August 5, 1957…”American Bandstand” Debuts On ABC

On this date in 1957, American Bandstand debuted on the ABC Television Network. Many tell of Dick Clark going to ABC with the show, but…according to Leonard Goldenson, it didn’t happen that way. Mr. Goldenson is the titan that built the network into the one we know today, and this narrative is based on his book, “Beating The Odds”.

In a nutshell, Goldenson’s friend and ABC’s top researcher, Ollie Treyz was responsible for bringing the show to the network. With an insatiable appetite for information, Ollie was reading the Philadelphia rating books and noticed a WFIL show called “Bandstand” had a consistent 15 or 16 rating, which was huge. Treyz was curious and called the man who had brought him to ABC in 1948…that was Roger Clipp who now managed ABC affiliate WFIL for Walter Annenberg.

Clipp sent a kinescope to Treyz, who showed it to his teenage daughter and her friends, who loved it. Treyz played it cool and told Clipp that although they didn’t think it would work, they would like to try it out on the network. They made a deal for $1500 per week for WFIL to produce the show, and Clark got a few spots a week for himself to sell. ABC sold the national spots for $1500 per minute.

At the time, ABC had a fairly competitive prime time, but not much more, which made it hard for them to gain new affiliates. Their afternoons were mostly soap operas and some game shows, but nothing special, with “Afternoon Film Festival” airing daily from 3-5. In the fall of 1955, ratings got a boost with the addition of the “Mickey Mouse Club”. It debuted as a one hour daily show that aired from 5-6. After the first 13 weeks, the MMC went to the half hour format and ran from 5-5:30 from then on.

ABC needed a game changer, and that’s what they got! It only took a few weeks for word to spread, and by Thanksgiving, “American Bandstand” was a hit! In the beginning, the local show, was 2 hours, but when it went to ABC it went to 90 minutes and then 60. In the summer of ’57, when it debuted, ABC ran the show from 3:30-5, and it was followed by “The Mickey Mouse Club” from 5-5:30.

13 weeks later, ABC decided to take advantage of thier new audience, and sandwiched the Johnny Carson hosted “Do You Trust Your Wife” into AB, with AB starting at 3 and DYTYW inserted from 3:30-4, followed by another hour of AB from 4-5. From 5-5:30, ABC rotated daily, “The Buccaneers”, “Adventures of Sir Lancelot”, “Superman”, “Woody Woodpecker” and “The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok”, followed by “The Mickey Mouse Club” from 5:30 -6.

Of course, all these times are Eastern, which begs the question, how did they handle the west coast feed? Well, fortunately, by this time, ABC had a few of the new Ampex VR 1000 video tape machines in operation. The machines debuted in April of ’56, but it took a while to put them into production and get them delivered, and the networks got the first ones. I think CBS and NBC got 6, and ABC got 4 in the spring/summer of ’57.

Just two years earlier, the Dumont Network had gone dark making ABC the new third network, but NBC and CBS were light years ahead in programs and schedules. Bandstand and Mickey Mouse helped bridge some of that gap. The show ran for 30 years on ABC, first on weekday afternoons and later, on weekends. I would rate it a 10, how about you? Got a favorite Bandstand moment? Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

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