Most Popular 2016

It’s that time again; time to look back at the most popular articles, spotlights, and blog posts here Television Obscurities from the past year. To be honest, 2016 was a mediocre year in terms of traffic to the website, with no real growth in the number of visitors. However, the number of page views increased more than 60%. Last year also saw a drop in comments left by readers. Roughly 980 comments were left in 2016, down from more than 1,100 in 2015.

Read on to learn what the most popular articles, spotlights, blog posts, and search terms were in 2016.

Top 10 Articles
  1. The Color Revolution: Television In The Sixties
  2. Telemeter: Coin Operated TV
  3. W*A*L*T*E*R
  4. 10 Of The Most Outlandish TV Concepts Ever
  5. It’s About Time
  6. Star Wars on Network Television
  7. Mr. Lucky
  8. A Look At Star Trek
  9. Unsold Pilots on Television, 1967-1989
  10. The Outsiders

There’s no way to know why most of these articles were so popular. But Star Trek celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2016, which likely explains why my article A Look At Star Trek landed in the Top 10. Only two articles have been in the Top 10 most popular each year since 2010: W*A*L*T*E*R and 10 Of The Most Outlandish TV Concepts Ever.

Top 10 Spotlights
  1. The Texas Wheelers
  2. You’re in the Picture/The Jackie Gleason Show (1961)
  3. Second Chance/Boys Will Be Boys
  4. Mr. Terrific
  5. CBS Playhouse
  6. Getting Together
  7. Eye Witness
  8. The Second Hundred Years
  9. Wild Cargo
  10. Glynis

Why were so many people interested in reading about The Texas Wheelers last year? No clue. The same goes for the other spotlights in the Top 10. Three were published in 2016: Glynis, Eye Witness, and The Second Hundred Years.

Top 10 Blog Posts
  1. Bonanza’s Sudden Cancellation (1/2009)
  2. Alternate Theme to NBC’s Bonanza (1/2009)
  3. Me-TV, Antenna TV, and Cozi TV Winter 2015 Schedules (1/2015)
  4. The State of Classic TV on TV: January 2016 (1/2016)
  5. 1960 Winter Olympics – The First Televised Olympic Games (2/2010)
  6. A Lost Episode of Hawaii Five-O? (3/2010)
  7. Me-TV’s Fall Schedule Debuts September 1st (8/2014)
  8. How the All in the Family Pilot Episodes Were Recovered (6/2009)
  9. Classic TV on TV: Retro TV (5/2013)
  10. Q & A: Green Acres Spin-offs? (8/2009)

Just missing the Top 10 was this year’s post asking visitors to predict the first cancellation of the 2016-2017 season. For the record, there still hasn’t been one.

Top 10 Search Terms/Phrases
  1. television obscurities
  2. tv obscurities
  3. betac
  4. it s about time tv show
  5. retro television network
  6. televisionobscurities
  7. ars
  8. the rebel tv show
  9. when did color tv come out
  10. metv fall 2016 schedule

I don’t know why so many people are searching for “betac” or “ars” but more importantly I don’t know how Television Obscurities is showing up in search results for either of those terms.

Other Interesting Search Phrases
  • mary grace it s about time
  • november 22nd 1963 who was on bozo circus bucket game
  • wallace and freedman and janse
  • linda harrison wonder woman
  • the conception of small wonder
  • bored she hung herself hawaii five-o
  • green acres the ex-secretary
  • oldest known tv footage
  • bruce lee blondie on dvd release date
  • korean daughter on sons & daughters tv show

As was the case in 2015, there were 11 different search phrases in 2016 relating to actress Mary Grace or Mary Graham Grace, who played daughter Mlor on It’s About Time. The series began airing on Antenna TV in September 2015.


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4 Replies to “Most Popular 2016”

  1. I am sorry to read that traffic to the website did not increase much in 2016. Hopefully it will grow in 2017. I certainly check-in very often. This is one of my go-to sites. Thank you for all the effort you put into it. Happy New Year!

  2. The interest in Texas Wheelers might be explained by the ongoing popularity of the 2 oldest brothers: Gary Busey endorsed Trump while Mark Hamell made a comeback as Luke Skywalker. Check IMDB and you’ll find that both actors did a lot of TV in the ’70’s. BTW, thanks for acknowledging the fact that we still do not an official cancellation of a network show in the new season. Lots from cable and streaming, but nothing from the big 5!

  3. I’ve found that using popular names such in titles does have an effect on interest in the posts.

    For my podcast, Podcast Ping 16 REBUILD(The Heroes, Harry Potter, Star Trek, Star Wars, Earthsea and Dr.Who Episode) has 320,677 downloads on Mininova since 2008. At least 10 times the average. But that’s what I was playing at.

    Of course you’re generally dealing with many shows that are older than PCs. Those who remember them aren’t the big online demo. And you’re dealing with shows that people likely either haven’t seen or may not even remember having seen. So they’re not popular shows to begin with.

    1. That’s exactly the problem. I’ve long grappled with how to engage readers without straying too far from my mission to cover short-lived and forgotten TV shows–which by definition few people watched, few people remember, and few people want to read about. For obvious reasons, anything I write about TV shows from the 1960s and 1970s is almost always more popular than things I write about TV shows from the 1940s and 1950s.

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