The CBS "rural purge" of 1971

Yep, good point. (And don't forget William Hopper on Perry Mason, plus George Maharis from Route 66.) There were a few. Now, it's not that big a deal.

Howard Stern has some funny stories about Raymond Burr: apparently, he was a lot more macho in front of the camera than he was behind the camera. Stern's father was a recording engineer who recorded Burr for commercials in NYC during the 1960s.

Back to the Rural Purge: what's interesting to me is that it also affected the careers of basically anybody who had a southern accent. Jim Nabors and Glen Campbell's variety shows were cancelled, but the reason cited was basically older-skewing audiences. The early '70s trend also started to kill a lot of Westerns, and they were pretty much gone five years later (with very few exceptions).

 

Lawrence Welk had the Kollege of Musical Knowledge, and was the King of Jazz, ever In the Mood to get y'all to Sing Along with Him and All the Lads, and win a Welk mixer.

Guy Lombardo had the Band of Renown.




PS.

Sorry I couldn't resist LOL

 

And yet Gilligan, with Dawn Wells and Tina Louise, was cancelled for Gunsmoke (another show that could be considered, a quality show like the above James Slattery gives.)

 

True, but I would say that Rock Hudson of McMillan and Wife was even more famous than Burr, since Hudson was one of the most successful film stars of the late 50s and 60s.

 

Richard Chamberlain as Dr. Kildare was pretty high profile in the early 60s. Robert Reed on The Defenders and later Brady Bunch. Its a long list but few were as obvious as Lynde was, at least in a starring role.

 

And the sweetest sounds this side of heaven !

 

With Lawrence Welk, we can mention that CBS's rival like Mr.Wunnerful's ABC also did the same thing and then NBC...

 

Very good point.

Yeah, that would be an interesting list, most likely an entire book. What's funny to me is that all the actors who were rumored to being in the closet in the 1960s and 1970s pretty much turned out to be really gay in real life. There are a few who are still not out, including a handful of famous 1960s singers.

 

I've always found that strange about US TV. If it was a British Show, it probably wouldn't of been a problem.

 

Never heard of this. Must have been sleeping in the hayloft again.
"Rural Purge" sounds moderately Stalinist, unfriendly at the very least.

 

Assume his character was in the closet when watching it and it makes a lot more sense. (Sort of like Mr. Roper in Three's Company)

 

Hogans Heroes was still a good show, but going up against Disney was a death sentence. I wonder if the war in Vietnam contributed to the downfall as well as the rural purge ?

 

The aforementioned Doris Day's Billy DeWolfe, who gained a new signature role with his biggest one esp.for later viewers....the crazed and villianous "Frosty the Snowman" villian, the memorable Prof.Hinkle. was wrongly "outed", as were Edward Everett Horton and Sterling Hollowya, all of them straight. yet bachelors.. it's sad that folks get outed when they aren't even "suspect", and even suspected when gay..

 

lol no

 

At what point did urban population overtake rural population?
That would be interesting and might make "rural purge" a simple matter of demographics.
I don't know the answer and may be totally unrelated.

 

Yes indeed, the advertisers decided that they'd rather buy commercial time on shows that appealed to the youngest and most affluent audiences than to the biggest ones. It was no longer how many were watching, but WHO was watching.

 

Guess it makes sense from a business perspective.
Probably would have done the same thing if I were in their position.

 

I completely disagree; it was one of the few major smart moves made by a network.

 

The pressure came from advertisers as companies learned more and more about the age cycle of mass market product consumers in the 1960s. Marketing executives came to believe that advertising wasn't particularly effective on older consumers - they eventually tune out most product advertising past a certain age.

 

And Les Brown had The Royal Canadians

 

1920, according to the Census Bureau. Around 1970 it reached 70%

https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/table-4.pdf

 

It's not simply a matter of rural vs urban, or even affluence.

In their classic book Watching TV Castleman and Podrazik (I think those were their names) made the point that the theme of bumpkins outsmarting city slickers was "long a favorite of harassed urban dwellers". So the Beverly Hillbillies audience was not only in the sticks.

The point is that a large part of this audience was older, and Madison Avenue became convinced that the younger demo is more likely to switch brands -- that is, the older audience is ironically being punished for brand loyalty.

 

Fascinating thread. I was completely unaware of first-run syndication. I grew up in rural west Texas and just assumed that Hee Haw was part of the normal CBS line up.

 

They are. I still have that book and am patiently awaiting the next edition..

 

She was a sweet nice American girl! THAT was the APPEAL. That IS the appeal to her remaining fans..and I alkso was a kid and watched it.