NBC presents a special, two-hour salute to one of television’s greatest performers — Carol Burnett. The wonder is that CBS — home to Burnett’s fondly-remembered comedy-variety series that ran from 1967 to 1978 — is not broadcasting this venture. Good on NBC for stepping in. Burnett and Vicki Lawrence are the only two Carol Burnett
The NBC western Bonanza ended a thirteen-and-a-half season run on this date in January of 1973 – 50 years ago today. I was reminded of the milestone by someone who should know: Andrew J. Klyde, archivist, historian and attorney for Bonanza Ventures which controls merchandising and licensing worldwide for the series. Bonanza had been one
Say kids, what time is it? It is time to celebrate Howdy Doody’s 75th anniversary. Broadcast network television’s first Monday to Friday series and first regularly scheduled colour series launched during a winter snowstorm in New York on December 27, 1947. There were approximately 15,000 to 20,000 television sets within reach of NBC’s signals along
The start of the traditional broadcast network TV season begins in earnest this week, although earnest may be overstating things. To paraphrase Tina Fey a dozen years ago, network television today is about as cutting edge as vaudeville in the sixties. Nevertheless, one of the new/old offerings, mainly what you get from broadcast nowadays, is
I kid you not: I was too young to have seen Jack Paar in his prime as host of The Tonight Show. I was born in 1957, the year Paar took over Tonight from Steve Allen and made it his own for the next five years. With the show starting around 11:15 p.m., this was
Bill Maher once said that, “Everybody who ever has done a talk show should pay a royalty to Steve Allen.” Allen would probably have agreed. He was the first host of NBC’s Tonight Show, starting with a local New York version in 1953 and then launching the series nationally in September of 1954. David Letterman,
When it comes to ratings and putting today’s television landscape in context, I always call on the Programming Insider himself, Marc Berman. The New York native has been a friend and colleague since he began attending the Television Critics Association’s semi-annual network press tours in 1999. Back then, Marc was reporting for Mediaweek; before that,
Court is be back in session with the return of the original Law & Order. The series upon which executive producer Dick Wolf built an empire is back after a 20 year run (1990-2010) and then being “paused” for over a decade. In Canada, it joins the Citytv schedule on Thursday nights, throwing City to the