FLASHBACK: CBS Slipping From Daytime Lead, Part 1 1972

C.B.S. Slipping From Long Daytime TV Lead

By George Gent
New York Times
January 21, 1972

Daytime television is a woman's world of exquisitely prolonged suffering, greed, hate, abortions, betrayals and young and middle-aged love. It is a world with a seemingly endless fascination for some 50 million viewers who together make up a market of more than $300-million annually for which the three major networks battle tirelessly. For 17 years, the Columbia Broadcasting System has reigned supreme over that world without serious challenge. Until now.

The challenge, from the National Broadcasting Company and American Broadcasting Company, has sparked a frantic scramble at all three networks to further improve their ratings posture and has set off another round of the TV industry's favorite indoor parlor games - executive musical chairs.

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The threat to C.B.S was best explained by Oscar Katz, the networks vice president of programs on the East Coast and a veteran daytime programmer.

"Daytime," he said, "provides the cream that allows us to put on all those nighttime goodies."

Economy Reeling

With TV's economy already reeling from the loss of cigarette advertising, and the general economic pinch, the loss to C.B.S., which accounted for about 50 percent of the market, of what it had come to consider its private gold reserve, was ground enough for panic.

Nevertheless, the network refuses to concede defeat and has taken steps it hopes will stern the slide. A major one was the hiring away of its foremost antagonist - B. Donald (Bud) Grant, the National Broadcasting Company's director of daytime programming on the East coast.

During the preparation of this article, Mr. Grant was N.B.C.'s spokesman. In less than two weeks he had joined C.B.S. as its new vice president of daytime programming, replacing Paul Rauch, who had left a month earlier.

In explanation, C.B.S.'s Oscar Katz said: "We hired Bud Grant because we consider him the best available piece of manpower."

N.B.C. which had good reason to share C.B.S.'s high opinion of Mr. Grant, was understandably nettled at his leaving, while Mr. Grant's comment on the switch was: "I told you daytime television was highly competitive."

Executive Changes

In response, N.B.C. last week hired Claire L. Simpson, vice president of Young & Rubcam's radio and television division, as its new vice president of daytime programming.

Behind the executive changes, of course, is the decline in C.B.S.'s daytime fortunes, a decline that can be traced with clinical precision in the stark audience ratings provided by the A.C. Nielsen Company. While C.B.S. still holds a slight lead, all three networks have been neck-to-neck in recent weeks. Eevn more significantly, C.B.S.'s lead to date over N.B.C. is only 3 percent compared with last year's 22 percent, while it leads A.B.C. by only 7 percent compared with 43 percent a year ago.

How did it happen? Each network has it's own explanation and each has a certain validity.

Check back later for Part 2.