The 1979-1980 television season kicked off 40 years ago tonight. To celebrate, starting today I’ll be posting the weekly Nielsen Bottom 5 from the 1979-1980 season every Tuesday. Why the Bottom 5 and not the Bottom 10? Because I don’t have access to complete weekly Nielsen charts for the 1979-1980 season. I do have access to Associated Press reports that included the five lowest-rated programs each week. Unfortunately, the ratings and shares for the Bottom 5 were not included, only the rankings.
We kick things off with the first week of the 1979-1980 season. It began on Monday, September 17th, 1979 and ended on Sunday, September 23rd, 1979. The highest-rated program was Eight is Enough on ABC with a 28.3 Nielsen rating.
Here are the five lowest-rated programs:
| ## | Program | Network | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
| 57 | “Lucky Lady” (Movie) | CBS | N/A |
| 58 | Bad News Bears | CBS | N/A |
| 59 | A New Kind of Family | ABC | N/A |
| 60 | Working Stiffs | CBS | N/A |
| 61 | Out of the Blue | ABC | N/A |
Three of the week’s lowest-rated programs were new fall shows: A New Kind of Family (ABC), Working Stiffs (CBS), and Out of the Blue (ABC).
CBS aired the 1975 movie Lucky Lady as a “CBS Special Movie Presentation” on Saturday, September 22nd, 1979 from 9-11:15PM ET.
Sources:
[No Title]. The Associated Press. 26 Sep. 1979: PM Cycle.
I am going crazy trying to find a short lived TV drama from the 1970’s. I think it would have been from 1974-1977. The concept was “Class of 19something” and looked at what became of people after graduating from high school.
How would I find at least the name of this program?
I think it was called What Really Happened to the class of 65, an anthology drama that started in December 1977 and ran through early 1978 on NBC. According to the IMDB page it was based on a book. I didn’t watch it but remember reading about it. I remember them saying except for Police Story, anthology shows “don’t work”. This one didn’t which is too bad because they were trying something different.