Television digest with electronic reports (Jan-Dec 1959)

— 11 — Company Series Title Category Producer Stars Sharpe-Lewis Night Patrol Action-drama Boris Sagal Not cast (Warren Lewis, Don Untitled (60 min.) Action-drama Sharpe) Untitled (60 min.) Action-drama Shotgun Shotgun Slade Western Nat Holt, Frank Scott Brady (Nat Holt, Frank Gruber) Gruber A1 Simon Joe Domino Adventure Joe Moross The Women Comedy Not cast Sindee Pancho Villa Action Pedro Armendariz (I. H. Levin, Manuel Duke, Henry Erhlich) Twentieth-Fox TV Whodunit Melodrama anthology Martin Manulis Profile (60 min.) Human interest anthology Dominick Dunne 5 Fingers Intrigue Martin Manulis A1 Hedison Helimarines Adventure Herbert B. Swope Jr. Not cast Peggy Lee Show Comedy-Drama-Music Herbert B. Swope Jr. Arsenal Stone Western Dominick Dunne Not cast Mr. Belvidere Comedy Dominick Dunne Hans Conried Formula for Adventure Adventure Dominick Dunne Festival (90 min.) Dramatic anthology Martin Manulis The Gunfighter Western Herbert B. Swope Jr. Not cast The Last Frontier Adventure Dominick Dunne Not cast Van Praag Untitled Action-Adventure Warner Bros. Torrid Zone ActionAdventure Charles Hoffman War Against Crime Action (60 min.) Bourbon Street Beat Adventure Charles Hoffman (60 min.) Doc Holliday Western Adam West Public Enemy Action The Alaskans (60 min) Action Not cast Westwood My 41 Babies Human interest Edmund Hartmann Not cast (Edmund Hartmann) comedy Collier Young-Larry Virginia City Adventure-anthology Not cast Marcus Ziv TV Space Outer space Bill Lundigan Bravo Adventure Douglas Heyes Klondike Fever Adventure Lock-up Drama Macdonald Carey This Man Dawson Action Jon Epstein Keith Andes Untitled Action Ivan Tors George Nader Proponents of repeats got more research ammunition this week when Hallmark’s re-staging (not a tape) of “Green Pastures” on Mar. 23 earned a 24.9 Trendex — almost exactly double the Oct. 17, 1957 original rating of 12.5, when the same show had to compete with the much-criticised but higher-rated “Mike Todd Party” on CBS. Share-ofaudience was also doubled, scoring 42.1% against the original 20.5. Earlier this season, the taped repeat of a Fred Astaire special also topped the original by 40%. Kids watch too much gunplay when they should be out playing, said pres. Fred A. Roff Jr. of Colt Patent Firearms Co., a man who admits to enjoying an occasional TV Western. In Washington for the National Rifle Assn, convention, he confessed to a certain professional appreciation of the Western craze — sales of old-fashioned 6-shooters went up 35% last year. Communications history from primitive times to TV is recounted in a new series. The Corridor, presented on Metropolitan’s WTTG, Washington, by American U in cooperation with the Greater Washington Educational TV Assn. Willard R. Jeffrey, Jr., ex-CBS-TV, is producer. Cultural old BBC landed one of its TV shows in the “top 10” rating bracket last week for the first time this year, and showed that 2 can play at the culture-vs.-massappeal game. The contest came when Britain’s commercial TV stations presented Vivien Leigh’s TV debut in Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Skin of Our Teeth.” Crafty old non-commercial BBC dusted off Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers’ 25-year-old movie, “Follow the Fleet,” and televised it at the same time. It won hands down. Chairman Sidney Bernstein of Granada TV Network, which originated the cultural spectacular, said the BBC “ought to be ashamed of itself.” “If you were to compare the mass of TV programming to the mass of magazines on your newsstands, books published in America, the percentage of good plays produced on Bi’oadway to the failures, the number of fine films made in Hollywood against those that are ill-conceived or built on bad taste, I personally think TV would win out in comparison. And TV continually desires to upgrade ... to better its creative role and the quality of its programs.” — Herbert Sussan, NBC director of special programs.