The Rural Purge
Say goodbye to Mayberry, Green Acres and Beverly Hillbillies
Industry News Item
The Showtime network will soon be no more, or at least the name. As announced earlier this year, the channel is being rebranded as “Paramount+ with Showtime” to reflect the same branding on the streaming side of the house, and ending a 47-year run with the Showtime branding. Initially set up as a premium cable channel* and competition to HBO, culturally Showtime never seemed to rise quite to the level of its main competitor. Not for lack of trying - several Showtime series were big popular hits, with more recent shows such as Dexter (2006-13), Shameless (2011-21) and Yellowjackets (2021-present), but also genre programming in the 90s such as the revival of The Outer Limits (1995-2000), Poltergeist: The Legacy (1996-99), and the popular Stargate: SG-1 (1997-2007) the latter two eventually leaving Showtime for The Sci-Fi Channel.
While I understand the desire for greater brand synergy on Paramount’s part, I will say that the rename could create some confusion. Between the company’s name of Paramount, there will be a linear network and a streaming service that have the same name, and there’s also the linear Paramount Network, not to mention Paramount Studios. That’s a lot of mountains for consumers to think about when they are trying to see which one has Star Trek: Strange New Worlds or the latest Yellowstone spinoff. We’ll see how it goes starting in January.
Cue The Purge Sirens
Television history has several moments that serve as the inflection point for sweeping change in the industry, moments with impact far greater than the inciting event itself. Some of these transitional moments include technical achievements such as the introduction of color or the transition from SD to HD and from square 4x3 aspect televisions to rectangular 16x9 aspect televisions. Some of those are driven by business decisions and sensing an opportunity in the market, such as the addition of FOX to the Big Three broadcast networks in the 1980s, the launch of CNN as the first network fully dedicated to news, and the launch of HBO in the 1970s. Then there are decisions made because a small group of executives or in some cases, one person, wants to make a change**. One of these moments occurred in the early 1970s and is known as the “rural purge”.
Throughout the late 1950s and through the 1960s much of the programming on the three broadcast networks could be categorized as being aimed at a rural audience, with characters, locations, and situations that presented a fictionalized view of life in rural America and the American South specifically. The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Hee Haw, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction are all examples of this kind of programming, and many of these shows proved to be very popular. They got good ratings, especially with rural and older viewers which somewhat ironically proved to be a main catalyst for the purge.
American society underwent a lot of change and upheaval during the 1960s and television wasn’t shielded from that change; just compare American popular culture at the start of the decade to the end, a LOT had happened. Towards the end of the 60s industry research had found that younger people, a demographic coveted by advertisers, wasn’t very interested in the kinds of television shows that their parents were. There was a war going on in Vietnam but it was never mentioned in shows featuring the military such as Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C (1964-69) or I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70). The civil rights movement and footage broadcast on nightly newscasts stood in stark contrast to the idyllic visions of small Southern towns seen in Green Acres or Andy Griffith. Most of all, there were many more young people living in cities and suburbs and that’s who advertisers (and therefore, broadcast networks) wanted to target.
While the cancellations associated with the rural purge occurred over a number of years, it’s the wave of cancellations occurring after the 1970-71 television season that is seen as the epicenter of the purge. Over at CBS, the network with the largest number of rural-centric programming, the cancellations were at the direction of new CBS president Robert Wood. Upon his arrival, he replaced longtime VP of programming Michael Dann*** with Fred Silverman, and it was Silverman who took an axe to the shows and green lighting a slate of shows for the 1971-72 season squarely aimed at younger urban audiences. In 1970 Petticoat Junction was cancelled and its time-slot replacement was The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77) which became a huge hit.
CBS shows cancelled in 1971 included Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, Mayberry R.F.D (spinoff/continuation of The Andy Griffith Show), and even Lassie couldn’t escape the purge, ending after a 17(!) year run. Shows that replaced it included Funny Face (1972), The New Dick Van Dyke Show (1971-74), The Don Rickles Show (1972), and a little show called All in the Family (1971-79). And while CBS also had some remaining dramas and variety shows such as Gunsmoke (1955-75), The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (1969-72) and The Jerry Reed When You’re Hot You’re Hot Hour (1972), those weren’t long for peoples’ TV sets either, being cancelled in the next few years.
Led by All in the Family, the rural purge ushered in a new wave of series that not only were focused on younger, urban audiences, but also set up fictional worlds that more closely mirrored contemporary 1970s American society. Sitcoms could mix in some dramatic moments and storylines alongside the laughter, characters talked about timely social issues such as race relations, abortion, the Vietnam war and corruption of government institutions. Shows that premiered in response to the purge such as All in the Family and M*A*S*H (1972-83) became cultural touchstones, the latter show achieving and still holding the record as having the most-watched broadcasted scripted episode of all time, its series finale in 1983. Only ten Super Bowls, Nixon’s resignation and the Apollo 11 moon landing were watched by more Americans live.
The effects of the rural purge had a long-lasting impact on broadcast television, especially in sitcoms where for decades now the norm has been for the situational setting to be an urban one (see: Seinfeld, Friends, Cheers, The Big Bang Theory, The Office, et al), as well as the growth of the single camera comedy and subsequent removal of laugh tracks for sitcoms not filmed in front of audiences. But it’s not like rural-themed or rural-targeted programming disappeared completely; just look at the popularity of Yellowstone today, or the long-running family dramas The Waltons (1972-81) and Little House on the Prairie (1974-83), but it’s nothing compared to the heyday of the television Western and the slew of rural-aimed and set sitcoms of the 1960s. Few in the summer of 1971 could have predicted the monumental shift in the television programming landscape that would occur when television executives decided to put their highly rated rural shows out to pasture.
Go Watch This!
M*A*S*H (1972-83) - Growing up in the 80s and 90s I will always associate this show with it being about time to go to sleep, since it was syndicated and played in the late evenings each weekday locally. Earlier seasons have laugh tracks which was forced on the show by the network, fortunately as the show grew in popularity the laugh track got the boot to the show’s benefit. Available on Hulu
The Beverly Hillbillies (1993) - The film adaptation of the long running sitcom was the last film I saw in theaters with my grandparents; after this they would just watch newer movies when they came out on VHS or were on TV. I haven’t seen it in years but Jim Varney of Ernest fame did an excellent job as family patriarch Jed Clampett. Not available on any subscription streaming services or digital storefronts, and the DVD is out of print but is available on eBay and Amazon
Thanks for reading!
*Fun fact: Showtime was one of the first cable networks to broadcast in HD, with Star Trek: Insurrection being the first title to do so
**Not exactly having industry-wide ramifications, but one of the first examples that was brought to mind of one person making impactful decisions was Ted Turner’s idea to colorize black-and-white movies for broadcast on his networks, a decision that rightfully received derision and pushback from the creatives of the entertainment industry
***Apparently Dann didn’t care for the content of these shows personally but refused to cancel them due to their popularity and high ratings, a decision that ultimately led to his ouster