Catacombs International GuideSpace 1999 In The USA
Catacombs International GuideThe United States of America represents over half the world television market: for an expensive series like Space: 1999 success in this market was essential. American input was vital in order to sell what the U.S. television stations might see as a foreign import with no home interest. American stars such as the Landaus were the main attraction; American writers such as George Bellack and Art Wallace, and an American director like Lee H. Katzin were required to give the series an American perspective. The president of ITC New York, Abe Mandell, was involved from the beginning in casting, script approval and previewing episodes. For the second series, American writer and producer Fred Freiberger was employed to ensure an American viewpoint.
Space: 1999 was designed to appear on one of the three big American networks, ABC, CBS and NBC. Network executives were approached and agreed to buy the series if American stars, directors and writers were used, especially with Martin Landau and Barbara Bain heading the cast. But the extended production schedule meant that as the series neared completion, those network executives had moved on. The networks were no longer interested in Abe Mandell's overtures. The series was thus denied the simplicity of a network contract, with a single sales promotion and a nationwide broadcast. The lack of interest on the part of the networks may have had several reasons. Politics was one: they would have been unwilling to take such a prestigious independent production, particularly when it wasn't even American, in preference to their own, network produced, programming. An ITC spokesman explained to a newspaper "It's all shot in England, far out of reach, and they didn't like that idea. Besides, they were afraid of Bain and Landau because of all the bad publicity when they left Paramount [after Mission Impossible]" Science fiction was also an unproven genre on television (the only popular series had been Star Trek - a success it only earned in repeats), and at the cinema (Star Wars and the flood of science fiction films were not to arrive until 1977).
The series was to premiere in the "fall" (autumn) of 1975. This is the most important time of the television calendar, when many major new series are introduced in the hope that they will retain audiences through the winter peak viewing months. Without network promotion, prospects looked grim. But the structure of the networks allowed an alternative market for independent programming. The three national networks only owned five local stations apiece, out of some seven hundred commercial television stations scattered through all the cities of the U.S. Most of these independent stations were "affiliated" to one of the networks: they were licensed to broadcast the programming of the network. The rest of their programming was made up with "syndicated" material: repeats of former network productions or first run independent shows. Network programmes dominated the peak viewing hours of 7 to 11 in the evening because they were expected to attract the largest audiences (counted as "ratings") and thus earn the most advertising revenue. A "Peak Time Access Rule" legally limited the stations to showing a maximum of three hours of network programming between those times. Inexpensive filler programming usually made up the difference, but adventurous stations could "pre-empt" the network shows with other material if they thought it would earn larger audiences (a risky venture; offended networks could remove the station's affiliation).
Space: 1999 had to be syndicated to these local stations, but its high cost ($18000 for the package; $750 per episode, for 24 episodes with 28 repeats) could only be covered by the advertising revenues of the peak period of the evening, 7.30 to 8 pm. Network programming would have to be pre-empted at this time. So ITC mounted a massive campaign directed at every station, in order to create what they boasted would form their own Space: 1999 network. Mandell claimed they launched the most intensive marketing and merchandising campaign ever seen in the history of our business
. A huge 19 inch (48 cm) square promotional brochure was followed by ITC salesmen with a print of Breakaway and an even more massive and lavish brochure.
Special preview screenings were held for the press or actually broadcast to test reactions. The first screening was to an industry event in March 1975 in Atlanta. Screenings were arranged in planetariums, including the Miami planetarium (against the night sky of September 13th, 1999), and the Case Western Reserve University Planetarium in Cleveland, Ohio on September 13th, 1975. The Landaus toured U.S. cities answering questions after screenings, and were estimated to have given eighty-nine interviews with newspapers and magazines. They also completed "personal promos" for the stations, short announcements to advertise the series, station and the transmission day and time.
The promotional campaign wasn't as successful as it could have been, particularly with the press. Martin Landau remembers finding out ITC had not even contacted editors of TV Guide in major cities; he phoned them himself to try to win the show some coverage.
KHJ in Los Angeles launched the series on Saturday August 30th 1975 at 7pm, announcing Breakaway in a huge one page ad in the Los Angeles Times declaring "World Television Premiere" (although this was several weeks after Australia's Channel 7 premiere). Many stations also broadcast the series on Saturday or Sunday evenings. The screening order varied between stations, although there were similarities. One episode that probably should be early is Earthbound (featuring Simmonds, from Breakaway); it was shown 8th in New York, 14th in Los Angeles and 22nd in San Francisco. Repeat episodes were sometimes inserted into the runs between first-run episodes. Often episodes were brutally edited to fit the timeslot, cutting key scenes, although this was (and still is) common on American television.
Overall the marketing was a success. The series being sold in 155 cities of which 88 pre-empted network programming. 96% of the homes with television in the U.S. were able to see the series. The series made a strong impact in the ratings, although it failed in some local markets (usually when placed against the popular Lawrence Welk music show). The demographic breakdown of the ratings was especially strong, with the series consistently in the top slot for 18-49 year-old men and women. After some twelve weeks the popularity was to decline, though remaining respectable. Critical reaction was mixed, but the series was evidently a hit.
On December 15th, 1975, ATC issued a press release:
Sir Lew Grade announced that due to the extraordinary success of Space: 1999 in the United States and the rest of the world, we have decided to make another series of twenty four one hour episodes. The production will commence at Pinewood Studios in the middle of January 1976.
In a huge advertisement in Variety on Wednesday, January 28th 1976, ITC claimed that within twenty four hours of that announcement, renewals poured in from stations representing 42.7 per cent of total US TV homes, plus 68 countries around the world, including Canada's CBC network
. They also reprinted press praise and noted they had so far received 256,607 fan letters.
An ITC spokesman commented "Frankly, we're hoping for a network to pick up the show for a second season." ITC seems to have believed they could attract a network sale, especially with a new American producer, Fred Freiberger. Unfortunately they were wrong. Again, they were forced to sell the series to individual stations.
ITC began to distribute a "Network News" newsletter to the stations, advising of marketing campaigns and events and supplying promotional material. The first noted that 171 merchandising licenses had been granted, while the second reported that a videocassette of Breakaway had been included in a Bicentennial time capsule buried in Kauai, Hawaii, for the Tricentennial year of 2076. Nick Tate was invited to the Maryland University "August Party", a Star Trek fan convention, and arrived in late July to include it in a publicity tour through New York, Baltimore and Washington. Tate gave many local and national press, radio and television interviews, including one luncheon in New York for editors of science fiction magazines, preceded by a showing of The Metamorph. In August 1976 The Metamorph was first broadcast (in a slightly different edit to the final cut), against television coverage of the Republican party convention. Brian Johnson and Catherine Schell followed Tate on August 20th, doing press and TV talk shows in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia for a week. Transatlantic phone interviews were also being arranged with both of them plus Gerry Anderson, Freddie Freiberger and the Landaus. The Landaus and Catherine Schell did more "personal promos" for individual stations before the second series began in the fall of 1976. The last episodes were still being filmed in Britain.
Uptake of the series was much less than the first series, and stations scheduled it poorly and erratically in non-peak timeslots. Brutal cutting continued to be the norm.
The ratings this time were only luke warm and the stations were losing interest. An additional thirteen episodes were ready to start filming in summer 1977, but the cast and crew had dispersed and the market response was too weak to justify a third series. The series was cancelled, ironically as the science fiction boom began with Star Wars.
In the 1990s the series appeared again on the cable Sci-Fi Channel, sometimes ruthlessly edited.
City |
State |
Original Station (1975-7) |
Regular timeslot |
|---|---|---|---|
Los Angeles |
California |
Saturday 7pm starting 30 August 1975 |
|
San Francisco |
California |
Breakaway only: 10pm Friday 5 September 1975 |
|
Sacramento |
California |
KCRA-TV (Channel 3) |
Saturday 6:30pm starting 13 Sept 1975 |
Washington |
DC |
(Channel 7) |
Saturday 7pm starting 13 Sept 1975 |
Tampa |
Florida |
WEAR-TV |
Saturday 10pm |
Chicago |
Illinois |
WGN (Channel 9) |
Y1: Tues 7pm, then also Thurs 7pm |
Peoria |
Illinois |
WRAU (Channel 19) |
Thurs 7pm until mid Dec 75 |
Rock Island |
Illinois |
WHBF (Channel 4) |
Tues 7pm until mid Dec 75 |
Indianapolis |
Indiana |
WTHR-TV (Channel 13) |
Sunday 11am and Monday 12:15am |
New Orleans |
Louisiana |
WDSU, Channel 6 |
Saturday 3pm |
New Orleans |
Louisiana |
WGNO-TV |
(After WDSU run) |
Boston |
Massachusetts (Y1) |
WCVB-TV (Channel 5) |
Friday 7:30pm (?) |
Boston |
Massachusetts (Y2) |
WLVI-TV (Channel 56) |
Sunday 6pm |
Detroit |
Michigan |
WKBD-TV (Channel 50) |
Sunday 6:30pm |
New York City |
New York |
Saturday 7pm (Year 1) starting 20 September 1975 |
|
Cincinatti |
Ohio |
WXIX-TV (Channel 19) |
Saturday 6pm |
Cleveland |
Ohio |
WUAB-TV (Channel 43) |
Saturday 7pm starting 13 September 1975 |
Philadelphia |
Pennsylvannia |
WPHL-TV (Channel 17) |
Saturday 6pm |
Pittsburgh |
Pennsylvannia |
WPGH-TV (Channel 53) |
Sunday 6pm |
Providence |
Rhode Island |
WJAR-TV (Channel 10) |
Sunday 3pm |
Nashville |
Tennessee |
WNGE-TV (Channel 2) |
Saturday 10:30pm |
Milwaukee |
Wisconsin |
WVTV-TV (Channel 18) |
Sunday 5pm |
Copyright Martin Willey