Nielsen Bottom 10, January 15th-21st, 1973

Week 19 of the 1972-1973 season started on Monday, January 15th, 1973 and ended on Sunday, January 21st, 1973. The highest-rated program was All in the Family on CBS with a 37.5/56 Nielsen rating/share. Here are the 10 lowest-rated programs:

## Program Network Rating
56 Rowan & Martin NBC 14.2/21
57 CBS Thursday Movie (“Vertigo”) CBS 13.8/23
58 Return–Peyton Place Spec NBC 12.9/21
59 “Three Remarkable Women” ABC 12.7/22
60 Julie Andrews ABC 12.7/20
61 Bobby Darin NBC 12.6/22
62 Mission: Impossible CBS 12.5/20
63 NBC Reports (“Forbidden City”) NBC 12.0/21
64 Here We Go Again ABC 11.5/17
65 Inaugural Highlights Spec. NBC   8.9/13

For the record, program titles are written exactly the way they were published in 1973.

NBC aired filmed highlights of President Nixon’s second inauguration from 8-8:30PM ET on Saturday, January 20th. That same night, ABC aired “Three Remarkable Women,” a special highlighting Mary Martin, Jane Goodall, and Ethel Kennedy, from 10-11PM ET. NBC aired an hour-long prime time Return to Peyton Place special from 10-11PM ET on Sunday, January 21st.

Source:

“ABC Lineup Fails to Dent CBS Lead.” Los Angeles Times. 2 Feb. 1973: G14.


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14 Replies to “Nielsen Bottom 10, January 15th-21st, 1973”

    1. The big problem with that show was that it was up against “All in the Family”, the No. 1 show in America. Today, it is only remembered as one of the valleys in Larry Hagman’s career, between the peaks of “Jeanie” and “Dallas”.

      1. It was also a time when there was usually only one set in the house and it tended to be a consensus decided by mom or dad as to what people watched.

    2. The man behind HERE WE GO AGAIN relished the idea of going up against ALL IN THE FAMILY, as he had a personal feud with Norman Lear. He felt Lear took his credit for the story of the movie DIVORCE, AMERICAN STYLE (Lear had sole writing credit)

  1. Yes, and may I add that the NBC competition was “Emergency!”, a Jack Webb show which appealed to the Bible Belt audience who thought AITF and HWGA were too risqué.

    1. Emergency had a Bible Belt audience? We watched Emergency in Pennsylvania because we thought it was entertaining. I never thought about the “non-risque” factor.

    1. Well, it was actually out of circulation for about 10 years. It seems Hitchcock bought back the rights to several of his films including “Vertigo’, then in the Mid-80’s, Universal made a deal with his daughter Patricia to re-issue the films They have been seen on TCM and have just been released to Starz.

  2. “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” had been one of the most popular shows on TV during it’s first four-and-a-half seasons (January, 1968-May, 1972).

    But ratings fell through the floor in the 1972-73 season, thanks to the continuing popularity of “Gunsmoke” on CBS and a new police drama on ABC called “The Rookies”. “Laugh-In” left the air in the spring of 1973.

    BTW, one of the wives of the young officers on “Rookies” was played by Kate Jackson, who a few years later rocketed to stardom as one of “Charlie’s Angels”.

    1. It should also be noted that Dan Rowan and Dick Martin had forced out producer George Schlatter after the ’71-’72 season.
      The only original cast members left were Ruth Buzzi and Gary Owens; from the prior season, only Richard Dawson returned.
      Everybody else was new, but nobody caught on, and so Laugh-In fell …

  3. I have to throw this in for PB:

    Schlatter’s Laugh-In “reboot” had a cast which at the time was 100% unknown.
    Robin Williams didn’t become Robin Williams for another couple of years.

    After Mork & Mindy became a hit, NBC repeated the Schlatter Laugh-Ins, and what everyone noticed was that the writers had no idea what to do with Robin Williams; I recall that they stuck him with a “hillbilly” character that didn’t work at all.

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