(This is the ninth chapter of a book-in-progress, “Television, and How It Got That Way.” For the previous chapters, scroll down under “stories.”)
We’ve always assumed that three is the logical number for anything.
It’s the number of strikes, outs, Stooges, little pigs, blind mice and little kittens that lost their mittens. But is it the ideal number of over-the-air, commercial TV networks?
It seemed that way. Early efforts at a fourth network sputtered, despite such stars as Jackie Gleason (shown here), Ernie Kovacs, boxers and a bishop. Other tries failed. For 30 years, it was ABC, CBS and NBC.
And then it all changed. There were four networks … then six … then seven … and then it went down to five plus some slivers.
We’re talking here about true networks – ones that must assemble stations around the country. Eventually, high-tech methods – cable, satellite, streaming – made it possible to skip all of that.
But before tech took over, the stabs at a fourth network were intriguing. Let’s look at the first tries:
ABC
Yes, there was a stretch when ABC was No. 4.
“DuMont, the third network, had slightly more coverage than ABC,” Leonard Goldenson, ABC’s founder, wrote in “Beating the Odds” (Scribner’s, 1991).
The first two networks were from companies that made TV sets – NBC (owned by RCA) and DuMont. They were allowed to do limited programming during World War II.
Afterward, two radio networks could put up their first nightly TV schedules. It was a mismatch
— By 1948, CBS already had Arthur Godfrey, Ed Sullivan and the “Studio One” dramas.
— ABC? It included “Quizzing the News,” “Critic at Large,” “Fashion Story,” “Teenage Book Club” and – six times a week – “Film Shorts.”
Short on cash, ABC was merging with the Paramount theater chain. The government worried about a monopoly and hesitated. For 18 months, ABC was barred from going after new affiliates.
When that was finally settled, Goldenson wrote:
— ABC had just 14 stations, counting the five it owned. NBC had 71; CBS had 74. For commercials, “one hour of CBS programming brought in about five times as much as an hour on ABC.”
— The Chicago station was in good shape, but the others were in shambles. “In Detroit, all the equipment was sitting around some hallway they’d leased. The San Francisco property had been an Elk’s Club; there was still sawdust on the floor.” The Los Angeles station was a long-vacant movie studio. “It was falling apart; rats scampered across the rafters and piles of droppings were everywhere.”
— And the New York hub was a former riding stable. “The scent of equine manure still permeated the establishment.”
At first, ABC’s only notable shows were radio transplants — “Ozzie & Harriet” and “The Lone Ranger.” It scrambled to land some stars.
“One of the people they desperately wanted was Ray Bolger, a proven talent on Broadway and as a TV guest star,” Danny Thomas wrote in “Make Room For Danny” (Putnam’s, 1991). Bolger’s agent said yes … if ABC also had a show for Thomas.
It was an unusual choice at the time, Thomas once wrote. “It was the day of the White Protestant American United States, and a guy like me wasn’t exactly family fare.”
He was the former Amos Jacobs and, before that, Muzyad Yakhoob. With his Lebanese background, he didn’t seem like the other TV stars. But his show – sharply written and played – was a crisp, funny look at the life of an overstretched family man.
It won the Emmy for best new show and proved ABC could create shows from scratch. After four years, Thomas jumped to CBS in 1957 — leaping to No. 2 in the Nielsen ratings.
Mostly, however, ABC’s strategy was to lean toward Hollywood. Its Disney show was a quick success … but, for a time, nothing else was.
For its first two seasons (1954 and ‘55), “Disneyland” was the only ABC show in the Nielsen top-20. Soon, it was joined by westerns – Wyatt Earp, “Cheyenne,” “Sugarfoot,” “The Rifleman,” “The Lawman,” Disney’s “Zorro” and more. ABC moved to No. 3; DuMont was fourth and wobbling.
The DuMont Network
There was a lot of potential to DuMont, even as it slipped from No. 2 to 3 to 4 and then to oblivion.
Allen DuMont was considered a genius. His labs ranged from creating the first long-lasting TV tube to helping the U.S. develop radar. His company reportedly sold the first consumer TV set, in 1938.
Eventually, its sets were in many places … including upstate New York in 1956. In his memoir, Brandon Tartikoff (the NBC chief during its prime) recalled being “a seven-year-old boy, sitting nose-to-screen in front of a seven-inch DuMont television set, mesmerized by everything.”
That happened to be just after the time when the DuMont network went out of business. Two years later, its TV-manufacturing would do the same.
But at first, this had a key role, alongside NBC, as the first networks:
DuMont set up headquarters in a former department store in Manhattan, then leased a theater for shows. Early efforts included:
— The first network soap opera. “Faraway Hill” ran for 12 episodes in 1946.
— One of the first situation comedies. “Mary Kay and Johnny” was written by Johnny Stearns, who starred with his wife. It debuted in 1947 on DuMont, then moved to NBC, to CBS and back to NBC.
— “The Morey Amsterdam Show,” which started on CBS, then moved to DuMont in ‘49. It was set in a fictional nightclub and its only three regulars went on to bigger things – Amsterdam on “The Dick Van Dyke Show” … Art Carney (who played a doorman and waiter) as Gleason’s sidekick … and Jacqueline Susann (who played the gorgeous cigarette girl) as author of “Valley of the Dolls.”
— “Cavalcade of Stars.” It arrived in 1949, as a standard variety show with a comedian as host. First was Jack Carter, then Jerry Lester … and then Gleason, with his rich array of characters. (Even the classic “Honeymooners” began there.) Gleason would stay on the show for two seasons. Then, like Thomas, he jumped to CBS and saw his show reach No. 2 in the ratings.
— Other key people. Kovacs had a short-lived show. Bishop Fulton J. Sheen gave a weekly talk, winning the Emmy for best TV personality. Ted Mack had “The Original Amateur Hour,” an early ratings success that then jumped to other networks..
— Early nudges toward diversity. There were shows whose stars were Black (Hazel Scott), Jewish (Gertrude Berg) and Asian (Anna May Wong).
— And “Captain Video and His Video Rangers,” a micro-budget show that had a new episode (30 minutes for four years, 15 for two) each weekday.
“Captain Video” sounds like a trifle, but it was more.
You can take my word for it. (The scenes with Tobor the robot were a big hit in Clintonville.) Or you can take the word of Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh; in their guide to primetime TV (Ballantine, 2007), they wrote:
“’Captain Video’ was, in all, a splendid example of innovative programming that was perfect for the TV medium. Had DuMont been able to devise more such breakthroughs, the network might have survived longer than it did. As it was, ‘Captain Video and His Video Rangers’ lasted until the network itself crumbled away in 1955.”
But why did it crumble?
Many of its other shows never came close to the Gleason/”Captain Video” level of entertainment. DuMont was the home of “Fashions on Parade,” “Photographic Horizons,” “Fishing and Hunting Club,” “Visit With the Armed Forces,” “Georgetown University Forum,” “Author Meets the Critics” and lots of boxing.
Alongside its ambitions, the network had built-in limitations.
Its competitors sprang from radio. They used radio stars (Jack Benny, Arthur Godfrey, Lucille Ball, Red Skelton, Ozzie & Harriet) and shows (“Our Miss Brooks,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Aldrich Family,” “Truth or Consequences” and many more). They could promote themselves on radio … and use radio profits to ease the start-up costs of TV.
DuMont had none of that. It also had other limits.
Strapped for cash, it had taken on the Paramount movie studio as a minority partner. Paramount didn’t provide any shows; it also started stations in Los Angeles and Chicago… rarely using any DuMont programs.
At first, the “network” owned only two stations, in New York and Washington. It added a strong one in Pittsburgh and prepared to get ones in Cleveland and Cincinnati; then …
The Federal Communications Commission said no; counting those two Paramount stations, DuMont already had its limit of five owned stations.
So it limped along with three real owned ones and some scattered affiliates – some of them UHF stations, at a time when most TV sets only got VHF.
(There were also “secondary affiliates” — stations that could grab a few DuMont shows. That left one important benefit to mankind: “Captain Video” ran at 7 p.m., 6 Central, weekdays, a time when CBS and NBC weren’t on the air. Thus, kids in Clintonville could savor Tobor the robot.)
The final DuMont broadcast (a boxing match) was aired just before the 1955 fall season began. TV was down to three networks, and would stay there – despite occasional pushes – for decades.
And the stations DuMont owned? The New York and Washington ones became part of Metromedia, a thriving station group that created successful shows – Merv Griffin, “Wonderama,” etc. — for syndication.
In 1985, the entire group was sold; the next year, that became the core of the Fox network. TV finally had a fourth network that would last.