Nielsen Bottom 10, September 25th-October 1st, 1972

Week 3 of the 1972-1973 season started on Monday, September 25th, 1972 and ended on Sunday, October 1st, 1972. The highest-rated program was The ABC Sunday Night Movie (Love Story) on ABC with a 42.3 Nielsen rating. Here are the 10 lowest-rated programs:

## Program Network Rating
56 Banyon NBC N/A
57 Mannix CBS N/A
58 Streets of San Francisco ABC N/A
  Bold Ones NBC N/A
60 Sixth Sense ABC N/A
61 Night Gallery NBC N/A
62 Alias Smith & Jones ABC N/A
63 Dick Van Dyke CBS N/A
64 McGovern (Sunday) CBS N/A
65 NBC Reports NBC N/A

For the record, program titles are written exactly the way they were published in 1972.

Source:

“Ratings race: ABC takes third week.” Broadcasting. 16 Oct. 1972: 50; 52.


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16 Replies to “Nielsen Bottom 10, September 25th-October 1st, 1972”

  1. BTW, I think I can safely say No. 63 was ACTUALLY the NEW Dick Van Dyke Show, as CBS hadn’t shown the first series in prime time for over 6 years. Likewise, I assume 64 was a paid political announcement for George McGovern, the Democratic candidate for President.

    1. A PS, the reason that Love Story ranked so high was that it was a big blockbuster only 2 years before and ABC paid what was then a record price to Paramount in order to lease this film for 5 showings over 4 years. Understand that in 1972, there was no streaming, no DVRs, not even home recorders. HBO was on the air but only had a few thousand subscribers.

  2. These 1972 bottom-rated lists remind me of how much I liked watching Banyon, a private detective series set in the 1930s. I just checked You Tube to see if an episode might be available for viewing but, alas, there is nothing beyond the theme song.

    Perhaps it is all for the best. After decades of researching history, if I saw an episode I might find endless mistakes, and that would sour my memories of how good I thought it was. This way I’ll continue to remember the handsome private eye, with a new secretary every week, courtesy of the secretarial school down the hallway, which was run by Joan Blondell.

    1. You’re not going to find much on YouTube in the way of old TV shows, aside from maybe common PPV commercial releases. Any non-official upload will get pulled. And it appears the show has never had a DVD release.

      1. BTW, no one has mentioned that the title role was played by Robert Forster, one of the great character actors. From “Jackie Brown” to the new “Twin Peaks”, he never fails to satisfy. He even helped the misguided “Psycho” remake.

      2. Initially short run shows didn’t get DVD releases but now they’re looking for anything they can put out and sell so there is some chance. It’s all a matter of who has the masters, if the owners want to release them and what shape they’re in.

  3. Actually I’ve found episodes of some good but obscure series on YouTube: Breaking Point, Court Martial, Hong Kong, and Michael Shayne are just a few that come to mind. I’d far rather see them on DVD, but if you can’t get them on DVD, see what YouTube may have.

    1. YouTube can be frustrating when it comes to lesser known, forgotten TV shows. I’ve come across many rare shows but the quality varies greatly and, even worse, episodes may be there one day and disappear the next. Or they’ll be split into three parts and one part will be missing.

      There was a prolific YouTube uploader of rare TV shows who never gave the title of the shows or episodes he or she was uploading. Instead, the episodes were uploaded with acronyms for titles, which made searching impossible. And YouTube still found the account and deleted it for copyright infringement.

      1. I can tell you for a fact that “You’re In The Picture”, both the premiere and the apology, were on YouTube for less than 12 hours before the Jackie Gleason estate blocked it. Both of those are public domain, but it didn’t matter.

  4. your observations are almost correct to 66%–back when you tube managed to accept the pirated clips/ who had the engineering to transfer digitally to their own discs=== DEFYING COPYWRITES and got scott free????i’ve never heard or seen any of that activity(((***a mess of a work in progress—

    1. A number of unedited episodes [as opposed to the chopped up shows that ran with Night Gallery] are on You Tube, including the famous Joan Crawford episode.

    2. From Wiklipedia:
      “The complete TV series was released in France on October 2014 by Elephant Films. The set is composed of 9 discs with selectable soundtracks in French and English. Though produced in PAL format, it is playable in all regions.”

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