Nielsen Bottom 10, January 1st-7th, 1973

Week 17 of the 1972-1973 season started on Monday, January 1st, 1973 and ended on Sunday, January 7th, 1973. The highest-rated program was All in the Family on CBS with a 35.4/54 Nielsen rating/share. Here are the 10 lowest-rated programs:

## Program Network Rating
53 Mission: Impossible CBS 15.3/24
54 Alan King Special ABC 15.0/26
55 Bonanza NBC 15.0/23
56 Search NBC 14.4/25
57 Bill Cosby CBS 13.8/24
58 60 Minutes CBS 13.7/25
59 Bold Ones NBC 12.1/18
60 Streets of San Fran. ABC 11.2/18
61 Men ABC 11.2/17
62 First Tuesday NBC 10.0/17

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

ABC aired “Alan King Looks Back in Anger: A Review of 1972” on Wednesday, January 3rd, 1973.

Sources:

“Family, Sanford Top National Nielsens.” Los Angeles Times. 22 Jan. 1973: F16.


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7 Replies to “Nielsen Bottom 10, January 1st-7th, 1973”

  1. For those of you who are curious about the last place show, “First Tuesday” was one of NBC’s many ill-fated attempts to duplicate “60 Minutes”. in nearly 50 years, the only one that stuck was “Dateline”, and that show has since gone for shock value.

    1. First Tuesday lasted from January 7, 1969 until August 8, 1973, so while it was never a top rated show it must have been moderately popular to stick around for four years under various formats. (From October 1971 through July 1972 it was titled Chronology, and was seen on the fourth Friday of the month.)

      1. I had forgotten that “First Tuesday” lasted that long and you’re right about it being a monthly. Another show that ran in that format was “Weekend” with Lloyd Dobbins, which was a monthly replacement for SNL. It flopped out badly when it became a Prime-time weekly.

  2. “Mission Impossible” & “Bonanza” were moved to new nights and their ratings dropped like lead balloons and both were cancelled by early Spring.

    1. I didn’t know CBS moved MISSION to Fridays for a time that year…the IMF was no match for the Bradys and the Partridges

  3. Blooms off the Rose on Mission Impossible and yes the Domestic Surveylance decreed by the TV crime zeitgeist of the day had mixed results. It was said that USA crime was more marketable abroad whereas spying overseas had PR problems. Once M:I had been the darling of the so called sophisticated set, which had once fancied UNCLE MAN before the franchise abandoned adults for the kids. Vintage newspaper columns Im reading in the college library are saying that in the Watergate zone M:I has entirely lost its sex appeal with the sophisticates. Seattle Times’ TV columnist C.J.Skreen very coldly says “No one will miss this series at all”. A far cry from editorial love widely disseminated earlier, sometimes at the expense of the jilted Man From UNCLE (note LIFE Mission Imp. review in Oct. 1966).
    Also noted at the time —-there are TV GUIDES available in the college library too)— “The FBI” calls it a day the next year, quietly slipping away tactfully as Watergate reaches its zenith.
    (I know that perhaps FBI could be viewed as objectionable propaganda by many, but I’ve seen a few recently that collectors have, and at least technically its well made with a wealth of guest performers.)

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