I don't want to say that the above ad is rare because, honestly, I just don't know. All I can say is that of the hundreds of vintage TV Guides I have looked through, I have not seen this type of ad except in one Guide I own. It certainly is different from other ads for WCBS-TV's THE LATE SHOW. This particular ad is from 8/25/69 but I can tell you that this type of ad appears in TV Guide for each night, Monday through Friday of that week touting a different film each night as you might guess. What is unusual to me about it is that it advertises a movie after that nights airing of THE MERV GRIFFIN show and not only shows THE LATE SHOW'S starting time as 1:10AM but actually refers to it as THE LATE SHOW and not THE LATE, LATE SHOW as it's starting time is around the time WCBS's second movie would start. I'm probably making too big a deal out of it and they probably advertised like this early on when MERV started but this is the only Guide I have seen this type of ad in. If anyone has any concrete information on this, please let me know.
The switchover took place on Aug. 18, 1969. It was after that point that WCBS's 11:30 weekend "Late Show" was followed by "The Late Show II," rather than "The Late Late Show." I think WCBS did this the first few weeks Merv was on, to reassure viewers that "The Late Show" did not end on weeknights, just moved up in time.
ReplyDeleteIt was the end of 11:30 weeknight "Late Show" airings in August 1969 that prompted WOR-TV to move its late-night movie show (known since April as "The 11:00 Movie," and for years before that "The Flick") to 11:30 and rechristen it "The Late Movie." (This was a particular trait of WOR-TV from time to time. About a year after WNBC-TV pulled the plug on "Movie 4," WOR came up with the "Movie 9" moniker for its early-afternoon showcase; and a year after the end of WABC-TV's "4:30 Movie," WOR moved "The 4 O'Clock Movie" up a half-hour and renamed it - what else? - "The 4:30 Movie.")
I kind of had a feeling that is what happened after I thought about it a little more. I also had a feeling that WCBS advertised like this for a bit after MERV made his debut. I had just not come across an ad like this before.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info on the WOR maneuverings. Very interesting indeed.
The reason for 1:10 AM starting time was that The Merv Griffin was followed by a Ten min news cast.
ReplyDeleteRead by CBS network staff announcers including Bill Martin, Don Robertson, Stuart Metz, Pat Connell, Lee Jordan, and others I can't think of at this time who held down that time shift.
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