New NBC Western series debuting in the 1957–58 season included Wagon Train, The Restless Gun, and The Californians (though one NBC executive insisted The Californians is not a Western but a drama set in California in the 1850s).
NBC, late to the Western format, also began plugging Westerns into its fall schedule. ABC aired Maverick one half-hour prior to the Allen and Sullivan programs the strategy was designed to "hook the audience before it fell into its usual viewing habits". 45 on Fridays, and Maverick on Sundays.ĪBC, third in the network Nielsen ratings, placed its new Western Maverick in a difficult time slot: Sunday night against two hit series: The Steve Allen Show on NBC, and The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS. In addition to several returning Westerns which the network retained on its fall 1957 schedule, ABC's new western series included Sugarfoot and Broken Arrow on Tuesday nights, Tombstone Territory on Wednesdays, Colt. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1956–57 season.Īs in previous seasons, both CBS and ABC continued to add Westerns to their schedule, filling prime time with as many "oaters" (as they were derisively called) as possible. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1957 through March 1958. The following is the 1957–58 network television schedule for the four major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. List of American television programs currently in production.