Nielsen Bottom 10, February 12th-18th, 1973

Week 23 of the 1972-1973 season started on Monday, February 12th, 1973 and ended on Sunday, February 18th, 1973. The highest-rated program was All in the Family on CBS with a 33.7/53 Nielsen rating/share. Here are the 10 lowest-rated programs:

## Program Network Rating
53 Bill Cosby CBS 14.8/29
54 Mission: Impossible CBS 14.3/22
55 Barnaby Jones CBS 13.9/21
56 Search NBC 12.6/22
57 America NBC 12.5/20
58 Touch of Grace ABC 11.5/18
59 Bobby Darin NBC 11.2/20
60 Julie Andrews ABC   9.9/16
61 The Men ABC   9.1/16
62 Here We Go Again ABC   6.7/15
Source:

“Moses Edges Out By Bunkers In Ratings.” Los Angeles Times. 1 Mar. 1973: H24.


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18 Replies to “Nielsen Bottom 10, February 12th-18th, 1973”

  1. Interesting that Barnaby Jones was in the bottom 10 in its first season, but would go on to a run almost as long as Buddy Ebsen’s previous series.

    1. “The Beverly Hillbillies” ran for 9 years and “Barnaby Jones” 7 1/2 years. It started as a mid-season replacement and a semi-spin off of “Cannon”.

      1. All true, which makes this placement a surprise since Barnaby Jones was beginning and everything else was ending.

    2. Barnaby Jones got killed on this particular Sunday, opposite ABC’s “The Ten Commandments” which was the second highest rated program of the week with a 33.2 and a 54 share across 3 hours on Sunday, February 18th.

      Barnaby’s CBS teammates fared little better that night: Mannix just barely missed the bottom 10 in 51st place (15.6/23) and M*A*S*H was 49th with a 15.9 /24.

      Barnaby Jones was in the top 25 for the season, this Sunday was just a bad night for CBS.

      NBC was in the same boat: their Sunday Mystery Movie entry, Hec Ramsey, finished 50th, one week after Columbo was the second highest rated program of the week on Feb. 11th.

      1. Well ,now it makes sense! I believe 10 Commandments was making its TV debut and it was the mega blockbuster of the ’50’s. ABC now runs it every Easter weekend, and because of commercials it now takes nearly 5 hours to show it.

  2. It’s a shame NBC chose to schedule America on Tuesdays from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. An educational series about U.S. history would have been beneficial for young people to watch, but it was on after the bedtime of most elementary and junior high students. And this was before the days of VCRs or other methods of watching a series at a time other than when it was broadcast.

      1. I don’t know about this show, but I do remember the first VCR I saw was in high school. We watched Brian’s Song in an English class.

  3. HERE WE GO AGAIN was Larry Hagman’s 2nd post-IDOJ sitcom. ABC placed it in its deadly timeslot, Saturday 8 PM ET, against ALL IN THE FAMILY, so that helps explain its last-place finish this week (and probably others).

    1. Yes, the first was The Good Life with Donna Mills. There was an episode of Knots Landing where Hagman’s JR faced off against Mills’ Abby.

  4. “Mission: Impossible” was once one of the most popular shows on television.

    I had read that towards the end of it’s run, the “Impossible Missions Force” had fewer episodes in which they battled international evil (the show’s original premise) and more episodes where they fought organized crime in the ‘States.

    Maybe that’s what killed the show.

    1. Later episodes also lost many of the cast members the show started with. It changed the feel of the show. The writing seemed to change as well. Still, even the show’s worst episode was better than any of the movies.

      1. Lucy asked MI creator Bruce Geller to save “Mannix” and he made it his “main” mission to do that and keep it on the air. “Mannix” continued another 2 years after the cancellation of MI.

  5. Bill Cosby’s new show suddenly died after spring, replacing it in the time slot with Medical Center, which moved out of Wednesdays, filling Medical Center’s old Wednesday slot with Dan August.

    1. Dan August ran on ABC several years earlier, but reruns were shown to cash in on Burt Reynolds’ appearance naked in Cosmo.

  6. actually— it was the tragic loss of Bruce Geller May 1978/ that shook things up @ all three networks….( Levinson/ Link had written groundbreaking/ AND AWARD WINNING teleplays through the entire decade;) It was time to move on… Ninety minute shows/ production values.. other guest stars and newer themes put some pressure on….as for new .genres?… we wont even go through that….

    1. Personally, the big change in Tv drama came from the surprise success of “Dallas”. Serialized prime time drama stopped when “Peyton Place” was canceled in 1969, but “Dallas” brought it back and “Who Shot JR” in 1980 cemented it.

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