American Broadcasting Company -- ABC-TV and Radio Promos 1957

Two ABC-TV promotional jingles and two ABC Radio chain breaks from 1957. The 1957-58 season saw the rise of ABC-TV and heard the demise of ABC Radio as mass-media carriers of entertainment.
Network radio in the United States had been losing advertising, affiliates, and audience as television and disc-jockey local-radio programming became increasingly popular. ABC Radio, attempting to turn the tide, renamed itself "The American Broadcasting Network", launching a schedule of "live and lively" variety shows, advertising "Fun and gaiety, spontaneity, live radio!" The attempt failed; US commercial network radio became, with a few exceptions, little more than a five-minute-per-hour news source.
Meanwhile, ABC-TV, the third and last-place major US television network, was beginning to be a contender. Its westerns, detective shows, situation comedies, and sports attracted audiences that would cause NBC-TV and CBS-TV to retaliate with their own lowest-common-denominator programming, dropping their live original dramatic series, classical music performances, and other creative programs, which were often unsponsored and catered to a demographic-fringe viewership.
So this video is a bit of cultural archeology, another bit of support for H.L. Mencken's pronouncement that "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence [sometimes, perhaps even better, quoted as "taste"] of the American public."

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• ABC
• television
• radio
• WFIL-TV
• WABC
• 1957

[MsSuzyQ88]

@2222554 It was ever since the original Mickey Mouse Club was on ABC.

[altfactor]

For a time in 1957, ABC Radio called itself "The American Broadcasting Network", in part to create a separate identidy from ABC-TV, and in part because they tried more shows with live music to try to build upon the success of Don McNeill's "Breakfast Club" (which was still a hit despite the coming of daytime TV).

ABN lost so much money that the live music shows (except for the still-profitable "breakfast Club") got dumped in 1958 and the branding reverted to ABC Radio.

[Myrtle791]

Thanks, "Smiling," for including a Philadelphia, PA staion I.D. clip in this video. I first experienced TV in Upper Darby, PA, in 1949-50 watching WCAU-TV, Ch. 10, WFIL-TV, Ch.6, and, what I called, "the odd-ball," WPTZ (No -TV.), Ch. 3. Ch. 10 was CBS, Ch. 6 was ABC & DuMont, and Ch. 3 was NBC.

[2222554]

Walt Disney & ABC have been together since I don't remember it's been so long...

[fromthesidelines]

ABC-TV was "the third network" in 1957, and often struggled to get noticed by more viewers- their most successful series at the time were "LAWRENCE WELK'S DODGE DANCING PARTY" (AND his other show, "TOP TUNES & NEW TALENT"), "DISNEYLAND" and "THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE & HARRIET"; the new shows that were equally successful that fall were "THE REAL McCOYS", "ZORRO", "THE PAT BOONE-CHEVY SHOWROOM" and "COLT .45". "THE MIKE WALLACE INTERVIEW" was among its most controversial, and ended in 1958.