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Classic Country Music TV Shows Question

B

Braves2005

I've been enjoying the classic country music shows on Rural TV like Nashville On The Road, Porter Wagoner, The Country Carnival shows with Billy Walker and Del Reeves and Jim Ed Brown's Country Place and had a few questions about these shows.

How long did the Country Carnival shows showed on TV originally? I was thinking that Billy Walker's version lasted from 1968 to 1969 and Del Reeves' version lasted from 1969 to 1970. And how about Jim Ed Brown's Country Place? I already know about Porter Wagoner and Nashville On The Road's runs on TV.

Also: Were there areas that other country music TV shows besides Hee Haw of course weren't shown at all? San Antonio was one of them as when I was a kid (mid 1970's through mid 80's) all the country music shows that aired was Hee Haw. No Porter Wagoner, Pop Goes The Country, That Good Ole Nashville Music, nothing. You would think that a country music town like San Antonio would have carried those shows but the only places that showed them were Corpus Christi and Austin. I remember seeing Dolly Parton's 1976-1977 show a few times though.
 
You were correct about "Country Carnival" except the Del Reeves version actually lasted until 1972. Jim Ed Brown's "Country Place" aired from 1968-71 and died a quiet death.

KTVT in Ft. Worth/Dallas aired every one of the shows you mentioned except "Country Place," although later on they featured Jim Ed's "Nashville on the Road." They always had strong ratings for a small-budget independent station and more often than not had higher audience shares than their network affiliate counterparts on Saturday night. They had the "Cowboy Weaver/Shootin' Newton" hour which was a local show but very popular. Then they normally had Lawrence Welk's bubblefest and then it was on to "Pop Goes the Country," "That Nashville Music," and so on and so forth. The main event was literally "Saturday Night Wrestling" from 10pm-midnight which involved the Von Erich family which sometimes drew 3 times the ratings of SNL even back when John Belushi, Bill Murray and Gilda Radner were in the show's cast! In fact, the only market where SNL lost in the ratings was Dallas-Ft. Worth, and it was that way until about 1990 when wrestling was cancelled!
 
I wonder who owns all these shows now. I know that Willie Nelson bought all of the Showbiz library that included Porter Wagoner, Pop Goes The Country, Country Carnival with Billy Walker and Del Reeves, Nashville On The Road, The Wilburn Brothers and Dolly Parton's 1976-1977 show sometime during the late 1980's and used those shows to launch his own Outlaw Music Channel on satellite TV during the 90's but I was wondering when Willie's troubles with the Internal Revenue Service began to surface and he sold off his assets did he sell those shows to other outlets like RFD-TV and Rural TV to pay off his debts. I even saw a commercial on Rural TV advertising these shows as Act IV productions.
 
http://www.rfdtv.com/shows/music_&_entertainment/willie_nelsons_act_iv_library/

Link to the story about how Willie acquired the shows..By all accounts, he still owns them today..His company IS Act IV..It may have been on this page originally but part of the story is that Norman Lear had Act III Communications that bought TV stations in several markets including Nashville, which included the Show Biz Shows..Willie just thought it would be cool to call the company "Act IV"
 
It seems country music was better preserving its video heritage than other genres. Video performances are not only plentiful and but still have amazing quality. All three commercial TV station in Nashville produced these shows. One of the shows, Wilburn Brothers I believe, was produced by one station but aired on another.
 
Tim L said:
http://www.rfdtv.com/shows/music_&_entertainment/willie_nelsons_act_iv_library/

Link to the story about how Willie acquired the shows..By all accounts, he still owns them today..His company IS Act IV..It may have been on this page originally but part of the story is that Norman Lear had Act III Communications that bought TV stations in several markets including Nashville, which included the Show Biz Shows..Willie just thought it would be cool to call the company "Act IV"
Click to expand...

Now only if there was someone who was a Quinn Martin fan who admired both Norman and Willie's naming convention -- that guy would name his company "Epilogue". ;D
 
The Wilburn Brothers show was taped at WSIX (now WKRN) on Murfreesboro Rd but was shown in Nashville on WSM (now WSMV).

I'm surprised these shows were not aired in San Antonio since country radio has always had great ratings in that city.

In Memphis and Nashville, a block of these shows was always aired on Saturday afternoon. Both WMC and WSM from the 1960s to the 1980s aired them after the NBC baseball game. Was this the case in any other markets?
 
I remember WFBC (now WYFF) Ch. 4 in Greenville, SC running the
Stonemans and Wilburn Brothers before baseball, and Porter Wagoner
and Flatt and Scruggs after. NBC affiliates WRCB Chattanooga, WCYB
Tri-Cities, and WATE Knoxville also had blocks after baseball, and WATE
had a block in the 1-2 PM hour before baseball, and I believe WLEX
Lexington had a block from 5-6:30, before NBC's Saturday newscast aired.

When WXIA/11 Alive was an ABC affiliate, back around 1968, it used to
delay "Wide World Of Sports" a week and run Porter Wagoner, the Wilburn
Brothers, and the Stonemans from 5-6:30. After an hour of wrestling
(6:30-7:30), they'd pre-empt "The Dating Game" and "The Newlywed Game"
and run Bill Anderson and Ernest Tubb. WRAL would do basically the same
thing, delaying "Wide World Of Sports," running its wrestling show from 5-6,
then air Arthur Smith, the Wilburn Brothers, and Porter Wagoner from 6-7:30.

WBTV Charlotte (CBS) used to pre-empt CBS sports programming on Sundays
after football season and run its block then. But it had a 90-minute local show
on Saturdays, "Country Style Roundup," which aired from 3:30-5 and led into
its wrestling show.

And to the person talking about KTVT's Saturday-night lineup; I seem to recall
Newton/Weaver from 4-5, Lawrence Welk from 5-6, a non-musical show from 6-7
("Hee Haw" was on KXAS during that hour), a country-music block from 7-9,
"High Chaparral" or some other Western from 9-10, then "Saturday Night Wrestling"
at 10. And it doesn't surprise me at all that Ch. 11's wrestling show beat "Saturday
Night Live."
 
KHTV (now KIAH) in Houston aired a block of country music shows on Saturday nights. In addition to the Nashville shows, they had a show starring Mickey Gilley, taped at Gilley's club of Urban Cowboy fame.
 
briancraig said:
In Memphis and Nashville, a block of these shows was always aired on Saturday afternoon. Both WMC and WSM from the 1960s to the 1980s aired them after the NBC baseball game. Was this the case in any other markets?
Click to expand...

A lot of times if NBC had a doubleheader in baseball WMC would pre-empt the second game and carry the country music shows instead. They would also come into games in progress because nothing came before Memfus Rasslin' on Saturday mornings. ::)
 
WMC had every right to pre-empt whatever NBC offered at that time because WMC had the same situation going on that KTVT out of Ft. Worth experienced...a wrestling program that was going to be the top television program in the market regardless of whether it aired on an independent station or a network affiliate and regardless of what time during the day or night that it aired except maybe 3am and it would have probably done surprisingly well in the ratings even during that dreadful time slot. West Coast Texas Rangers games in the spring and summer would occasionally mean that KTVT's show would air well after midnight and it still pulled ratings numbers that other stations in the Metroplex envied.

KTVT did in fact air Lawrence Welk's program until sometime in 1982 when Welk stopped producing his show...the western(s) that aired varied; sometimes "Gunsmoke," "High Chapparal," or "Laramie." Typically it was one of the first two. I know KTVT would air "High Chapparal" on Sunday evenings too. KXAS aired "Hee Haw" from 5:30-6:30 after their 5pm newcasts and did so from 1971 when it went into syndication until the fall of 1983 when KTVT began airing it at 7pm, presumably because "Pop Goes the Country," "Nashville on the Road," and "Backstage at the Grand Ole Opry" with Bill Anderson were cancelled in the fall of 1983. Putting on "Hee Haw" and the new offering "This Week in Country Music" with Crook and Chase filled what would have been a gaping hole in their Saturday night lineup for several years.
 
I have to correct you on KXAS and "Hee Haw," at least for the
period when I lived in the Metroplex (1976-79): KXAS pre-empted
NBC's Saturday newscast and aired its local news at 5:30, followed
by "Hee Haw" from 6-7. KDFW (CBS then) and WFAA (ABC) had
local newscasts at 6; "4 Country Reporter" on KDFW and "Inside
Television" (with Mike Shapiro) on WFAA aired at 6:30.
 
bpatrick said:
I have to correct you on KXAS and "Hee Haw," at least for the
period when I lived in the Metroplex (1976-79): KXAS pre-empted
NBC's Saturday newscast and aired its local news at 5:30, followed
by "Hee Haw" from 6-7.
Click to expand...

I believe during most of the time it carried "Hee Haw" on Saturdays, WNEM in Saginaw carried local news at 6 and Hee haw at 6:30, pre-empting the Nightly News. This continued after they picked up "A Current Affair" later in the 1980s, in which they carried the hour-long "A Current Affair Extra" at 6:30PM on Saturdays, still bumping Nightly News.
 
I think it did air on KXAS from 5:30 to 6:30 because KWTX out of Waco aired it from 6:00 until 7:00 and I would flip it over to KWTX to rewatch "Hee Haw" especially if there were songs I really liked. This would have been for sure 1980 until 1983.
 
pgtcf7806 said:
WMC had every right to pre-empt whatever NBC offered at that time because WMC had the same situation going on that KTVT out of Ft. Worth experienced...
Click to expand...

I was just stating that WMC came into baseball late or pre-empted it for wrestling and country music shows since it was related to the topic, nothing more. I've expressed my views on their pre-emption tactics in other threads, which I didn't do this time.
 
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