Ratings News

[mmb5]

Source: Broadcasting Magazine, 3 June 1974
Time Period: Year-to-Date 1974
Key: Network-Show-Rating/Share

10:00 AM: CBS-Joker's Wild-5.2/28, NBC-Dinah's Place-4.8/26
10:30 AM: CBS-Gambit-5.9/30, NBC-Jeopardy-5.5/27
11:00 AM: CBS-Now You See It-5.9/30, NBC-Wizard of Odds-not listed
11:30 AM: NBC-Hollywood Squares-8.8/37, ABC-Brady Bunch-6.7/28, CBS-Love of Life-6.0/26
12:00 PM: NBC-Jackpot-8.1/31, Password-6.5/27, Young and the Restless-6.2/24
12:30 PM: CBS-Search for Tomorrow-7.7/29, Split Second-7.7/28, Celebrity Sweepstakes-6.7/27
1:00 PM: ABC-All My Children-9.1/32
1:30 PM: CBS-As the World Turns-9.7/33, ABC-Let's Make a Deal-8.6/29, Three on a Match-not listed
2:00 PM: NBC-Days of Our Lives 9.7/32, CBS-Guiding Light 6.1/27, ABC-Newlywed Game-not listed
2:30 PM: NBC-The Doctors 9.4/33, CBS-Edge of Night-7.4/26, ABC-The Girl in My Life-not listed
3:00 PM: NBC-Another World-9.6/31, ABC-General Hospital-9.2/29, CBS-The Price Is Right-6.4/28
3:30 PM: CBS-Match Game '74-10.1/32, ABC-One Life to Live-7.9/25, NBC-How to Survive a Marriage-6.3/20
4:00 PM: CBS-Tattletales-7.0/22, NBC-Somerset-6.0/19, ABC-$10,000 Pyramid-5.2/18 [Pyramid rating based on ABC numbers only]

Some other notes:
The Match Game rating would have it be #19 in the Prime Time Nielsens for this past week.
The highest rated show currently on daytime (Young and the Restless, around 4.2) would be the lowest rated show in 1975.
A few clearance levels were listed: Young and the Restless-90%, Celebrity Sweepstakes-94%, All My Children-93%
30 second prices: As the World Turns-$20,000; All My Children-$18,000; Another World-$18,000; Match Game '74-$18,000; Let's Make a Deal-$10,400; Jackpot-$9,200

The article mentions that the demos skew more friendly to soaps, hence the higher ad rates.


--Mike

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'mmb5\' date=\'Feb 21 2006, 09:33 PM\']12:00 PM: NBC-Jackpot-8.1/31, Password-6.5/27, Young and the Restless-6.2/24
[/quote]

3:00 PM: NBC-Another World-9.6/31, ABC-General Hospital-9.2/29, CBS-The Price Is Right-6.4/28

And now for Masters of the Obvious!

Part of me is surprised that Jackpot manhandled Y&R...but then, part of me remembers that Y&R was a little over a year old at that point. Any reason why the show was cancelled considering it was 1) winning the timeslot, 2) one of the higher-rated games, and 3) one of NBC's highest rated games? Was it noon clearances for news?

This TPiR one is another shocker, then again, this version was still fairly new (almost two years old), going up against "established" shows (AW had been on 10 years, GH for 11).
Interesting to see the networks actually give the shows a chance back then...

This post has been a John Madden/Craig Karlberg Production? Geez!

[zachhoran]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Feb 21 2006, 09:59 PM\']

Any reason why Jackpot was cancelled considering it was 1) winning the timeslot, 2) one of the higher-rated games, and 3) one of NBC's highest rated games? Was it noon clearances for news?

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[/quote]

Geoff Edwards said on Usenet that the format changes late in the show's run, most notably replacing the riddles with Hollywood Squares-like multiple choice questions, was the "death knell" for the show.

[tyshaun1]

Here's a few more ratings charts, taken from here.

Week for 11/27/74-12/1/74 (Top 15 only)
1. Match Game 11.0/34
2. As the World Turns 10.9/35
3. Days of Our Lives 10.7/34
4. Search for Tomrrow 9.8/35
5. Another World 9.7/31
*. The Doctors 9.7/33
7. The Young and the Restless 9.0/34
8. The Guiding Light 8.3/27
*. Hollywood Squares 8.3/34
10. The Price Is Right 8.2/26
11. Celebrity Sweepstakes 8.1/30
12. All My Children 7.9/26
*. General Hospital 7.9/24
14. Love of Life 7.8/32
15. Jackpot 7.7/29

Daytime network ratings for the week of 6/10/85-6/14/85

1. The Price Is Right 2 CBS..9.2/35
*. General Hospital ABC..9.2/29
3. All My Children ABC..8.8/28
4. The Young and the Restless CBS..8.3/29
5. One Life to Live ABC..7.8/26
6. Wheel of Fortune NBC..7.3/28
7. The Price Is Right 1 CBS..7.1/27
*. Days of Our Lives NBC..7.1/23
*. Guiding Light CBS..7.1/23
10. As the World Turns CBS..6.4/21
11. Another World NBC..5.7/19
12. The $25,000 Pyramid CBS..5.3/21
*. Capitol CBS..5.3/18
14. Scrabble NBC..5.2/20
15. Press Your Luck CBS..5.0/19
16. Sale of the Century NBC..4.9/19
17. Loving ABC..4.4/15
18. The Facts of Life NBC..4.0/16
19. Super Password NBC..3.8/14
*. Santa Barbara NBC..3.8/12
21. Search for Tomorrow NBC..3.4/12
22. Ryan's Hope ABC..3.0/11
23. Family Feud ABC..2.6/10
24. All-Star Blitz ABC..2.5/10
25. Body Langauge CBS..2.2/07

Notice the rather large ratings drops for many of the shows after only 3 years.....

Daytime network ratings for the week of 5/30/88-6/3/88
Rank. Series...Rating/Share
1. The Young & the Restless...7.2/27
2. All My Children...7.0/24
3. One Life to Live...6.9/24
4. General Hospital...6.7/23
5. Days of Our Lives...6.4/22
6. As the World Turns...6.2/22
7. The Price Is Right 2...6.1/26
8. Guiding Light...5.7/20
9. The Bold & the Beautiful...5.1/18
10. Wheel of Fortune...4.9/21
11. The Price Is Right 1...4.7/20
*. Another World...4.7/17
13. Win, Lose or Draw...4.2/18
14. Santa Barbara...4.0/14
15. Loving...3.7/14
16. Scrabble...3.6/14
17. Classic Concentration...3.4/15
18. Super Password...3.2/12
19. Sale of the Century...2.9/13
20. Who's the Boss?...2.8/12
21. The $25,000 Pyramid...2.7/12
*. The New Card Sharks...2.7/12
23. Home...2.4/10
24. Ryan's Hope...2.1/8

Tyshaun

[chris319]

Imagine Match Game commanding $216,000 per show, or $1,080,000 per week, in 1974. G-T's cut was probably on the order of $120,000 or so per week. That's a profit margin of over 85%, assuming the show sold out.

[DjohnsonCB]

[quote name=\'mmb5\' date=\'Feb 21 2006, 09:33 PM\']
The highest rated show currently on daytime (Young and the Restless, around 4.2) would be the lowest rated show in 1975.
A few clearance levels were listed: Young and the Restless-90%

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[/quote]

One reason as to the less-than-100% clearance rate for The Young And The Restless:  I remember all too well that the first few months of this series went unseen on KCCI-TV in Des Moines because they chose to tape-delay The Secret Storm from the previous day and run it Y&R's 11 AM slot.  Since SS was about to get canned by CBS later in 1974 anyway, the station ceased the tape-delays when they got too expensive to do and added Y&R to their morning lineup.

[Ian Wallis]

A few clearance levels were listed: Young and the Restless-90%, Celebrity Sweepstakes-94%, All My Children-93%

Too bad they didn't list any clearance levels for the 10 a.m. or 4 p.m. shows.  It was around that time that stations started taking the 4 p.m. slot for themselves and either pre-empting, or tape-delaying the network offering.  10 a.m. was taken by the last half-hour of 90-minute talk shows in many cities.  I'd have been interested to see exactly what the clearance percentages were.

[Winkfan]

I just checked out the "Ratings Vault" sections for Nov. 1971 and Jan. 1972 and noticed the rankings were all for soap operas. I assume that The Hollywood Squares was the top game show during those periods, but it probably ranked something like 16th overall.

Just playing Merv's hunch, that's all...

Cordially,
Tammy Warner--the 'Lynn Herring of the Big Board!'

P.S. I could imagine that the rankings would have been "through the roof" during the summer!

[mmb5]

[quote name=\'Ian Wallis\' date=\'Feb 22 2006, 09:11 AM\']Too bad they didn't list any clearance levels for the 10 a.m. or 4 p.m. shows.  It was around that time that stations started taking the 4 p.m. slot for themselves and either pre-empting, or tape-delaying the network offering.  10 a.m. was taken by the last half-hour of 90-minute talk shows in many cities.  I'd have been interested to see exactly what the clearance percentages were.

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[/quote]

Clearance levels you say?  Funny you should ask.  I've been doing some research on this, mostly because I really need a better hobby.  Anyway, I have data collected for approximately half the country for the first full of week of February 1975.  It's not 1974, but close enough.

For the percentages below, a clearance counts if the show:
1. Airs at the correct time and channel for the network.
2. Airs at the correct time but a different station for the network.  A clearance on a UHF station is penalized 10% if the channel the show was supposed to be airing was a VHF.
3. Airs at a different time but on the same channel for the network.
4. Airs on a different time and a different channel for the network (occasionally happened in one or two station markets).
The numbers are projected up to 99.79% from what I currently have (50.51%).

First time listed is Eastern, second time listed is Central and non-ABC Pacific, third time is ABC Pacific.  CBS shows can max out at 100, NBC and ABC shows can max out at 99.

10:00/9:00: Celebrity Sweepstakes (NBC)-94, Joker's Wild (CBS)-81
10:30/9:30: Gambit (CBS)-98, Wheel of Fortune (NBC)-94
11:00/10:00: Now You See It (CBS)-100, High Rollers (NBC)-99
11:30/10:30/10:30: Love of Life (CBS)-98, Hollywood Squares (NBC)-97, Brady Bunch (CBS)-93
12:00/11:00/12:00: Password (ABC)-97, Jackpot (NBC)-92, Young and the Restless (CBS)-89
12:30/11:30/12:30: Split Second (ABC)-99, As The World Turns (CBS)-96, Blank Check (NBC)-92
1:00/12:00/1:00: All My Children (ABC)-94 [CBS and NBC took the half-hour off]
1:30/12:30/1:30: Let's Make a Deal (ABC)-97, Search for Tomorrow (CBS)-95, How to Survive a Marriage (NBC)-84
2:00/1:00/2:00: Guiding Light (CBS)-100, Days of Our Lives (NBC)-98, $10,000 Pyramid (ABC)-98
2:30/1:300/11:30: Edge of Night (CBS)-100, Doctors (NBC)-99, The Big Showdown (ABC)-94
3:00/2:00/3:00: Another World (NBC)-99, The Price is Right (CBS)-98, General Hospital (ABC)-98
3:30/2:30/2:30: Another World (NBC)-99, Match Game '75 (CBS)-99, One Life to Live (ABC)-93
4:00/3:30/11:00: Somerset (NBC)-81, Tattletales (CBS)-80, Money Maze (ABC)-79

--The big pre-emption offenders seem to be Dayton, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and Atlanta.  The latter two's numbers may improve since I don't have data for their independents.
--Not only was Money Maze the least cleared show, it was also the most time-shifted, with 20% of the clearance not at 4E/3C.  Most of the other 4 PM and 12 PM shows had at least a 10% time shift rate.

What markets I have are in the next message.  If you're willing to help out (with either more markets or psychoanalysis), please e-mail me.


--Mike

[mmb5]

Markets Used:

Eastern Time Zone:
New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Atlanta (missing UHFs and Saturday for all stations), Baltimore (missing UHFs), Buffalo, Columbus, Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo, Dayton, Charleston-Huntington, Flint-Saginaw-Bay City, Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, Toledo, Rochester, Syracuse, Knoxville (missing Saturday), Raleigh-Durham, Johnstown-Altoona, Chatanooga (missing Saturday), Fort Wayne, Lansing, Burlington-Plattsburgh (NBC only), Wheeling-Steubenville, Binghamton, Erie, Traverse City-Cadillac (missing WBKB), Utica, Watertown-Carthage, Marquette, Harrisonburg, Lima, Parkersburg, Zanesville

Central Time Zone:
Chicago, Houston, Milwaukee (missing UHFs), Nashville (missing Saturday), Omaha, Green Bay, Lincoln-Hastings-Kearney, Beaumont-Port Arthur, Lafayette, Rochester-Mason City-Austin, Wausau-Rhienlander (missing NBC), Lake Charles

Mountain Time Zone:
Nothing

Pacific Time Zone:
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento-Stockton, San Diego, Fresno, Salinas-Monterrey, Bakersfield, Santa Barbara-Santa Maria, Chico-Redding (CBS only), Reno, Palm Springs

Hawaiian Time Zone:
None


--Mike

[Jimmy Owen]

WBKB in Alpena didn't sign on until September of 75, so no data will be forthcoming.

  My family vacationed in Boynton Beach, Fl in the summer of 75 and one of the ABC affils (either West Palm Beach or Miami and I think it was Miami) did not clear "The Big Showdown" at 2:30 in favor of "Truth or Consequences."

[Ian Wallis]

10:00/9:00: Celebrity Sweepstakes (NBC)-94, Joker's Wild (CBS)-81

4:00/3:30/11:00: Somerset (NBC)-81, Tattletales (CBS)-80, Money Maze (ABC)-79

Hmmm...the drop-offs for 10 a.m. weren't as bad as I had thought...although it was always believed that Joker's Wild had clearance problems.  Going from an 81 clearance to 98 for Gambit was quite significant.  Although I always liked Joker's Wild, do you think it's surprising it lasted three years on the network with those clearance problems?

THe drop-offs for 4 p.m. were quite significant too, although sometimes stations weren't consistent with the slots.  Case in point:  in my area, the Buffalo and Rochester CBS affiliates didn't clear Gomer Pyle reruns in the early '70s, but Buffalo picked up Tattletales at 4 right from the beginning.  Rochester picked it up a few months into the run at 4, and started tape-delaying it the next day at 1 in late 1975.  The ABC affiliate tape-delayed Money Maze the next morning.  Going back a bit further, the ABC Password wasn't seen in my area at all until it changed time slots to 12:30 p.m. in Sept 1971.  Although I was a bit too young at the time, I'm sure most fans of the show here had no idea it was even back on the air as early as it was.

I think someone had previously mentioned that the cities most likely to clear 4 p.m. live were the network O&Os, and smaller-market stations.  The stations in the middle-sized markets were most likely to pre-empt.

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'mmb5\' date=\'Feb 22 2006, 10:18 PM\']Markets Used:

Eastern Time Zone:
New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Atlanta (missing UHFs and Saturday for all stations), Baltimore (missing UHFs), Buffalo, Columbus, Grand Rapids-Kalamazoo, Dayton, Charleston-Huntington, Flint-Saginaw-Bay City, Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, Toledo, Rochester, Syracuse, Knoxville (missing Saturday), Raleigh-Durham, Johnstown-Altoona, Chatanooga (missing Saturday), Fort Wayne, Lansing, Burlington-Plattsburgh (NBC only), Wheeling-Steubenville, Binghamton, Erie, Traverse City-Cadillac (missing WBKB), Utica, Watertown-Carthage, Marquette, Harrisonburg, Lima, Parkersburg, Zanesville

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In which I found it interesting that you mentioned Dayton as pre-emption happy, since that was one of the four markets with Avco "WLW" stations that pre-empted whichever network they were affiliated (NBC in Cincy, ABC in Indy, don't recall the others) for Paul Dixon, Phil Donahue and Bob Braun every day.  Granted, I believe the stations had all been sold off by 1975, but the Dayton successor to WLW-D may've still had Donahue and Braun in their time slots (Dixon's show didn't survive the sale, but Braun continued on in all four cities until the early 80s--and in Cincy for a few years after that--and of course Donahue had moved to Chicago from Dayton and had taken off nationally by then.)

On the other hand, it looks like the former WLW-C in Columbus had become more of a docile affiliate and stopped pre-empting--maybe.

It would've been interesting to what Cincy was doing, since that market, thanks to the WLW shows, was noted for having several local daily variety shows with live bands and house singers (which, if they were female, were generally blondes) well into the 70s.  One of them, on WCPO, was hosted by a guy named Nick Clooney.  Braun was the last survivor--and even by the end he had dumped the band and the singers and gone to a single-topic "Donahue"-style format.

MoreObGameShow:  In 1968, Donahue's show replaced on WLW-D a variety show hosted by some guy named Johnny Gilbert.

[mmb5]

[quote name=\'uncamark\' date=\'Feb 23 2006, 03:14 PM\']
In which I found it interesting that you mentioned Dayton as pre-emption happy, since that was one of the four markets with Avco "WLW" stations that pre-empted whichever network they were affiliated (NBC in Cincy, ABC in Indy, don't recall the others) for Paul Dixon, Phil Donahue and Bob Braun every day.  Granted, I believe the stations had all been sold off by 1975, but the Dayton successor to WLW-D may've still had Donahue and Braun in their time slots (Dixon's show didn't survive the sale, but Braun continued on in all four cities until the early 80s--and in Cincy for a few years after that--and of course Donahue had moved to Chicago from Dayton and had taken off nationally by then.)

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The Avco stations:

Dayton: Celeb Sweep was killed for Family Afair, WOF spun away for Beverly Hillibillies, Jackpot! and Blank Check were returned for The 50-50 Club, Joker and Gambit bit it for Phil Donahue, Tattletales said ooh and moved aside for Merv, and Money Maze was axed for Lost in Space.  The ABC station also knocked out 2 soaps for cartoons.  74-75 was the first season of Phil Donahue out of Chicago.

Columbus: Hollywood Squares was Xed-out for the News, Jackpot! and Blank Check were riddled away for The 50-50 Club, and Money Maze was marooned for Gilligan's Island.  The CBS station ran everything fine, while Somerset was also not cleared.

Indianapolis: I don't have, but they were out of Avco by 1975

Cincinnati: I don't have

San Antonio: I don't have

Other weird ones I've seen so far have been Pittsburgh (four soaps and the Big Showdown shown on a UHF indy) and Detroit (everything cleared, but a lot out of pattern).


--Mike

[Don Howard]

When I lived in the Baltimore/Washington DC viewing market in the mid-1970s, the 4pm ABC show was shown on a one-day delay on the ABC affil at 10:30 the next morning. That same ABC affiliate, at 9:30, ran a one-day delay of the 4pm CBS show.