Dick Clark's Live Wednesday (also known simply as Live Wednesday) is a 1978 NBC variety television series, hosted by Dick Clark, whose production company produced the series.
The only live prime-time show on any of the three major TV networks in 1978, Live Wednesday was not unlike Clark's American Bandstand , with musical guests such as Diana Ross, Frankie Avalon, Bo Diddley, Connie Francis, Annette Funicello, Melissa Gilbert, Donna Summer, Bobbie Gentry and Melissa Manchester. Comedians such as Andy Kaufman, Billy Crystal, Rodney Dangerfield, David Steinberg, Jimmie Walker, David Brenner and Nipsey Russell also performed on the show. Most episodes also included a live stunt (often by Steve Baker, the self-proclaimed "Mr. Escape"), designed to emphasize the fact that the show was indeed live (at least in the eastern US), running from 8pm to 9pm.
Announcer Jerry Bishop (later Charlie O'Donnell) would the give the day's date at the top of the broadcast, again to emphasize that the show was live. [1] This became a problem for the fourth episode, slated for October 18: NBC decided to bump the show in favour of Game 7 of the 1978 World Series. (The Series actually ended in six games, so Clark and crew gathered to do the show anyway, but the network had already told its stations that NBC would air the movie "Little Big Man" if there was no baseball, and they did.) So, Live Wednesday was videotaped and aired on the following night, with the apologetic announcer saying, "Tonight, October eighteenth...although it's actually October nineteenth, 1978!"
Live Wednesday premiered Wednesday, September 20, 1978; the initial episode would later win an Emmy award for Outstanding Achievement in Technical Direction and Electronic Camerawork. In a press release for the show, Dick Clark proclaimed "It's been a lifelong dream of mine to have a prime-time variety series." [2] But the variety show format was beginning to be seen as outdated by the late 1970s, and ABC owned Wednesday nights, with Eight is Enough (the eleventh-most popular show on TV that season), easily trouncing both Live Wednesday and the CBS offerings (originally The Jeffersons and the new sitcom In the Beginning , but when the latter quickly failed, CBS shuffled several programs in and out of the timeslot).
Finally, the show was cancelled, with its last episode airing on December 27, 1978. After airing a series of specials on Wednesdays in January 1979, NBC premiered a new show starting February 7, which would become on the biggest bombs in TV history: the infamous Supertrain .
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has been broadcast on NBC since 1954. The program has been hosted by six comedians: Steve Allen (1954–1957), Jack Paar (1957–1962), Johnny Carson (1962–1992), Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien (2009–2010), and Jimmy Fallon (2014–present). Besides the main hosts, a number of regular "guest hosts" have been used, notably Ernie Kovacs, who hosted two nights per week during 1956–1957, and a number of guests used by Carson, who curtailed his own hosting duties back to three nights per week by the 1980s. Among Carson's regular guest hosts were Joey Bishop, McLean Stevenson, David Letterman, David Brenner, Joan Rivers, and Jay Leno, although the practice has been mostly abandoned since hosts currently prefer reruns to showcasing potential rivals.
The year 1972 involved some significant events in television. Below is a list of notable television-related events.
The year 1965 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events in 1965.
Richard Wagstaff Clark was an American television and radio personality and television producer who hosted American Bandstand from 1956 to 1989. He also hosted five incarnations of the Pyramid game show from 1973 to 1988 and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, which broadcast New Year's Eve celebrations in New York City's Times Square.
The Walt Disney Company has produced an anthology television series since 1954 under several titles and formats. The program's current title, The Wonderful World of Disney, was used from 1969 to 1979 and again from 1991 onward. The program moved among the Big Three television networks in its first four decades, but has aired on ABC since 1997.
Pyramid is an American game show franchise that has aired several versions domestically and internationally. The show was developed by Bob Stewart. The original series, The $10,000 Pyramid, debuted on CBS on March 26, 1973, and spawned seven subsequent Pyramid series. Most later series featured a full title format matching the original series, with the title reflecting an increasing top prize. Two teams, each consisting of a celebrity and contestant, attempt to convey mystery words and phrases within a common category, against a time limit, to win cash and prizes. The title refers to the show's pyramid-shaped gameboard, featuring six categories arranged in a triangular fashion. The various Pyramid series have won a total of nine Daytime Emmys for Outstanding Game Show, second only to Jeopardy!, which has won 13.
What's My Line? is a panel game show that originally ran in the United States, between 1950 and 1967, on CBS, originally in black and white and later in color, with subsequent U.S. revivals. The game uses celebrity panelists to question contestants in order to determine their occupation. The majority of the contestants were from the general public, but there was one weekly celebrity "mystery guest" for whom the panelists were blindfolded. It is on the list of longest-running U.S. primetime network television game-shows. Originally moderated by John Charles Daly and most frequently with regular panelists Dorothy Kilgallen, Arlene Francis, and Bennett Cerf, What's My Line? won three Emmy Awards for "Best Quiz or Audience Participation Show" in 1952, 1953, and 1958 and the Golden Globe Awards for Best TV Show in 1962.
The Jimmy Dean Show is the name of several similar music and variety series on American local and network television between 1963 and 1975. Each starred country music singer Jimmy Dean as host.
The NBA on CBS is the branding that is used for weekly broadcasts of National Basketball Association (NBA) games produced by CBS Sports, the sports division of the CBS television network in the United States. CBS aired NBA games from the 1973–74 NBA season until the 1989–90 NBA season.
Saturday morning preview specials were aired on television annually to present previews of each network's fall lineup of Saturday-morning cartoon children's programming. Similar to the model for their new prime time counterpart shows, television networks in the United States and Canada would film a preview special for the fall season. These would often air as part of the regular network schedule or be made available to their affiliates for airing at any time, especially to fill timeslots that contained programming canceled months before.
TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes is an American television program. Debuting as a weekly series, new episodes have been broadcast as infrequent specials during most of its run. It premiered on NBC in 1984, moved to ABC in 1998, and was revived in syndication in 2012. The NBC run of the series was co-produced by Carson Productions and Dick Clark Productions, and the ABC and syndication runs have been produced solely by Dick Clark Productions.
The following is the 1950–51 network television schedule for the four major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1950 through March 1951. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1949–50 season. This season became the first in which primetime was entirely covered by the networks. It was also the inaugural season of the Nielsen rating system. Late in the season, the coast-to-coast link was in service.
The Joey Bishop Show is an American talk show that had its first broadcast on ABC on April 17, 1967, hosted by Joey Bishop and featuring Regis Philbin in his first ongoing role with national television exposure, as Bishop's sidekick/announcer. Created to challenge The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, the show lasted 33 months, with the last show airing on November 26, 1969.
Wheel of Fortune is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin. The show has aired continuously since January 6, 1975. Contestants solve word puzzles, similar to those in hangman, to win cash and prizes determined by spinning a giant carnival wheel. The current version of the series, which airs in nightly syndication, premiered on September 19, 1983.
In regard to children's programming, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) has aired mostly programming from Walt Disney Television or other producers. This article outlines the history of children's television programming on ABC including the various blocks and notable programs that have aired throughout the television network's history.
NBC Saturday Night at the Movies was the first television show to broadcast in color relatively recent feature films from major studios. The series premiered on September 23, 1961, and ran until October 1978, spawning many imitators. Television stations had previously only been able to show older, low-budget, black-and-white films. In the late 1970s, competition from cable television and home video led to a decline in viewership.
Jerry Bishop was an American announcer, radio host and radio personality. Bishop is best known as the announcer for the American courtroom television show, Judge Judy, for 23 years from 1997 until his death in 2020. Prior to this, Bishop enjoyed a long career as a morning show host at some of the largest radio stations in Los Angeles, including KLAC, KFI and KIIS-FM from the 1960s to the 1980s.
When the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, all major professional and collegiate organizations responded by suspending operations indefinitely. This effect was passed down to the world of sports broadcasting, which includes live coverage of thousands of events on an annual basis through stations and network available over the air, through cable, satellite, and IPTV companies, and via streaming and over-the-top services.