The Broadcast Log: NBC Monday Night at the Movies, 1969–70

"The following is brought to you in living color on NBC"

1969–70: The fall of 1969 was included a TV milestone: 1,000 broadcasts of post-1948 movies. The achievement took the Big Three a mere 8 years. Despite mixed results overall, NBC stuck with its three nights of movies of Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday. To keep the number of new titles low, Monday included semi-regular Bob Hope specials and Tuesday had First Tuesdays once a month while Saturday repeated previous seasons' movies. A few years ago, that could've been an expensive solution, but now the price of Hollywood movies was dropping. In three years, the cost had dropped 25%. The market had become too flooded. This fall, NBC's asking price for 1-minute of advertising was $53,000 on Monday and Tuesday and $60,000 on Saturday.

On Monday: Filling in for the movies about once a month in the fall and occasionally in the winter and spring was a Bob Hope special followed by another high-profile entertainer: Flip Wilson, Mitzi Gaynor, Tennessee Ernie Ford, the Smothers Brothers, or Bing Crosby. They consistently brought in ratings. NBC also aired some movie repeats later in the season.

Like previous years, the new movies, comprised of 20 titles, are predominantly from Universal (11) and United Artists (4) libraries. The Universal titles include 4 made for TV projects, including one pilot, one sequel, and one crime drama that has some historical intrigue because it features a before-he-was-famous Tom Selleck. Another TV movie came from MGM. Given the popular competition was sitcoms, only a small handful of movies are comedies.

The Broadcast Log: NBC Monday Night at the Movies, 1968–69

"The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC"

1968–69: The massive success of the '67–'68 season, alongside a solid stockpile of TV movies and plans for a monthly long-form news series, prompted NBC to add a third movie night. After 4 seasons away, the movies were back on Monday. Through the three evenings, NBC would insert more occasional specials giving the movies off-weeks. Nevertheless, the number of good, recognizable movies titles continued to thin, and while successful in filling time and satisfying its audiences, the ratings for its movies declined. However, NBC was putting a bigger target on young people, which led to higher ad rates. In that sense, the nights were successful.

On Monday, freshman The Danny Thomas Show and three-season drama I Spy was axed to make way for the return of Monday Night at the Movies. Of the 24 movies, Universal supplied 14 of them, including 4 made for TV titles. NBC's other big movie supplier, United Artists, supplied 6. An MGM pilot movie would go to series for next fall.

Since the popular competition was comedy shows, many Monday movies are dramas, but there are some comedies in the mix, including musical comedies. The night has several westerns, too, which might've been NBC's attempt to stamp out the westerns in ABC's Monday lineup. This is also NBC's first foray into the "two-night movie event." Both Exodus and El Cid were split into two nights.

The Broadcast Log: NBC's Monday Night at the Movies, 1963–64

"The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC"

In March 1964, NBC announced it had reached a deal with MGM to supply movies alongside the continuing deal with 20th Century Fox. It was necessary since the network was keeping movies on two nights.

With MGM in the mix, the movie selection on Monday was more diverse than the short first season, which was nearly all adventure movies. The number of high-profile Fox titles continued to diminish as MGM gave the lineup some new life. The season led off with the romance Love in the Afternoon and other genres included some musicals, comedies, and dramas, though usually lighter fare. The first MGM movie on Monday was Executive Suite on 30 Sep, two days after the first new MGM movie on NBC (The Journey). Some MGM movies were also edited.

The Broadcast Log: NBC's Monday Night at the Movies, 1962–63

"The following program is brought to you in living color on NBC."

NBC's Saturday Night at the Movies was successful enough to warrant a second night on the schedule, filling in a programming hole for any fall duds the following season. Monday was the winner — er, loser? — where two freshmen dramas failed to bring in an audience. In the two seasons prior, seven new shows had come and gone, alongside four returnees that died upon their moves to Monday. With the cancellation of It's a Man's World and Saints and Sinners and migrating The Price Is Right to Friday, NBC presented another movie night — and CBS' daytime host Art Linkletter returned to NBC primetime for a Candid Camera ripoff.

Most, but not all, the Monday movies were adventure-ish films, which ran to counter CBS' always popular Monday night lineup (Lucy, Danny, and Andy). The new lineup, which premiered Feb. 4, consisted of 16 movies, all but two were in color. I assume Art Linkletter was in color because David Brinkley's Journal was in color. The competition on both CBS and ABC was black and white.