate assessed for individuals.^[16] With this new tax plan in hand, Paley was able to entice stars to leave NBC for CBS, thus giving CBS the upper hand in the battle over ratings. While the tax-incentive strategy had worked in CBS’s favor in the late 1940s, by the mid-1960s, the network was feeling the economic repercussions of their talent raids, as the steadily increasing costs of this grouping of aging stars began to drain network resources.^[17] According to Eileen Meehan, not only did the acquisitions from the talent raids that were still on the CBS payroll cost the network a fortune in salary pay, but they also mostly appealed to a mass circulation audience.^[18] In 1969, as a means to maintain this mass audience, but also draw in the coveted 18-30 year-old demographic, CBS divested itself from some of its older programming and crafted a schedule that “balanced innovation with stars.”^[19] As a result, NBC and ABC also shifted their programming into “young adult mode,”^[20] which culminated in the execution of the “rural purge” in 1970. This “purge” cleared the more traditional programs that tended to do well in rural America and with older audiences, such as The Ed Sullivan Show, Hee-Haw, Gunsmoke, Green Acres, and The Lawrence Welk Show, in order to create room in the schedule for programming that appealed to a more youthful and urban audience.^[21]

Although NBC followed along with this “rural purge,” the leader of this increased urban and youth-skewed programming was CBS.^[22] By “purging” their rural programming before their competitors and being ahead of the socially-conscious programming trends, CBS was able to establish themselves with audiences seeking more progressive and sometimes brash programming before NBC and ABC had a chance to add their own entrants into the race to grab audiences. Kirsten Marthe Lentz has written about this shift to “quality” and “relevant” programs mark a discursive and economic shift in the 1970s televisual landscape, with “quality” programs being marked with representations of feminism and womanhood that served as self-reflexive critiques on television, and “relevant” programs improved racial representation by “grounding” such imagery in reality.[23]  NBC eventually did catch up with the trend of incorporating this type of programming into their schedule with programs like Sanford and Son[24] and Chico and the Man, but only after filling their schedules with a sort of “least objectionable programming” that was not sitting well with audiences. Ultimately, by the time NBC did program for the coveted young and urban audiences, but perhaps it was too little too late for the peacock network. NBC’s trend towards more socially-relevant and topical programming would eventually transition to the more popular “jiggle” programming towards the end of the decade, but it was this first shift in programming that left NBC scrambling and trying to play catch-up, especially when it came to their sitcoms, for the rest of the decade. While inconsistent network leadership, the effects of Fin-Syn, and the changing trends in 1970s television can point to NBC’s larger programming issues, the reasons behind the poor performance of NBC’s sitcoms during this decade can be categorized into three general fields: a lack of a clear sitcom and network identity, poor scheduling, and failed emulation.

Lack of Clear Identity

One needs to look no further than the 1975-1976 television season in order to get an idea of the lack of a clear sitcom identity expressed by NBC during the 1970s. Below is a chart that lists the sitcoms broadcast by each major network during that season:^[25]

In looking at each network’s offerings as a construction of a sitcom brand, ABC outwardly displayed themselves as the home of lighter fare, with programming that incorporated elements of slapstick comedy, domesticity, goofiness, and nostalgia, which would target a broader audience that perhaps may not have wanted to engage with programs on CBS, which largely featured plot lines that addressed current social and political issues, fully fleshed out characters, and smart scripts, that were likely intended to draw in younger, urban audiences. NBC’s sitcom offerings, however, lacked one defining theme that could be used to tie together the network’s lineup. While NBC’s stable of sitcoms did include programming like Chico and the Man and Fay, which could appeal to the economically-desirable younger, urban audience that were a hot point of competition for broadcasters, the network also broadcast more innocuous fare, such as The Dumplings, a program that consistently relied on jokes at the expense of the main characters’ weight and body types for a quick laugh.

As part of the broadcast networks’ business model in the 1970s to offer programming to attract large numbers of viewers (and therefore, money from advertisers and sponsors), the networks competed for viewer loyalty through the establishment of a strong brand. ^[26] This network branding was displayed not just through stars, logos, color schemes, or interstitials, but also via consistency in programming styles. If a network was to focus less on airing a variety of programming types and instead provided a consistent style of programming,^[27] it would be able to capture the audience that would be looking for that specific type of content. By offering a clear sitcom style, networks were able to instill viewing habits in their audiences. For example, CBS’s socially-relevant, “quality” fare targeted young-adult and urban audiences, while ABC’s utilization of wistfulness for the past, teen characters, and light humor could capture a squeaky-clean youth audience and/or their parents who may be nostalgically longing for their own teenage years as reflected on television. NBC’s lacked focus, and its “catch-all” strategy had two notable impacts: (1) NBC was trying to appeal to audiences that CBS and ABC already had a stronghold over, and (2) even if a program in NBC’s lineup of sitcoms had significant appeal, the network’s poor scheduling strategies made it difficult for viewers to tune into their shows.

Poor Scheduling

A network attracting viewers to its programs is only one half of the battle: the rest comes with actually holding onto an audience for an evening of television watching. One strategy that can be utilized to maintain an audience is flow, which calls for the schedule to be viewed as a coherent whole, as opposed to a series of fragmented programming units. If this concept of flow, as described by Raymond Williams in 1974, is executed properly, a network could easily capture an audience member for an entire programming sequence by having each program “flow” into another, making it difficult to change the channel or turn off the television altogether.^[28] CBS’s Monday night prime-time schedule during the Fall 1975 season is a good example of how to properly execute flow:^[29]

Here, not only do we see a grouping of topical sitcoms, but we also see micro-groupings of spin-offs: Rhoda and Phyllis spun off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and All in the Family and its spin-off, Maude. Although the programming sequence ends somewhat jarringly with an hour-long drama, all three networks were utilizing this practice at the time, so it may not have seemed that jarring to the contemporaneous viewer. Programming a two-hour block of sitcoms was easy for CBS because at the time, they were airing eight sitcoms, thus giving network schedulers a multitude of options when it came to constructing a fluid schedule. However, ABC’s Thursday night schedule from the same season is a good example of how a network with a smaller number of sitcoms could still program a sequence of flow:^[30]

 ABC had used police/public safety themes as a uniting thread to weave together the evening’s schedule. Not only would this schedule be an easy way to attract audiences who would be looking for police content over a variety of genres, but it would also act as a unified sequence of programming, thereby encouraging a viewer to remain sucked into the viewing over the course of a night.

Judging by NBC’s Thursday night schedule from the Fall 1975 season, however, seems to be a bit more difficult to locate:^[31]

 In this schedule, NBC aired a family-centered sitcom, then broadcast a topical sitcom about a divorced woman, which was followed by a dramatic mystery program. The night was capped off with a medical anthology series that was a spin-off of the popular police anthology series, Police Story. In avoiding any reasonable form of flow, this schedule stands as an example of NBC’s “catch-all” audience strategy. Instead of building the schedule around a common theme, like ABC’s police-themed schedule, or a type of program, like CBS’s two-hour block of socially- and politically-relevant sitcoms, NBC aired a variety of programs that did not cohere or attract a specific audience.

Admittedly, there is a positive way to view this scheduling technique: by providing a different slate of programming than their competitors, NBC was executing a form of counterprogramming. According to Jeffrey Horen, counterprogramming can optimize a schedule based on the hypothesis that a program’s ratings can be higher if its type is different from those of competing programs, and can benefit viewers if “different networks schedule [desired programming] at different times and not concurrently.”^[32] However, what NBC did not account for is what Horen calls “avoidance.” Avoidance, which is the practice of a network scheduling its “strong programs against a competing network’s weak programs,” further went against NBC’s programming efforts, especially considering that the smaller audience for one of these weak programs leaves a potentially large audience for the stronger programs. ^[33] Pulling from the Fall 1975 Thursday prime-time schedule, The Montefuscos (a family-centered sitcom) on NBC received an 11.6/21 rating/share after the first two weeks, while ABC’s Barney Miller (a police-themed sitcom) received a 17.2/30 for the same timeframe.^[34] By applying the logic that The Montefuscos, which only aired for one season, is weaker than Barney Miller, which ran for eight seasons, we can see the practice of avoidance in action.^[35]

During the mid to late 1970s, NBC’s schedule was in great flux. In April 1975, the network, in one of its largest scheduling overhauls, cancelled eight shows and rescheduled eight others.^[36] When Fred Silverman became president in 1978, scheduling became even more inconsistent. Silverman was notorious for changing the schedule on an almost weekly basis, as well as introducing programs into the NBC lineup without sufficient preparation.^[37] While speculative history is nearly impossible to practice, one wonders how NBC’s schedules and programs might have fared if Silverman had practiced more of a “good things come to those who wait” philosophy. By not practicing patience, Silverman pulled programs from the schedule potentially before they had the time to find an audience. There is some irony in all of this: when Silverman came to NBC in 1978, he had vowed to end the network’s practice of “churning schedules.”^[38] Regardless of broken promises, most of the sitcoms that were aired during Silverman’s time at NBC were pulled from the air after less than three months (see Appendix).

Failed Emulation

Any entity, whether it be a network, a creator, or an actor, should not be faulted for their desire to continue capitalizing on already-established success. However, when this practice is executed poorly, then a critical eye must be used to examine the failed attempt at such success; a methodology that Todd Gitlin provides in Inside Prime Time.^[39] By applying Gitlin’s analysis of the textual and cultural properties of different forms of televisual repetition, it is clear to see that NBC’s attempts at capitalizing on another sitcom’s successes and formulas, through the use of spin-offs and copies, were subpar.

The place of spin-offs can often be difficult to negotiate within a larger television culture. On the one hand, if a spin-off follows a fully-formed character with a fleshed-out storyline, creates its own plots, and/or expands upon a pre-existing canon, it can be a welcome addition to a television franchise. According to Gitlin, in order for a spin-off to find success, it must be centered on characters with major appeal, and preferably, on characters whose appeal has been “pretested.”^[40] Ultimately, if a spin-off features half-baked characters who may not be deep or interesting enough to hold down a show of their own, there is no guarantee that the show will find any success, as was the case with The Sanford Arms and Grady.

In February 1977, despite star Redd Foxx’s departure for an ill-fated ABC variety show, Sanford and Son was still expected to continue during the fall season.^[41] Just a few months later, in April 1977, the program’s other star, Demond Wilson, left Sanford and Son over a salary dispute. This meant that in the span of three months, NBC’s most popular sitcom was without its two title characters. However, the network was not yet ready to take this dilemma lying down.^[42] By the time May rolled around, NBC had dropped the show’s title, and instead renamed and recalibrated Sanford and Son to become The Sanford Arms.^[43] The Sanford Arms, which premiered in Sanford and Son’s Friday night time slot, retained the original program’s supporting cast and sets, and acted as a continuation of Sanford and Son. This was done by introducing a new set of characters, the Wheelers, who had hoped to turn the Sanford and Son Salvage property into a hotel after purchasing the junkyard from Fred and Lamont before they moved to Arizona.^[44] Thus, the old central characters of Sanford and his son were written out, and a new central cast was brought in to a shell of what the show once was.

The drive to continue the successful sitcom without its two main characters was met with great hesitation, and that doubt was justified. After viewing the pilot episode, Lee Margulies of The Los Angeles Times wrote:

Sanford and Son underwent surgery after Redd Foxx and Demond Wilson departed at the conclusion of last season and the patient seems to have died on the operating table. Apparently no one told NBC, though, because it’s going ahead with the premiere of [The] Sanford Arms….It’s shallow, simple-minded stuff, and even worse, it isn’t funny.^[45]

NBC should have known that its “surgery” was not going to be a success. Two years earlier, in 1975, NBC launched Grady, another spin-off of Sanford and Son. The sitcom featured Whitman Mayo’s character of the same name after he moved away from South Central Los Angeles to his daughter’s home in Santa Monica. After falling to 61^st place in the Nielsen ratings, Grady was cancelled.^[46] The common consensus behind Grady’s cancellation was that the title character did not have enough charisma to carry an entire show by himself,^[47] and the show itself was filled with completely ridiculous situations.^[48]

According to Gitlin, a “clone” of another television program will attract comparison, and typically will “suffer” because of it. ^[49] In the case of The Sanford Arms and Grady, which were spin-offs of what was easily NBC’s most popular and successful sitcom of the 1970s, they could not live up to the original. NBC tried to bind the spin-offs to their master-text by bridging the programs together: for example, in the premiere episode of Grady, Redd Foxx in character as Fred Sanford is on-hand to see Grady off on his trip to Santa Monica.^[50] Additionally, the connection between Sanford and Son and The Sanford Arms was made during the master-text’s run: “The Sanford Arms” was an episode in the fifth season of Sanford and Son, where Fred and Lamont scramble to find tenants for their boarding house before bank foreclosure.^[51] By making these direct correlations between Sanford and Son and its spin-offs, the master-text was tying itself to the spin-offs, and NBC was inviting audiences to keep this in mind while watching the subsequent texts. However, the strategy backfired, for instead of looking at the Sanford and Son connections as a tip of the hat to the past, audiences and critics were reminded of what could have been.

It is important contextualize NBC’s failed spin-offs of its most popular sitcom of the period with the goings-on of CBS and ABC. During the same period when NBC was struggling with its own spin-offs, CBS enjoyed a streak of incredibly successful multi-season programs that were spun-off from Norman Lear-developed and Tandem Productions-produced All in the Family (1971-1979), which included Maude (1972-1978),[52] The Jeffersons (1975-1985), and Archie’s Place (1979-1983). Additionally, at ABC, Garry Marshall’s Happy Days (1974-1984) successfully launched spin-offs Laverne & Shirley (1976-1983) and Mork & Mindy (1978-1982). While both All in the Family and Happy Days did have failed spinoffs,[53] each network and production company behind these master-texts were able to successfully extend the life and scope of its popular sitcoms in ways NBC could not. Writing in 1977, Horace Newcomb praised Norman Lear’s stable of spin-offs from All in the Family as being well-developed and appealing ways to extend the lives of already well-loved and complex characters and experiences.[54]

Gitlin’s concept of clones suffering from comparison can be extended to another form of televisual repetition: copies. Defined loosely by NBC’s Gerald Jaffe as an “imitation,” copies can be used to garner success by reproducing an already-successful formula. ^[55] Every television network, channel, or service, regardless of their distribution or broadcast method, copies programs. The difficulty with copies, however, is identifying and successfully copying the “correct” aspects of a program. While some variables in these formulas may be obvious, such as including a group of gun-toting cowboys in Western dramas of the 1950s, others are less material, like the application of Ralph and Alice Cramden’s caustic (yet loving) relationship to the Stone Age world of The Flintstones.

When making a copy, Gitlin points out that “people want to repeat a pleasurable experience.”^[56] A viewer’s experience is not defined by exactly redoing something that has already been successful once before. Instead, in addition to reproducing a successful show’s formula, a copy must also recreate the “aura” that surrounded the original program.^[57] Lotsa Luck, a copy of the successful British sitcom On the Buses, premiered on NBC in September 1973.^[58] Created by Carl Reiner, Bill Persky, and Sam Denoff – all of The Dick Van Dyke Show fame – and starring Dom DeLuise as a hot-headed blue-collar worker who supports his family,^[59] the program almost instantaneously drew comparisons to another show: All in the Family. Being hailed as “a bad imitation of All in the Family,”^[60]and “a carbon copy of Archie,”^[61] Lotsa Luck was unable to draw viewers away from All in the Family, and was cancelled at the end of the season. In the case of Lotsa Luck, which could be thought of more as a copy of All in the Family than an adaptation of On the Buses, critics wrote that the program lacked the same “heart” that All in the Family carried. Thus, why would viewers want to watch a watered-down, cold version of All in the Family, when they could instead tune into CBS and watch the “real thing?”

When a network is adding a copy to the broadcast schedule, consideration needs to be made as to whether or not the audience is still engaged with the original. The Girl with Something Extra, which NBC aired during the 1973-74 season, followed the ins-and-outs of a newlywed couple’s domestic life, but with a twist: the wife, played by Sally Field, had magical powers in the form of extrasensory perception. This show sounds strikingly familiar to Bewitched, because it was crafted by NBC to be exactly that: a copy of Bewitched. The Girl with Something Extra premiered one year after ABC cancelled Bewitched, after it had long been a staple of the network’s Thursday night lineup, where it was consistently in the top ten ratings, and rarely finished below the top 30.^[62] However, during the 1972 season, the program was moved to a new Wednesday night timeslot, where the show never cracked the top 50.^[63] At the end of the season, ABC cancelled Bewitched,^[64] when the once-beloved program dropped to 72^nd place in year-end ratings.^[65] The audience had clearly spoken: they no longer wanted to watch Bewitched, especially when it was re-scheduled against more popular and topical fare like All in the Family. With the gift of hindsight, NBC’s decision to include The Girl with Something Extra in their new fall lineup seems questionable, and possibly could have been done in the hopes there would still be an audience who were still in the market for another paranormal sitcom who could be won over with this new take on the “supernatural housewife” genre. Regardless of NBC’s thought process, the outcome was still the same: The Girl with Something Extra was cancelled at the end of the season because of low ratings.^[66]

What made CBS and ABC different?

How were CBS and ABC able to escape the horrible fate NBC endured when it came to airing sitcoms in the 1970s? Industrially speaking, their presentations of well-constructed schedules and clear sitcom identities were able to draw in and maintain audiences. CBS’s presentation as the network that would provide viewers with sitcom programming that was relevant, thought-provoking, and topical, worked harmoniously with ABC’s sitcom lineup to appeal to the mass, less-discerning audience, with the inclusion of programs that could be classified as escapist, nostalgic, or lighter fare. There was a clear divide between audiences, allowing viewers to easily choose where they wanted to go for their sitcom needs.

As previously demonstrated, CBS and ABC, unlike NBC, were able to create successful spin-offs of some of their most popular sitcom programming. By looking at what audiences enjoyed in the original program, CBS and ABC were able to shift those particulars into new programs: The Jeffersons, CBS’s extension of All in the Family, featured a boisterous patriarch dealing with topical situations, while Laverne & Shirley, ABC’s offshoot of Happy Days, provided viewers with another nostalgic look at the daily lives of men and women in an idealized form of the 1950s. In contrast, Grady, NBC’s attempted spin-off of Sanford and Son, centered around a character from the original text, but in terms of program quality and content, was too dissimilar to the original for the audience’s liking.

Lastly, CBS and ABC worked with a consistent stable of outside independent production companies which ultimately became synonymous with the network: CBS had its ties to Norman Lear and MTM Enterprises, while ABC had a storied history with Garry Marshall and Aaron Spelling. Arguably, these relationships benefitted the networks in two ways: (1) programs that were made by the same production companies added to the network’s consistency of branding, and (2) having the name of a reputable collaborator or production company attached to a program had the potential to provide the show with a notion of quality or act as an attractor to viewers and advertisers who were already familiar with the other programs from that collaborator or production company.

Conclusion

While it is easy to point out NBC’s unpopular sitcoms from the 1970s, one would be remiss to not mention their more successful sitcom endeavors (as few as they may be). Over the course of the decade, NBC aired two sitcoms^[67] that found popularity with viewing audiences: Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man. These two sitcoms, which both included a stuck-in-their-ways older protagonist in “conflict” with their younger, more progressive counterpart, were able to capture a multitude of audiences: as the more elderly, “silent majority” viewers who could see a bit of “Sanford” and “The Man” in themselves, and the younger, urban viewers who could identify with “Son” and “Chico.”

Although the peacock network’s sitcom situation was largely in dire straits for the most of the 1970s, all was not lost for comedy at NBC. During the decade, the network found great success in shows like Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. So, what made these programs successful, but the sitcoms a disaster? These programs were all hour-long non-narrative comedies that were personality-driven and made periodic touches on current events, while also providing comedy about other farcical matters. This success that NBC was able to find elsewhere in the comedy genre, implies that the network’s trouble with sitcoms was not one of genre, but one of format. If NBC had played into their comedic strengths by producing a sitcom that drew on some or all of the qualities from their lineup of successful non-sitcom comedy programs, NBC could have found larger success in sitcoms.

On the whole, because of changing trends, FCC regulation, and cable sneaking up on the horizon, the 1970s were a difficult time to be in the broadcast television industry. As a result, this period is one of great flux: by the end of the decade, CBS—who had dominated the ratings game for a large part of the 1970s—was at the bottom of the ratings chart, and ABC—long considered to be a “third-place network”—was on top. While this article honed in on a strange and arguably less-than-ideal period of NBC’s sitcom programming history, it serves as a reminder that failure is something that needs to be studied in context. For example, even after being somewhat of a dead zone for sitcoms for most of the 1970s, NBC found itself in the 1980s and into the 1990s with consistent sitcom hits that enjoyed long runs and large audiences, including tour de forces like Family Ties (1982-1989), Cheers (1982-1993), The Cosby Show (1984-1992), The Golden Girls (1985-1992), A Different World (1987-1993),[68] Seinfeld (1989-1998), Frasier (1993-2004)[69] and Friends (1994-2004). The sense of failure and disappointment in NBC’s sitcom product interrogated by this article becomes all the more striking when one considers the considerable successes the network enjoyed both before and (especially) after this slump in the 1970s.

NBC was—and still is—a company who has the privilege of allowing failure to be a phase, rather than an ending. With this in mind, we can further question the implications of what it means for cultural institutions to have the “option” of failure. A point of frustration that has been located within this article in relation to NBC’s failed sitcoms of the 1970s is not just that they bombed, but that they failed while being (on the whole) disingenuous, repetitive attempts to grab viewer attention, rather than failing while trying to push boundaries, engage with public discourse, or do something different. This article, in focusing on what now seems like a fading memory in the rearview mirror of NBC’s storied history, ultimately serves as a reminder that when considering failures, contextualization and timelines matter.

APPENDIX
Listing of NBC Sitcoms Lasting One Season or Less, 1970-1979

* Information compiled from Total Television and The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows.

** There was no consistent or reliable source for this, as the program was scheduled during the outside of traditional primetime hours. Therefore, this information has been omitted.

*** The Little People actually ran for two seasons, under two different names: the first was under its original name; the second was under its rebranded name, The Brian Keith Show.

^[1] The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, NBC, December 14, 1976.

[2] There are many ways to measure the “success” of a television show, including (but not limited to) audience satisfaction, ratings, critics’ reviews, awards, and longevity. For the purposes of this article, I am measuring “success” by how many seasons a program lasted in a broadcast network’s schedule, which is typically driven by ratings and revenue.

^[3] Bill Carter, “Julian Goodman Dies at 90; Led NBC,” The New York Times, July 2, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/business/julian-goodman-dies-at-90-led-nbc.html.

^[4] “Sudden Upheaval in NBC Management Puts Goodman on Policy Level, Schlosser On Line,” Broadcasting, February 11, 1974, 22-23.

^[5] Ibid.

[6] See, for example: “Goodman Calls on Broadcasters to Resist ‘Fake’ Pressure Groups,” Variety, May 22, 1974, 45; “Goodman’s Hard-Hitting Speech On New Course For Free Press,” Variety, June 5, 1974, 11; “Goodman To Govt.: Scuttle Radio Regs,” Variety, December 11, 1974, 27.

[7] Although, not unlike his predecessor, Schlosser was promoted to an executive position at RCA, the parent company of NBC.

^[8] “The Networks,” Broadcasting, December 25, 1978, 57-58.

^[9] Ibid.

^[10] Sally Bedell, Up the Tube (New York: The Viking Press, 1981), 231.

^[11] Bedell, 232.

[12] To complicate matters even further, it was during Schlosser’s tenure in 1975, that Robert Sarnoff, the chairman of the board and CEO of RCA, was dismissed from his position. Sarnoff is a name that will forever be tied to NBC: David Sarnoff, Robert’s father, held high-level executive positions in RCA from 1930 until 1970, and is considered to be the founder of NBC, who shepherded the company through the foundations of both commercial broadcast network radio and television. In what was described by The New York Times as a “palace revolt,” and labeled by Variety as a “coup,” Robert Sarnoff’s tenure ended quickly. As a means to avoid over-speculation, it is at least worth considering this dramatic ousting at the highest echelon of NBC’s parent company as important context for internal discord and shakeups that have had ripple effects in the culture, politics, and economics of the network’s operations.

^[13] William G. Covington Jr., “The Financial Interest and Syndication Rules in Retrospect: History and Analysis,” Communications and the Law 16, no. 2 (June 1994), 5-6.

^[14] Mara Einstein, “Prime Time Power and Politics: The Financial Interest and Syndication Rules and Their Impact on the Structure and Practices of the Television Industry,” ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, Order No. 9955714, New York University, 2000.

^[15] Douglas Gomery, “Talent Raids and Package Deals: NBC Loses Its Leadership in the 1950s,” in NBC: America’s Network, ed. Michele Hilmes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 155.

^[16] Gomery, 155.

^[17] Eileen R. Meehan, “Critical Theorizing on Broadcast History,” in Routledge Reader on Electronic Media History, ed. Donald G. Godfrey and Susan L. Brinson (New York: Routledge, 2015), 32.

^[18] Ibid, 35.

^[19] Ibid, 33.

^[20] Ibid.

^[21] Clarence Petersen, “Ax May Fall on Sullivan and Rurals,” The Chicago Tribune, February 10, 1971, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[22] Cynthia Lowry, “Mature Programs Dying as TV Woos Young Folks,” The Sunday Oregonian (Portland), March 19, 1967.

[23] Kirsten Marthe Lentz, “Quality versus Relevance: Feminism, Race, and the Politics of the Sign in 1970s Television,” Camera Obscura 15, no. 1 (2000), 46-47.

[24] It is worth noting that the production company behind Sanford and Son was Tandem Productions, the Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin-run company that was also responsible for highly-successful “quality” and “relevant” programs such as All in the Family (CBS, 1971-1979) Maude (CBS, 1972-1978) and Good Times (CBS, 1974-1979).

^[25] Brooks, Tim, and Earle Marsh. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present. 9th ed. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 2007.

^[26] Lee Margulies, “Ho Fails to Crack the Daytime Mold,” The Los Angeles Times, February 11, 1977. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[27] Ibid.

^[28] Raymond Williams. Television: Technology and Cultural Form (London: Fontana, 1974), 93-4.

^[29] Brooks and Marsh, 1598.

^[30] Ibid.

^[31] Brooks and Marsh, 1598.

^[32] Jeffrey H. Horen, “Scheduling of Network Television Programs,” Management Science 26 no. 4 (April 1980): 356, 367, JSTOR.

^[33] Ibid, 368.

^[34] “The First Two Weeks,” Broadcasting, September 29, 1975, 19.

^[35] These programs, of course, were both dwarfed by The Waltons on CBS. By receiving a 22.6/39 rating/share for the same time period, The Waltons (an hour-long, family-centric, historical drama) can be seen as both an example of counterprogramming and avoidance.

^[36] Percy Shain, “NBC Cuts 8 Shows in Fall Shake-Up,” The Boston Globe, April 22, 1975, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[37] Geraldine Fabrikant, “The Fall and Rise of Fred Silverman,” The New York Times, June 5, 1989, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[38] Bedell, 234.

^[39] Todd Gitlin, Inside Prime Time, rev. ed. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000), 63-85.

^[40] Ibid, 67.

^[41] “Programming,” Broadcasting, February 21, 1977, 34.

^[42] “Agencies Raise Early Warnings on Fall Prices While Networks Plot Schedules,” Broadcasting, April 18, 1977, 29.

^[43] “Agencies See a Rerun of ABC’s Success In Prime Time,” Broadcasting, May 23, 1977, 59.

^[44] Alex McNeil, Total Television, 4th ed. (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1996), 722.

^[45] Lee Margulies. “Sanford Arms on NBC,” The Los Angeles Times, September 16, 1977, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[46] Cecil Smith, “Two New Midseason Series—Cop, Grady—Canceled by NBC,” The Los Angeles Times, January 29, 1976, ProQuest Historical Newspapers..

^[47] Percy Shain, “‘Grady,’ a Comedy Spinoff from ‘Sanford,’ Comes Up Short in Debut,” The Boston Globe, December 4, 1975, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[48] Gary Deeb, “‘Grady’ is Latest in Long Line of Losers,” The Chicago Tribune, December 3, 1975, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[49] Gitlin, 75.

^[50] Cecil Smith, “Cop and Kid, Grady Debut,” The Los Angeles Times, December 4, 1975, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[51] “The Sanford Arms,” IMDb, accessed February 6, 2024, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0694167/?ref_=ttep_ep4.

[52] Which subsequently spun-off Good Times (CBS, 1974-1979), also developed by Norman Lear and produced by Tandem Productions.

[53] Such as Gloria (1982-1983), Blansky’s Beauties (February-June 1977), and the now-infamous Joanie Loves Chachi (1982-1983)

[54] Horace Newcomb, “The Television Artistry of Norman Lear,” Prospects 2 (October 1977), 122.

^[55] Gitlin, 69.

^[56] Ibid, 70.

^[57] Ibid, 74-75.

^[58] McNeil, 491.

^[59] Ibid.

^[60] Cyclops, “A TV Season That Died,” The New York Times, November 18, 1973, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[61] John Carmondy. “Verdict on Two TV Comedies: ‘Disappointments,’” The Washington Post, September 11, 1973, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[62] Lawrence Laurent, “This family witch enjoyed a long run on TV,” The Washington Post, January 30, 1972, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[63] Gitlin, 74-75.

^[64] Clarence Petersen, “CBS, ABC Announce Fall TV Schedules,” The Chicago Tribune, April 4, 1972, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[65] Clarence Petersen, “Final Scores in the Ratings Race,” The Chicago Tribune, May 30, 1972, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[66] Percy Shain, “Biggest fall program shakeup ever: NBC kills 14 shows, CBS cancels 7,” The Boston Globe, April 20, 1974, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

^[67] Four, if one counts Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life, two programs that began their run in the 1970s (1978 and 1979, respectively), but found greater success in, and are more culturally identified with, the 1980s.

[68] A spin-off of The Cosby Show.

[69] A spin-off of Cheers.