TV Guide Ad: The Quest (1976)

Here’s an NBC TV Guide ad from September 1976 promoting the series premiere of the network’s new drama The Quest:

Scanned black and white TV Guide ad for The Quest

TV Guide Ad for The Quest – Copyright 1976 Triangle Publications, Inc.

The Quest starred Kurt Russell and Tim Matheson as two brothers searching for their missing sister, who was being held captive by the Cheyenne. A pilot telefilm aired in May 1976. The weekly series debuted on Wednesday, September 22nd with a special a special 90-minute episode. The following week it moved to its regular Wednesday 10-11PM time slot.

NBC aired 13 episodes of The Quest before yanking it off the air due to low ratings. Four completed episodes were left unaired.

This particular ad is from the Western New England Edition of TV Guide. Channel 22 was WWLP in Springfield, MA and Channel 30 was WHNB-TV in Hartford, CT.

Image Credit:
TV Guide, September 18th, 1976 (Vol. 24, No. 38), Western New England Edition, Page A-90.


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5 Replies to “TV Guide Ad: The Quest (1976)”

  1. A year after I graduated from high school I thought this was a great show. Now that I’ve had 40 years to learn “real history” I can’t be sure I’d still like it, but I wouldn’t mind seeing an episode to find out if it holds up over time.

  2. All I remember about this show from back then is that it was labelled the most violent show on network tv at the time. I think it was the first network Western after Gunsmoke was finally cancelled a year earlier.

  3. The pilot telefilm for ‘The Quest’, THE LONGEST DRIVE, garnered a very strong 22.8HH/39% Nielsen when in aired on May 13, 1976, and then again got a decent rating when it aired as an encore preview on September 16, 1976 to a 14.5HH/25% rating.

    The 90-minute debut episode of ‘The Quest’ pulled a 15.6HH/25% rating when it aired on September 22, 1976, and that was a season high as ratings declined throughout the fall. By the time ‘The Quest’ had aired its first 11 episodes, it averaged 12.9HH/21% and NBC pulled the series from the air without airing all episodes ordered.

  4. It went up aganist ABC’s “Charlie’s Angels” and the movies on CBS. and that’s why NBC’s “The Quest” was cancelled, they were really in the ratings’ cellar (known as third-place).

  5. I’m wondering how much of it had to do with a decreasing interest in westerns at the time. A slew of westerns were being cancelled around that time. And you could still watch reruns of shows like Maverick, Gunsmoke and Bonanza during the day.

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