Week 24 of the 1972-1973 season started on Monday, February 19th, 1973 and ended on Sunday, February 25th, 1973. The highest-rated program was All in the Family on CBS with a 31.2/54 Nielsen rating/share. Here are the 10 lowest-rated programs:
| ## | Program | Network | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55 | NBC Tuesday Movie (“Fool’s Paradise”) | NBC | 14.1/22 |
| 56 | Search | NBC | 13.0/24 |
| 57 | CBS Friday Movie (“Wait Until Dark”) | CBS | 13.0/23 |
| 58 | 60 Minutes | CBS | 12.9/26 |
| 59 | Mission: Impossible | CBS | 11.3/19 |
| 60 | Bobby Darin | NBC | 11.0/20 |
| 61 | Touch of Grace | ABC | 10.6/17 |
| 62 | Julie Andrews | ABC | 8.1/14 |
| 63 | The Men | ABC | 7.4/14 |
| 64 | Here We Go Again | ABC | 5.8/ 9 |
Source:
“Bunkers and Sanfords Top Nielsens.” Los Angeles Times. 7 Mar. 1973: F18.
Sad to see so few viewers watched the movie Wait Until Dark with Audrey Hepburn. The game of cat and mouse between Hepburn and Alan Arkin was intense and includes one really big scare. Hopefully the viewers stayed until the movies end.
Don’t forget that when movies made it to broadcast TV they were about five years old (Wait Until Dark was made in 1967) and many would have already seem them in the theater. The Bond movies often seem to play the best on TV since they were very re-watchable. And since it’s a Friday movie, many movie fans would be at the theater watching the latest releases. Of course it did get a 13 share so it didn’t fare that badly, it’s just that other shows did better.
It was about two years in those days between a movie’s theatrical release and its first television showing. It was shown in Canada on CBC as early as 1970–probably the same in the U.S.
I think that’s supposed to be “Fool’s Parade” not Paradise