Week 12 of the 1973-1974 season started on Monday, November 26th, 1973 and ended on Sunday, December 2nd, 1973. The highest-rated program was All in the Family on CBS with a 30.2/48 Nielsen rating/share. Here are the 10 lowest-rated programs:
| ## | Program | Network | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 54 | Dick Clark Rock & Roll Years | ABC | 13.6/21 |
| 55 | Love, American Style | ABC | 13.4/24 |
| 56 | Adam’s Rib | ABC | 12.9/22 |
| 57 | NBC Follies | NBC | 11.8/22 |
| 58 | Love Story | NBC | 11.8/20 |
| 59 | CBS News Special | CBS | 11.0/21 |
| 60 | Roll Out | CBS | 10.9/18 |
| 61 | NCAA Football Post | ??? | 7.1/12 |
| 62 | “People of People’s China” | ABC | 7.1/12 |
| 63 | Calucci’s Dept. | CBS | 6.5/10 |
ABC aired “The People’s People of China,” a documentary featuring correspondents Steve Bell and Ted Koppel, on Saturday, December 1st, 1973 from 9-10PM ET.
I don’t know when the CBS News Special aired or what it was about. Either I missed it when going through contemporary TV listings or the network added it at the last minute, pre-empting another program.
Also, I don’t know when the NCAA football post-game aired or on what network.
Source:
“Family, Waltons and Sanford Pace Nielsens.” Los Angeles Times. 10 Dec. 1973: D28
It’s interesting that Calucci’s Department was at the bottom for over a month and had still not been pulled. The only explanation is that the producers had a 13-week play-or-pay contact with CBS so the show couldn’t be pulled early. Notice that 4 fall shows this season have finished their run but have still not been canceled despite low ratings.
Charles, that is an interesting theory about “Calucci’s Department,” especially considering that it was not only always dead last, but dead last by a wide margin.
It’s possible that they just didn’t have a replacement ready. I read that it only aired 11 episodes, so I don’t think it had a 13 episode contract. I could see them having a contract with one or more of the actors like James Coco that required a minimum pay.
I see from the listings that it ran against The Brady Bunch and Sanford and Son, so it’s understandable why it didn’t do that well. It also aired against a Gunsmoke spin-off called Dirty Sally which only lasted 13 episodes. It’s possible as well then that CBS didn’t want to risk a replacement getting killed by the competition.
As far as major news stories go, there was a aircraft hijacking on Sunday and on Tuesday a plane crashed short of the runway. 104 people were killed in a department store fire on Thursday. Knowing the day would help to narrow down the story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1973
No. Dirty Sally replaced Calucci. It had respectable ratings but CBS canceled it.
I don’t know when the CBS News Special aired or what it was about. Either I missed it when going through contemporary TV listings or the network added it at the last minute, pre-empting another program.
(CBS aired a half-hour news special on 11/29 at 10:30 called “Making It Through The Winter” which had to do with the energy crisis)
Also, I don’t know when the NCAA football post-game aired or on what network.
(On 12/1, ABC aired the Alabama-Auburn game at 6PM ET which ran into prime time)
Was Number 4, the “Love Story” feature film or the NBC anthology series of the same name?
The TV series. The movie was shown on ABC on October 1, 1972, and was the highest rated movie shown on TV up to that date. The 1973 NBC TV series had low ratings, and only aired 12 episodes. That’s according to Wikipedia articles.
Robert, in my neck of the woods the CBS NEWS SPECIAL aired on Thursday November 29, 1973, at 9:30 Central Time on Memphis, Tennessee’s WREC Channel 3, which was a CBS affiliate station. The CBS NEWS SPECIAL REPORT “Making It Through This Winter” was a thirty-minute presentation examining the immediate effects of the energy crisis on the American public. Correspondent John Hart was the anchorman. Examined here from the consumers point of view, in one case, for example, a test conducted by the Consumers Union Auto Testing Laboratory, in Orange, Connecticut, with its head Robert Knoll on hand to explain its function, proves that driving 50 miles per hour does save quite a lot of gasoline.
The NCAA Post Game was on ABC Saturday evening December 1, 1973, after the Alabama vs, Auburn game, which began at 5:00 Central Time and wrapped up by 8:00. Number 1 ranked Alabama won over archrival Auburn 35-0.
The above information comes from two Memphis, Tennessee newspapers. THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL and THE MEMPHIS PRESS-SCIMITAR.