Jump to content

Television’s Top 100 America’s Most Watched Broadcasts 1960-2010 by Wesley Hyatt


Recommended Posts

Lucy is mentioned throughout the book. Here is where she made the top 100 as star or guest star.

 

#71 34.3/52 Lucy Meets the Burtons

 

#62 Lucy Waits Up for Chris 34.8/?

 

#39 John Wayne’s Swing Out, Sweet Land 38.0/54

 

Here is some interesting comments he made under Lucy Meets the Burtons.

 

“While it finished #9 in the 1968-1969 season and #6 in the 1969-1970 season, some CBS executives privately believed Ball and her program were tired, as upscale, wealthier and younger audiences were not flocking to it. They planned to cancel it at the end of the 1970-1971 season.”

 

“She played for the studio audience and not the audience at home.” Said Stu Shostak

 

Later he said “After Here’s Lucy, they were actually going to take a year off with specials and then return.”

 

Due to the sucess of CBS Salutes Lucy and the popularity of Disco Lucy they put Here's Lucy on midmorning reruns but it received low ratings against reruns of Sanford and Son and was pulled six months later.

 

16.7/26 Lucy Moves to NBC's rating

 

What do you think of this information? I wondered if Lucy would have been gone in the rural purge but I can't believe they would pull a show at #6. I feel Lucy did enjoy making the studio audience laugh and have a good time. You can see Lucy's radiant enterance onstage. She love the crowd applauding her and wished they would enjoy the show. However, she was concerned about the home audience too or she won't of been upset at Life with Lucy's ratings. I think that it is sad Here's Lucy reruns did so bad because I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show's reruns fared well in the ratings. (I wish I had numbers to back this up.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had read somewhere that the highest rated "Lucy Show" was "Lucy Gets Involved" from January of 1968. This ran opposite the last once-popular "Man From Uncle" a week before it was replaced by "Laugh-In".

The rankings of these shows can be based on several things: the rating (the percentage of households with TV sets); the share (percentage of viewers who were watching something at that time) or the total number of viewers--which would give an unfair advantage to network shows broadcast later (but before cable inroads) as there would have been more viewers available.

For some reason these stats usually deal with ratings from 1960 on. One explanation--that actually doesn't explain anything---went something like this: "The way ratings were calculated before and after 1960 was different so the numbers are not directly comparable." which negates Lucy's big numbers from the I Love Lucy years.

 

If this info about CBS's displeasure with "Here's Lucy" ratings is true, it's amazing....and preposterous logic. What other series could remain in the top ten pitted against a #1 program that was sort of a national phenomenon? And have those ratings improve from one season to the next? CBS would have been crazy to cancel the show at the end of the 70-71 season as it was their NUMBER ONE show on the air!

 

 

Lucy is mentioned throughout the book. Here is where she made the top 100 as star or guest star.

 

#71 34.3/52 Lucy Meets the Burtons

 

#62 Lucy Waits Up for Chris 34.8/?

 

#39 John Wayne’s Swing Out, Sweet Land 38.0/54

 

Here is some interesting comments he made under Lucy Meets the Burtons.

 

“While it finished #9 in the 1968-1969 season and #6 in the 1969-1970 season, some CBS executives privately believed Ball and her program were tired, as upscale, wealthier and younger audiences were not flocking to it. They planned to cancel it at the end of the 1970-1971 season.”

 

“She played for the studio audience and not the audience at home.” Said Stu Shostak

 

Later he said “After Here’s Lucy, they were actually going to take a year off with specials and then return.”

 

Due to the sucess of CBS Salutes Lucy and the popularity of Disco Lucy they put Here's Lucy on midmorning reruns but it received low ratings against reruns of Sanford and Son and was pulled six months later.

 

16.7/26 Lucy Moves to NBC's rating

 

What do you think of this information? I wondered if Lucy would have been gone in the rural purge but I can't believe they would pull a show at #6. I feel Lucy did enjoy making the studio audience laugh and have a good time. You can see Lucy's radiant enterance onstage. She love the crowd applauding her and wished they would enjoy the show. However, she was concerned about the home audience too or she won't of been upset at Life with Lucy's ratings. I think that it is sad Here's Lucy reruns did so bad because I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show's reruns fared well in the ratings. (I wish I had numbers to back this up.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lucy is mentioned throughout the book. Here is where she made the top 100 as star or guest star.

 

#71 34.3/52 Lucy Meets the Burtons

 

#62 Lucy Waits Up for Chris 34.8/?

 

#39 John Wayne’s Swing Out, Sweet Land 38.0/54

 

Here is some interesting comments he made under Lucy Meets the Burtons.

 

“While it finished #9 in the 1968-1969 season and #6 in the 1969-1970 season, some CBS executives privately believed Ball and her program were tired, as upscale, wealthier and younger audiences were not flocking to it. They planned to cancel it at the end of the 1970-1971 season.”

 

“She played for the studio audience and not the audience at home.” Said Stu Shostak

 

Later he said “After Here’s Lucy, they were actually going to take a year off with specials and then return.”

 

Due to the sucess of CBS Salutes Lucy and the popularity of Disco Lucy they put Here's Lucy on midmorning reruns but it received low ratings against reruns of Sanford and Son and was pulled six months later.

 

16.7/26 Lucy Moves to NBC's rating

 

What do you think of this information? I wondered if Lucy would have been gone in the rural purge but I can't believe they would pull a show at #6. I feel Lucy did enjoy making the studio audience laugh and have a good time. You can see Lucy's radiant enterance onstage. She love the crowd applauding her and wished they would enjoy the show. However, she was concerned about the home audience too or she won't of been upset at Life with Lucy's ratings. I think that it is sad Here's Lucy reruns did so bad because I Love Lucy and The Lucy Show's reruns fared well in the ratings. (I wish I had numbers to back this up.)

That's why Lucy always defended those bucolic comedies like Hillbillies and Petticoat and Green acres, as they all had the same audience as she did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had read somewhere that the highest rated "Lucy Show" was "Lucy Gets Involved" from January of 1968. This ran opposite the last once-popular "Man From Uncle" a week before it was replaced by "Laugh-In".

The rankings of these shows can be based on several things: the rating (the percentage of households with TV sets); the share (percentage of viewers who were watching something at that time) or the total number of viewers--which would give an unfair advantage to network shows broadcast later (but before cable inroads) as there would have been more viewers available.

For some reason these stats usually deal with ratings from 1960 on. One explanation--that actually doesn't explain anything---went something like this: "The way ratings were calculated before and after 1960 was different so the numbers are not directly comparable." which negates Lucy's big numbers from the I Love Lucy years.

 

If this info about CBS's displeasure with "Here's Lucy" ratings is true, it's amazing....and preposterous logic. What other series could remain in the top ten pitted against a #1 program that was sort of a national phenomenon? And have those ratings improve from one season to the next? CBS would have been crazy to cancel the show at the end of the 70-71 season as it was their NUMBER ONE show on the air!

Absolutely and thanks for clearing up that ratings mess from Neilsen, i DO remember them changing their tallies and rules at one point and you're right, those ILL ratings were so THREW THE ROOF that they never looked real compared to other shows later on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...