I’m currently reading a book about old TV shows. It’s very entertaining but there are two oddities I’ve noticed and the book doesn’t explain.
–Most variety shows would not air in the summer and instead would have replacement shows during that season. Why didn’t they just air reruns like sitcoms and police dramas would? And why were most of the replacements other variety shows?
–Occasionally shows would be rerun, whether on networks or syndication, under different names. Why on earth would you confuse viewers by changing a show’s name?
#2 - my best guess is when a show went into syndication after many episodes (and the original show was still on the air) they did this so as not to confuse the viewer. When ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ as on Tuesdays at 8 p.m., the re-runs shown at 4 p.m. were called, oh, ‘Mayberry’.
#1 - not sure. Maybe the performers on a variety show could, or would, only perform one time, on that one particular show, no second viewings allowed because of legal issues or music rights. It was cheap enough to put on a summer variety show starring some B-list type who was owed a TV show, and to showcase ‘new talent’.
Both are practices are probably based upon one fact: fear of reruns. In the early days, reruns had a bad reputation (they weren’t use in radio); the audience just didn’t like it.
For the variety shows, it allowed you to give one show a break while avoiding reruns.
For the dual titles, it allowed you to rerun a show under a different title (often in a different time slot). Thus, instead of announcing reruns of I Love Lucy – which would turn off audiences – the reran them as Lucy in Connecticut. Even when they were in syndication, the idea was that someone might want to watch Oh, Susanna! instead of the cancelled TV show The Gale Storm Show.
RealityChuck spelled it out pretty well. The motivation for a name change was occasionally contract requirements for syndicated reruns. These practices continue now. Name changes are less common because the popular series are rerun most often and their value in syndication is enhanced by using the original name.
There weren’t very many channels to watch in the pre-cable days. Most regions were serviced by the big 3 networks, maybe one or two independent stations, and maybe some UHF channels. Summertime ratings are generally lower than the rest of the year, so unknown shows, limited series, specials, and rejected shows could be aired without any real loss of advertising revenue.
There were still plenty of reruns though. That was the way for a network to pick up new viewers for a show that hadn’t been noticed in the regular season.
Were variety shows broadcast live more often than sitcoms or police dramas?
Yes, variety shows had originally been live, and some still were. So at first there were technical reasons, and there may have been programmatic ones as well: Barbra Streisand’s new movie is not a coming attraction, it played months ago; Jimmy Dean’s catchy new novelty song is now last month’s sausage; etc.
The reason they did name changes was to prevent the shows from being passed off as first run.
You have to remember that until the late 70s, UHF was no where near equal to VHF.
Many cities would have two VHF and one UHF station, so a lot of viewers would not have access to all the shows. So if you have an CBS and NBC station on VHF and ABC on UHF, many people couldn’t get UHF or it came in so badly it was unwatchable.
So the shows were renamed to prevent them from being shown as first run, whether on purpose or because of viewer error. The networks wanted to make sure the viewer knew they were getting a rerun.
You also have to realize back then shows didn’t go into syndication untill seven years or they were cancelled.
Alternate titles even existed as recent as the late 70s and early 80s. I remember that on some channels, Happy Days reruns were called Happy Days Again and Laverne and Shirley was called Laverne and Shirley and Company.