Of the new prime-time TV programs premiering this fall on the six networks, 15 are dramas, 16 are comedies and five (only five?) are “reality” shows. None of them will be anything like “Garroway at Large,” the seminal 1949-51 variety show produced in Chicago-sometimes from the roof of the NBC studio building. Garroway’s low-key, low-budget but never lowbrow style epitomized the “Chicago School” of TV before he was lured to New York to host “Today.” The presumed-dead variety genre was revived this summer in “The Wayne Brady Show,” whose respectable ratings earned it a return to ABC in January.
– Percentage of new prime-time shows that survive the season: 20.
– Size of TV’s first mass audience, for the 1947 World Series: 3.9 million. Percentage of those viewers who watched in a bar: 89.
– First TV theme song to hit the top 60 on the Billboard pop singles chart: “Dragnet,” which reached No. 3 in 1953.
— Sources: Tribune files, the Museum of Broadcast Communications, and the Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh.
