While I like to reminisce about going to the movies when I was a kid, the fact is, most of the movies I saw when I was young, I saw on TV. In the 60's 70's and 80's all the networks devoted big chunks of scheduling time to movies. The three networks ABC, NBC and CBS all scheduled movie nights with big Hollywood films. Television was the only way you could see a movie if you didn't see it in the theatre. Home video didn't exist. Because of this movies were big events on TV, with big ratings and the networks battled to get broadcast rights to films. Each fall the Season Premier issue of TV Guide would tell you what movies the networks would be showing and you would wait in anticipation for them to be broadcast. ABC always showed the best films, especially since they had the rights to broadcast the Bond movies. I can remember watching Rosemary's Baby, From Russia With Love, The Anderson Tapes, West Side Story and The Ten Commandments all on network television.
With the advent of home video and the easy access to movies, the ratings for such broadcast declined and by the late 90's the networks had stopped adding movies to their prime time schedules.
Some movie broadcast were really big events. Any kid growing up in the 60's and 70's would remember the annual broadcast of The Wizard Of Oz. From 1959 to 1998 the movie was shown annually on network television. You would eagerly anticipate the movie and watch it year after year. It didn't play in theatres and wasn't available anywhere else, so this was your only chance to see it. If you missed it you had to wait till next year.
One of my favorite movie events was the first time I saw Ben-Hur. On Sunday, February 14, 1971 CBS cancelled their entire schedule for the premiere showing of the movie. With commercials the broadcast was 5hours and ran from 7 PM to midnight and I was allowed to stay up for all of it.
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