What's Ahead For TV in 1962?

The only reason for this post is because of this great drawing outlining the history of television to date. It’s the work of Dick Hodgins, Jr. of the Associated Press and accompanied the article below.

What was the trend on TV 50 years ago? The A.P. spoke with Mike Dann who, at this point, was at CBS. He had jumped from NBC, where he was part of Pat Weaver’s regime when Today was put on the air. He later pulled the Smothers Brothers off the air (he seems to have regretted it in later years) and was nervous about the idea of Mary Tyler Moore being divorced on her new sitcom (she was changed to being single but newly-dumped).

This story appeared on May 6, 1962

Trends Guide TV Programs
By CYNTHIA LOWRY
Associated Press TV-Radio Writer
NEW YORK (AP)—"I don't know,” says the television fan sadly, "something’s happened to television. They don't make the shows as good as they used to.”
Then he ticks off favorite programs that he doesn't enjoy as much as he used to. And he blames it on the shows, of course. But the truth is, he has been watching these shows—and shows like them—so long he has just plain gotten tired of them.
He's getting ready for a change—and pretty soon he makes it. And if you multiply that one viewer by satiated millions, you've got a new TV trend in the making.
When the 1961-62 season was but two months old—in November—it was obvious the public's fancy had been caught by another type of program.
Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare, both hour-long shows, had caught on immediately. Because they were pretty much alike in form—both about young, handsome, dedicated doctors, both with hospital backgrounds and both had disease as the principal villain—it appeared that the "new" television trend would involve a fresh set of copy-cat clinical dramas.
Not necessarily so, says Michael Dann, a CBS vice president whose job is putting together entertainment programs and arranging schedules. The current trend involves “character dramas,” which includes the two doctor series but also embraces “The Defenders,” which is about a father-son lawyer team.
After all, there have been TV doctors before (Hennesey, a comedy series, centers on a doctor). There certainly have been lawyer stories around for many seasons—Perry Mason, The Law and Mr. Jones, Harrigan and Son, and Lock Up, to mention a few. But—according to Dann's analysis—the focus on and development of the characters in the three new shows are the things that make them fresh and therefore attractive to the home audiences.

It is the peculiar nature of television to leap from trend to trend, with the newest knocking out all but the very best of the old.
The first big trend in programs was discernible in 1949—a year after TV really got moving. Since then there have been some seven types of programs that have moved up to peaks—and then quietly slipped down again.
By 1949, according to Dann's charting, people were caught by the hour-long, live dramas. Those were the days of Philco Playhouse, Kraft Theater, Robert Montgomery Presents and all the rest.
About a year later, a rival came roaring onto the home screen—the big, brassy, raucous comedy-variety show. For the next few years it appeared we couldn’t get enough of Milton Berle, Jackie Gleason, Ken Murray, Sid Caesar. But again people cooled off and fingers started turning the dials—to the panel shows. What's My Line?, Who's The Boss?, The Name's The Same, Masquerade Party, and on and on.
By about 1956 the panel show was beginning to make way for still another type of program: The big-money quiz show. Who can forget The $64,000 Question, Twenty-One, and all the lesser imitators.
Actually, the quiz craze was waning when the TV scandals broke in 1959 and wiped them off the air—so it was just a question of time anyway.
Riding into the picture was the hour-long western—the so-called adult western—that started with Gunsmoke and Wagon Train. But soon the cowboys and the marshals were looking nervously behind them. Private eyes and heroic policemen, with hour-shows, were gaining fast.
Eventually, they overtook the horse operas and it was the time of the "action" trend—77 Sunset Strip, The Untouchables, and similar stuff. But they started to fade, and this season were overcome by Casey, Kildare, and company. "Next season?" asked Dann. "There is a pretty good balance of programing coming along. And it is one of the few seasons in which it is almost impossible to find a strong trend."

Dann likely didn’t realise it, but the tube was headed toward comedy, the more outlandish, the better. The number one show in 1962-63 was The Beverly Hillbillies; a show Dann claimed in his autobiography he refused to watch after the pilot. It was soon joined by Gilligan’s Island, and high-concept shows like I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched and the beloved My Mother the Car. None of these had much in common with family comedies like Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best.

And they had nothing in common with the “socially-relevant” comedies that would swamp TV toward the end of the Vietnam War.