

Cyan indicates the programs in the top 20 for the season. Yellow indicates the programs in the top 10 for the season.
Tv guide phoenix series#
Series ending are highlighted in italicsĮach of the 30 highest-rated shows is listed with its rank and rating as determined by Nielsen Media Research. It was the dawn of a new era in television producer David Susskind, who had produced KTT at the end, would call 1958 "the year of the miserable drivel". NBC's Kraft Television Theatre, which had debuted in 1947 and was the oldest program still left on television, was cancelled in spring 1958. According to Castleman and Podrazik (1982) the final DuMont Network program, Monday Night Fights aired for the last time on August 4, 1958, carried on only five stations nationwide. DuMont resigned as chairman of the board of the DuMont Broadcasting Corporation on May 13, and the name of the company was changed to Metropolitan Broadcasting Corporation. Cowan became the president of CBS on March 12, and NBC programmer Robert Kintner became the president of NBC on July 11. Oliver Treyz became the president of ABC on February 17, Louis G. broadcast television the three networks still air their network news programs against one another.ġ958 saw a number of executive changes at the networks these presidential shifts would affect the network television schedules. The face-off between the three networks' news programs would become the standard model for U.S. Īnother programming shift occurred at NBC: the network's flagship news program, The Huntley-Brinkley Report, moved to the 7:15 PM weekday timeslot, for the first time going head to head against both ABC's and CBS's news programs. New NBC Western series debuting in the 1957–58 season included Wagon Train, The Restless Gun, and The Californians (though one NBC executive insisted The Californians is not a Western but a drama set in California in the 1850s). NBC, late to the Western format, also began plugging Westerns into its fall schedule. ABC aired Maverick one half-hour prior to the Allen and Sullivan programs the strategy was designed to "hook the audience before it fell into its usual viewing habits". 45 on Fridays, and Maverick on Sundays.ĪBC, third in the network Nielsen ratings, placed its new Western Maverick in a difficult time slot: Sunday night against two hit series: The Steve Allen Show on NBC, and The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS. In addition to several returning Westerns which the network retained on its fall 1957 schedule, ABC's new western series included Sugarfoot and Broken Arrow on Tuesday nights, Tombstone Territory on Wednesdays, Colt. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1956–57 season.Īs in previous seasons, both CBS and ABC continued to add Westerns to their schedule, filling prime time with as many "oaters" (as they were derisively called) as possible. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1957 through March 1958. The following is the 1957–58 network television schedule for the four major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States.

List of American television programs currently in production.
