What sales demo covers "like Hee Haw" vs. "Likes E.R."? The attitude that CBS had was more about the perception of "The Tiffany Network" being considered to be less sophisticated.
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Late Show ending May 2026
- Thread starter Don CT
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K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
At least in the case of "Hee Haw", their logic was faulty, because the show lasted another 25 seasons in first-run syndication.
But the logic was based on the supposed perception that CBS was the "quality network" while NBC was "built to sell TV sets" and ABC was table scraps.
Remember, after the "freeze" was lifted and many markets that had only one or two TV stations suddenly got at least three. The local station that was either NBC and ABC or CBS and ABC always gave up ABC to the newcomer.
On their shows.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
And it was on in prime time, not late night!
Nor would Norman Lear’s All In The Family.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Also in prime time. Yet our little friend thinks late night needs to be "sanitized" to meet his own standards of broadcast content.
I am betting that he is Generation X or later.
Not my standards only standards that were followed back around the time that Johnny Carson was on the air.
CBS also cancelled the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour back in the day.
I think the timeline is getting a little skewed here.
The whole "Tiffany Network" thing really revolves around its high-minded programming in the 1950s---the news division with the sterling reputation that was carried over from CBS radio during World War II, Murrow's showdown with McCarthy, and its long-running, high-quality drama anthology "Studio One".
But it was I Love Lucy that made the cash register ring, and William Paley (who people forget was a young man---he founded CBS at the age of 26 and was only 50 when he put Lucy on TV) saw money in mass appeal, not snob appeal.
When Paley hired Jim Aubrey as President of CBS Entertainment, Aubrey delivered---Mr. Ed, The Beverly Hillbillies---and his successor Mike Dann followed with Gilligan's Island, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres---all massive hits. So was The Dick Van Dyke Show, but that was a surprise.
The move to ditch the rural stuff (Hee Haw premiered as a summer replacement in 1969), came not as an attempt to emphasize quality or "class", but because Mike Dann's successor, 33-year-old Fred Silverman, was big on research and he saw that scoring big in 18-49 in major cities would be more lucrative in terms of agency business.
And thus came Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, All In The Family, M*A*S*H, which were quality shows but only because of Grant Tinker and Norman Lear and Larry Gelbart.
Fred had no allegiance to quality or pretense, as he'd soon prove at ABC (Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Welcome Back Kotter) and at NBC (Supertrain, Manimal, Pink Lady and Jeff).
My favorite Silverman story:
Shortly after getting the President of CBS Entertainment gig, Fred (and again, remember, he's green---33 years old, had been working at local stations just a couple of years before) decides that it would be cool to drop by Desilu and just stick his head in on Lucille Ball.
At this point, Lucy's third show, Here's Lucy, is in its third season. Lucy's a widow with two teenaged children (played by her real-life children, Desi Arnaz, Jr,. and Lucie Arnaz) and it's not great. By far the weakest of the three Lucy series. Even so, it's still in the top five shows most weeks in the ratings.
So Fred stops by, introduces himself and then starts to tell Lucy how he thinks her show could be better.
Lucy: "Can you hold that thought for just a moment? I just remembered I need to make a phone call."
Fred: "Would you like some privacy? I could step out."
Lucy: "Oh, no. That won't be necessary. Stay right there. This won't take long."
(Lucy dials the phone)
Lucy: "Hi, Joan. It's Lucy. Is Bill in? Thanks."
(a few seconds)
Lucy: "Hi, Bill. It's Lucy. How's Babe? Oh, that's wonderful. Listen, I have a young man here who works for you named Fred...what is it honey? Silverman? Silverman. And he has some ideas about how to "fix" my show. So I'm going to hand the phone over to him so you can tell him to go f**k himself."
(Lucy hands the phone to Silverman)
William S. Paley: "Good God, Fred. Get the hell out of there now and call me when you're someplace far away from Desilu!"
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K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Yes, but that was for different reasons.
But my point is that CBS always, in that era, thought of itself as being the premium network. And ABC was, of course, the result of the spin-off of NBC's weaker brother back in the Red and Blue days.
But the image was valuable at the sales level, particularly with the advertiser categories that looked for strong middle class appeal. The web tried to be image aware if not image-driven well through the 70's.
But he wanted both. He saw how ABC, no matter how successful its programs, was on the worst-coverage station in the market... or its only UHF one. He knew that the image kept affiliates and the owners of stations thought that they had the easiest brand to sell. It was a compromise, of course. Local stations doing selling to the Buick dealer did not push Hillbillies or, probably, even mention the show.
Several of those shows were simplistic and lowbrow, but Mr Ed was not patently a rural show... it was a novelty show that magically worked (I have a neighbor with a dog named "Mr Ed"). Gilligan's was not rural, nor was Van Dyke. Even Green Acres was the story of an urban woman who created joke environments due to her lack of understanding of her environment.
None had "hicks" popping out of a field with "corny" jokes. It may have been an issue of how rural they could go. Beverly Hillbillies in many ways ridiculed country people, while Hee Haw glorified or celebrated them.
You know what? I wasn't gonna, but I'm gonna.
David, maybe if you stopped watching FOX News and especially Gutfeld and had a well-rounded diet of mainstream news, you wouldn't find those people frighteningly scary.
Maybe in the areas of policy where you disagreed with them after less inflammatory, less libelous coverage, you'd be in a position to formulate cogent alternatives to their policies, possibly even arguments that could sway reasonable people on certain topics.
But knowing that you know the kind of crap Gutfeld says (Seriously? Hunter Biden wanted to bang Jill?) and you watch it anyway and find it amusing? I'd be way less inclined to listen.
(Sorry, Lance---I let it bug me for a good two hours before I finally gave in)
Don't know the other ones you mentioned except The Squad. Out there...yeah, a little. Scary? No...nothing AOC has said that's "scary."
Actually, I've always seen it as kind of the other way around. On TBH, aside from Jethro, the country folks were actually sympathetic and reasonably intelligent in their own way (especially Jed), while it was the city people who came across as buffoons. (Jane Hathaway was not nearly as clueless as the rest.) On the other hand, I always found Hee Haw kind of cringy, a type of Appalachian-and-white-Southern minstrel show, though their musical acts were second to none. Roy Clark set the gold standard for guitar music.
It took me 20 years to get the central joke of Green Acres. They tell the story in the theme song—-Oliver wants the country life. Lisa wants to stay in Manhattan.
They move. There are all these bizarre characters. A pig named Arnold.
Lisa treats it all like it’s perfectly normal. She’s fine there. It’s Oliver who’s on the verge of a stroke in every episode, and who would be a lot better off in New York.
They move. There are all these bizarre characters. A pig named Arnold.
Lisa treats it all like it’s perfectly normal. She’s fine there. It’s Oliver who’s on the verge of a stroke in every episode, and who would be a lot better off in New York.
I don't remember it quite that way...and I lived in some very rural areas, including one year in a town of fewer than 800 people. What I picked up on were all the local characters constantly outmaneuvering and outsmarting the big city lawyer who was used to getting things his own way.
Secondarily, it could be viewed as a satire of city people yearning for the rustic life.
Mike's theory of the show is pretty good, too.
About the Beverly Hillbillies: once in a while I watch classic Password reruns. One day I saw one from 1966, but I missed the start of the show. The female celebrity guest was a slight, very elegant woman, dressed to the hilt, complete with a pearl necklace. She was well spoken. I couldn't figure out who she was. Then something amusing happened on the show. She cackled. Then it struck me: she was Irene Ryan.
That's how good of an actress she was. Granny was practically her polar opposite. Irene Ryan played her convincingly.
Here is why hyperbole is often misunderstood if used before an audience that does not like the "performers" to begin with.
I'll start with my example of why neither I nor anyone in my family that lives in the "lower 48" understands or likes Seinfeld: the show is so totally dependent on an understanding and, perhaps, integration with one part of American culture that if you "don't belong" you just don't get it.
In the case of politically themed shows, you have to be at least slightly partisan to the underlying philosophy of each program.
Again, another example: I can't find SNL fun or funny as it is both socially and philosophically not on a band that my inner radio can tune. I felt that way when I viewed early SNL shows, and just find that the current ones are the same thing, but not as well done.
So my feeling on Gutfeld! is that you have to be in the culture to understand. If you don't get the extreme hyperbole of the "Hunter Biden wanted to bang Jill" based on Hunter actually banging his brother's widow, I doubt that the way I see it can be explained. However, that did seem... like a lot of Gutfeld's stuff... a bridge too far.
But I have the same reaction if I see (insert name of any of the
Of course, this is entertainment, not news. For all but local and state, news I follow Reuters and Infobae principally. Both have a less partisan view of "all things American" and seem to get the facts better than any U.S. medium or source.
There's no doubt in my mind The Ed will be sold. CBS will really have no need for it next year. I guess the real question is.....
Who in the heck will buy the place?
Right now, it's configured for TV with around a 450-seat audience. I couldn't see any Broadway shows moving in there with such a small audience capacity. It's one of those weird pieces of real estate that's set up for a specialized purpose. I don't think any of the other networks will want it. I have a feeling CBS will have a hard time unloading it. I'm looking forward to seeing the LoopNet listing.😄
EDIT: Here's the old LoopNet listing, lol
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