Catacombs Reference LibraryPress
Picking the network lock
Catacombs Reference Library
Los Angeles Times, 5 November, 1975. We only have the first part of the article.
This last of a three-part series on cracks in the commercial networks' facade concentrates on new ways of bringing quality programs to viewers.
By Dick Adler, Times Staff Writer
Nobody on any side of the electronic fence thinks that commercial television networks will or should ever completely disappear. They offer far too many services, everything from news and sports to daytime programming, that would be unavailable elsewhere. But there are definite signs and portents that say the absolute lock that ABC, CBS and NBC have historically had on the majority of American viewers and advertisers is weakening.
The case of Space: 1999 is one such sign. Rejected by all three networks, this expensive ($275,000 per hour episode) and moderately intelligent import from Britain's commercial Independent Television Corp. is now seen on 155 stations across the country, and its ratings range from the satisfactory to the spectacular. More often than not, it is being slotted by network affiliates into time periods usually reserved for heavily promoted network series.
The NBC affiliate in Houston airs it instead of the just-cancelled The Invisible Man; in Omaha, the CBS station pre-empts Good Times and Joe and Sons to schedule it; in Boston, it replaces Happy Days and Welcome Back, Kotter on the ABC affiliate; Cincinnati viewers see it in place of Cher. Altogether, more than 70 network affiliates have jettisoned prime-time fare in its favour, and the rest schedule it during the peak prime-time access hours of 6:30 to 7:30 or 7 to 8 p.m. (Locally, KHJ-TV Channel 9, airs it Saturdays at 7 p.m.)
Space: 1999 is backed by the the vast television empire of Sir Lew Grade, one of the few individual producers in the world with his own network. He can afford to make 24 episodes of such a lavish series with his own money and then offer them as a complete package. But its success points the way for other such widely syndicated projects (it is seen in more than 100 foreign markets as well). If just once or twice a year a powerful combine of major independent American producers got together to finance some worthy television series that had been rejected by the commercial networks, that would mean at least one or two hours that viewers could choose to spend away from the networks' increasingly lugubrious prime-time jungles.
One of the biggest problems facing the producers of syndicated shows is how to get their products to the stations that show them. ITC's American office now must make certain that 155 separate prints of each Space: 1999 episode are made each week and then shipped (or "bicycled," as the process is known in the trade) to everyone from Boston to Los Angeles in time for weekly air dates. This is a tedious and expensive procedure...
Space: 1999 copyright ITV Studios Global Entertainment