Okay, I lied. I'm going to do THREE more posts on the top ten of the "big four" of the U.S. television networks, since in recent years, Fox has broken through into the top ten, but I'll get to that later. For now, I'm going to talk about the network that has pretty much dominated network television for most of its history, the Columbia Broadcasting System.
From 1951-52 to 1975-76, with a few exceptions, CBS has had the #1 show in television. In fact, on several occasions, CBS has had nine of the Top 10 shows on TV. Now, THAT'S dominance!
I Love Lucy, The Jack Benny Show, Arthur Godfrey, The Jackie Gleason Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, The $64,000 Question, I've Got a Secret, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Gunsmoke, The Danny Thomas Show, Have Gun Will Travel, Perry Mason, The Andy Griffith Show, Candid Camera, The Beverly Hillbilles, The Lucy Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Petticoat Junction, Gomer Pyle USMC, Hogan's Heroes, Green Acres, Family Affair, Mayberry RFD, Here's Lucy, Hawaii Five-O, Medical Center, All in the Family, Mannix, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maude, The Waltons, M*A*S*H, Kojak, The Jeffersons, Rhoda, and Good Times were among the many Top 10 hits for the "Eye" network during this period of time. In fact, "All in the Family" was the #1 show for five consecutive seasons (1971-72 to 1975-76), a record that has since been broken (I'll get to that later).
By the mid-70s, however, ABC started to break through and become #1, but by the early 1980s, CBS was back on top with such shows as "60 Minutes," "Alice," "Dallas," "The Dukes of Hazzard," "One Day at a Time," "House Calls", "Magnum P.I.", "Simon and Simon," and "Falcon Crest." But the success couldn't last forever...
In the 1984-85 season, CBS had seven of the top ten shows (actually top 11, since Falcon Crest and Crazy Like a Fox tied for #10), but in the following season, it only had three of the top 10 shows (Murder She Wrote, 60 Minutes, and Dallas). This was due to NBC's resurgence (which I will get into next time), as well as ABC's comeback after a slump in the mid-to-late-80s. CBS would come back in the early 1990s with such shows as "Murphy Brown," and "60 Minutes" returned to the top for three straight years (1991-92 to 1993-94), but CBS's fortunes changed forever after FOX won the rights to broadcast the National Football Conference of NFL football. As a result, many long-time CBS affiliates switched to FOX, leaving CBS with some low-rated stations in numerous markets (such as Atlanta, Milwaukee, and especially Detroit).
"Touched by an Angel" proved to be CBS's most popular show during the late 1990s, but the network would return to dominance in 2000 with "Survivor." And that's all I'm going to say about "Survivor" in this post. Other popular shows in the early 2000s for CBS included "Everybody Loves Raymond," and the first of numerous versions of "CSI." By 2005, "Raymond" was off the air, and since then "Two and a Half Men" has proven to be the network's most popular comedy, though it has only cracked the top 10 only once (2008-09) in its run. Since the 2000s, Fox and CBS have been dueling it out for first place.
I'll look at the rise, fall, rise, and major fall of the peacock network next time.
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