The Nielsens

Aug. 9, 1957
Los Angeles

Top shows for the first two weeks of July 1957:

1. "Gunsmoke"
2. "The Ed Sullivan Show"
3. "The $64,000 Question"
4. "I've Got a Secret"
5. "Playhouse 90"
6. "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (reruns)
7. "The Lineup" (reruns)
8. "20th Century-Fox Hour"
9. "What's My Line"
10. "Twenty-One"

The All-Star baseball game (American League 6, National League 5 ) was the top-rated show for the period, with 12,896,000 TV sets tuned in, The Times said.

TV writer Cecil Smith noted that only one NBC program--the game show "Twenty-One"--was in the top 10. He attributed the poor showing to the fact that the network had recently announced 55% of its fall shows would be new, including programs starring Eddie Fisher, George Gobel, Dinah Shore, Rosemary Clooney, Jane Wyman and Gisele MacKenzie, plus "The Court of Last Resort" based on a series by Erle Stanley Gardner, a sitcom starring Joan Caulfield titled "Sally" and three unidentified westerns.

I have to admit, even I don't recognize all of these shows. "The Lineup," for example, is nothing I recall, nor do I remember the "20th Century-Fox Hour."

About "Twenty-One." In early 1957, the shows featured a bright fellow named Charles Van Doren. Maybe you've heard of him.

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Comments

[steve]

The Lineup was a rerun of San Francisco Beat with Warner Olsen and Tom Tully just as Badge 714 was a rerun of Dragnet. Same idea.