Why was NBC in the toilet in the late '70s?

[bandit957]

I was just a little kid in the late '70s and early '80s, but everything I see on TV-related message boards in recent years says NBC was pretty much in the toilet at the time. They say NBC fell to a very distant third place among America's 3 commercial networks of the time, and they almost went out of business.

What was going on over at NBC? I know they made a couple of missteps, such as the controversy about its red and blue stylized 'N' logo, and showing the wrong part of a multipart movie for 20 minutes before anyone noticed. But I didn't know NBC was that bad except for that. Our local NBC affiliate seemed to be at least as popular as the other local stations. And I watched 'Diff'rent Strokes' and 'CHiPs' every week. Didn't they have major sports coverage too?

Was NBC really that bad?

[Big John]

Story on NBC's red and blue logo, reportedly cost $750,000 to develop: http://www.tvworthwatching.com/post/THISDAYINTVHISTORY20190101.aspx

[nexus73]

I was just a little kid in the late '70s and early '80s, but everything I see on TV-related message boards in recent years says NBC was pretty much in the toilet at the time. They say NBC fell to a very distant third place among America's 3 commercial networks of the time, and they almost went out of business.

What was going on over at NBC? I know they made a couple of missteps, such as the controversy about its red and blue stylized 'N' logo, and showing the wrong part of a multipart movie for 20 minutes before anyone noticed. But I didn't know NBC was that bad except for that. Our local NBC affiliate seemed to be at least as popular as the other local stations. And I watched 'Diff'rent Strokes' and 'CHiPs' every week. Didn't they have major sports coverage too?

Was NBC really that bad?

NBC had the AFC contract, the MLB contract and two major bowl games, the Rose and Orange.  When it came time to decide where to spend money, with the choices being a hit show based on medicine and pro football, they chose the show.  Up to that point it seemed like NBC was doing okay on my end.

Rick

[jp the roadgeek]

Around that time, NBC had 2 affiliates in my market (Hartford/New Haven), both of which were on lower power UHF stations.  Our CBS and ABC affiliates were (and are) both high powered VHF signals which reached the full market  I lived right in the  middle of the 2, so we always got both at my house.  One was (and still is) WVIT Channel 30, whose signal barely made it out of Hartford County, and had repeaters in Torrington on Channel 79 (long gone) and in New Haven on Channel 59 (now a full power MyNetwork affiliate that is a sister station to our ABC affiliate).  The other was WATR, Channel 20, in Waterbury, which served the southern and western end of the market.  As such, both always drew lower ratings in comparison to CBS and ABC (the CBS affiliate has always dominated local news ratings) because they had to share the NBC crowd.  WATR became an independent station (WTXX) in 1982 when its NBC contract expired, as WVIT had significantly increased its transmission power.  Channel 20 is now a CW affiliate, and is a sister station to our FOX affiliate.  WVIT is now NBC O&O.

[KeithE4Phx]

Was NBC really that bad?

Let me count the ways...

Project UFO (1977-79)
Man From Atlantis (1977-78)
The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show (1977)
Grandpa Goes to Washington (1978)
Stop Susan Williams (1978)
Whodunnit? (1979)
Harris and Company (1979)
Supertrain (1979)
Hello Larry (1979-80)
The Big Show (1980)
Me and Maxx (1980)
Pink Lady and Jeff (1980)
McClain's Law (1981-82)
One of the Boys (1982)
Jokebook (1982)
Voyagers! (1982-83)
The Powers of Mathew Star (1982-83)
Manimal (1983)

Need I go on? 

[bandit957]

Hahaha! 'ME AND MAXX'! I used to watch 'Me And Maxx' all the time! But I don't remember a thing about it.

[Scott5114]

I used to watch 'Me And Maxx' all the time! But I don't remember a thing about it.

Which is probably why NBC was in the toilet.

[wriddle082]

Was NBC really that bad?

Let me count the ways...

Project UFO (1977-79)
Man From Atlantis (1977-78)
The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show (1977)
Grandpa Goes to Washington (1978)
Stop Susan Williams (1978)
Whodunnit? (1979)
Harris and Company (1979)
Supertrain (1979)
Hello Larry (1979-80)
The Big Show (1980)
Me and Maxx (1980)
Pink Lady and Jeff (1980)
McClain's Law (1981-82)
One of the Boys (1982)
Jokebook (1982)
Voyagers! (1982-83)
The Powers of Mathew Star (1982-83)
Manimal (1983)

Need I go on? 

Boone (1983-1984)
(This one was filmed about 4 miles from where I grew up)

[Big John]

NBC promo with some of their "gems" for 1978
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9slsdjRZbs

[Rothman]

Hey, I liked Voyagers!

(Of course, I tried watching an episode recently and couldn't make it through it)

[bandit957]

One problem may have been that they kept preempting 'CHiPs', one of their most popular shows. We kept tuning in to 'CHiPs' each week to find it was taken off for something else.

[Rothman]

...and then they put the CHiPs guys on roller skates...

[KEVIN_224]

Around that time, NBC had 2 affiliates in my market (Hartford/New Haven), both of which were on lower power UHF stations.  Our CBS and ABC affiliates were (and are) both high powered VHF signals which reached the full market  I lived right in the  middle of the 2, so we always got both at my house.  One was (and still is) WVIT Channel 30, whose signal barely made it out of Hartford County, and had repeaters in Torrington on Channel 79 (long gone) and in New Haven on Channel 59 (now a full power MyNetwork affiliate that is a sister station to our ABC affiliate).  The other was WATR, Channel 20, in Waterbury, which served the southern and western end of the market.  As such, both always drew lower ratings in comparison to CBS and ABC (the CBS affiliate has always dominated local news ratings) because they had to share the NBC crowd.  WATR became an independent station (WTXX) in 1982 when its NBC contract expired, as WVIT had significantly increased its transmission power.  Channel 20 is now a CW affiliate, and is a sister station to our FOX affiliate.  WVIT is now NBC O&O.

I'm a native of New Britain, which is southern Hartford County. The Rattlesnake Mountain site in Farmington, CT was 4.5 air miles from my place. I actually used to receive channel 8 from New Haven better than channel 3 from Hartford. There was either signal overload or multipath/ghosting caused by New Britain's Walnut Hill. Anything from Rattlesnake was always solid, which is where channel 30 transmits from. Then and now.

The old channel 20 tower still stands. It's highly visible from I-84 East and parts of CT Route 8 in Waterbury. It was off to the south in Prospect. I don't know for 100% certain who uses the tower these days. There may have been times when NBC's football would have the Patriots game on channel 30 and the Jets on channel 20. Channel 3 (CBS) would often show the Giants. Of course the NFL wouldn't allow to two different games from the same network now.

Some parts of Hartford county get WWLP-TV (NBC) channel 22 of Springfield, MA. Rarely did they and channel 30 show a different game.

Getting back to NBC nationally...I was told that Johnny Carson was making nearly a quarter of the network's profits in that time.

[thenetwork]

...and then they put the CHiPs guys on roller skates...

Name SOMETHING that was popular in Southern California at the time that CHiPs didn't do a storyline around...

[Stephane Dumas]

I also heard some stories then NBC even wanted to pull the plug on Saturday mornings a decade earlier but Fred Silverman who worked at NBC back then, gived Saturday mornings one more chance with the Smurfs who dominated the Saturday morning ratings until PeeWee Herman came. Then NBC fortunes beginned to turn with Miami Vice, Cheers and the Cosby Show.

[Sctvhound]

NBC also cancelled three of their game shows to create a 90-minute daytime talk show with then unknown David Letterman in 1980. This included Hollywood Squares and High Rollers. The show was cancelled in four months.

CBS (WCSC Channel 5) was the 800-pound gorilla in the market. Especially in the late 70s and early 80s, ABC and NBC were also-ran networks most of the time in the Charleston area. CBS had many powerful affiliates in the South. This included WBTV Charlotte, WAGA Atlanta, WJXT Jacksonville, WMAZ Macon, WCSC, WFMY Greensboro, WTOC Savannah, and several others.

NBC had a lot of weak affiliates. UHFs in Macon, Augusta, Columbus GA, Knoxville, Charlotte, Raleigh, eventually Jacksonville and Savannah. That had to play a part.

[GCrites]

Supertrain looks like it was awful. I hate the idea that my folks might have brought me home from the hospital, been like "Look son, this is TV!" and Supertrain happened to be on. Dad hated NBC and loved CBS in those days so that's probably not what happened. They probably put on Dallas instead so that I could get yelled at in business school 20 years later for acting too much like J.R. Ewing.

[KeithE4Phx]

NBC had a lot of weak affiliates. UHFs in Macon, Augusta, Columbus GA, Knoxville, Charlotte, Raleigh, eventually Jacksonville and Savannah. That had to play a part.

Not only did NBC stink on ice, but ABC was on a roll.  ABC was doing so well that there were several NBC affiliates that switched to ABC between 1976 and 1981, including some big markets like Atlanta and Indianapolis.

[Henry]

It's funny that the Big 3 networks have sort of a parallel to Detroit's Big 3 automakers. Given that Chrysler Corporation (as it was known back then) was also in the same situation but due for a dramatic turnaround, NBC can easily be matched to that (with its minivans and K-cars being the equivalent to Must-See TV). I also see CBS as Ford Motor Company, and ABC as General Motors.

I also remember NBC being at the bottom of the heap that my family wouldn't dare watch WMAQ (the Chicago affiliate) until the better shows came along; they split their viewing time between CBS (WBBM) and ABC (WLS). The former was based on the strength of its daytime lineup (The Price is Right, Young & Restless, As the World Turns, Guiding Light) and its well-performing primetime shows (The Jeffersons, Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family, The Bob Newhart Show, WKRP in Cincinnati, Dallas, etc.), and the latter had a pretty good lineup of its own (Taxi, Dynasty, Barney Miller and Three's Company, plus its own daytime gems Family Feud, One Life to Live, All My Children and General Hospital, among others).

Also, because CBS was the NFC network in those days, we'd always tune in to that whenever the Bears were playing.

[PHLBOS]

Was NBC really that bad?

Let me count the ways...

Another way of looking at it was that ABC & CBS had better shows in their line-up at the time.  It wouldn't be until 1982 when NBC started gaining traction with shows like Family Ties & Cheers.  Such was also the same year that the Taxi series moved from ABC to NBC for its fifth (& final) season.

[bandit957]

I think I remember seeing the series premiere of 'Family Ties'. I didn't think that series was going anywhere.

[bandit957]

Something funny about 'Family Ties'. When I was on a college radio station in the '90s, there was an old '70s song they played that went, "I ain't ready for no family ties..." So I broke in and said, "Then are you ready for 'Growing Pains'?" Station management was not pleased.

[SP Cook]

Here goes.  From the beginning of TV through about the early 70s, for complex political and insider business reasons, ABC was the weak sister among the three networks.  Absent in many smaller markets, on UHFs or rimshots in other markets, or simply the third station to come to town with people set in their ways in viewing habits. 

This weakness meant that producers only offered their third rate shows to ABC.  The best shows were on CBS or NBC.

By that time, new station licenses and the advent of the first forms of cable (CATV) had brought ABC to equality. 

So the name of Freddie Silberman comes up.  A self-declaired super genius, he first world at CBS, and started the "rural purge"  where he, as the saying goes, "cancelled everything with a tree in it" .  Replacing country oriented shows like Beverly Hillbillies and Hee Haw, with newer shows set in cities, with heavy political themes.  CBS was #1 before him, and #1 after, but he got the credit anyway.

Moved to ABC, the eternal #3, as noted above.  Here he actually was successful.  Sensing the public being tired of being preached at, he turned ABC into the home of thought free TV shows like Happy Days, Love Boat, and Charlie's Angels. 

Move to NBC, where he announced he was a genius.  Started all sorts of preachy, odd, violent, and just plain not very good shows.  Letterman's day time failure, Supertrain, Pink Lady, Big Show, The Doctors (a reality show, not the soap) and other stuff.    None of it stuck and he was out. 

Another issue with NBC, was, at the time, it was a part of the huge RCA Corporation, while the others were "pure"  broadcasting stocks.  This meant the stock market could not reward or punish NBC, because it represented a tiny part of RCA, while CBS and ABC were independent companies, and the market could dictate its moves.

[roadman]

Supertrain looks like it was awful. I hate the idea that my folks might have brought me home from the hospital, been like "Look son, this is TV!" and Supertrain happened to be on. Dad hated NBC and loved CBS in those days so that's probably not what happened. They probably put on Dallas instead so that I could get yelled at in business school 20 years later for acting too much like J.R. Ewing.

IIRC, Supertrain was pitched to the network as "The Love Boat on rails".

[SP Cook]

IIRC, Supertrain was pitched to the network as "The Love Boat on rails".

Yes.  Among the worst shows ever made, Supertrain was an attempt to rip off the Love Boat show.

While not my cup of tea, the Love Boat was marketing brilliance.  This was near the beginning of the "cruise to nowhere"  industry.  They got use of the boat in return for showing it on TV.  And they got faded D-list celebs, and sometime better ones, to appear because in that 90% tax bracket era, the deal a cruise, which was considered working and not taxed.  Often they took union minimum.

NBC tried to copy with this train theme.  Of course, there was no train, so it had to actually pay the celebs to show up, pay for elaborate sets on their fictional train, and pay $10M ($40M today) for a train model in that pre-computer animation era.

It lasted 9 episodes.