Show Business: Colonel Bogey’s March

One night last week 60 million Americans, according to the Arbitron Ratings, tuned in ABC to watch a nine-year-old movie. True, it was a movie of presold quality—The Bridge on the River Kwai—but there was no mistaking the meaning of it all: when it comes to television entertainment, movies are better than everything.

That fact was never so clear as it is this season. Though the three major networks have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on new programming, virtually none of the money has been worth a dial’s twiddle, while at the same time five different “night-at-the-movie” slots on the networks have stayed securely tucked into the Top 15 most popular programs.

Thus, the pendulum has swung. Apart from some first-rate television journalism, the networks have been thoroughly overtaken by Hollywood, which, ironically, nearly went bankrupt when TV started. Last week ABC and CBS together agreed to pay $92 million for 110 movies from 20th Century-Fox, Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Top (and record) payout was ABC’s $5,000,-000 for two showings in 1971 of the Burton-Taylor film Cleopatra. 20th Century-Fox, after fretting over the most costly ($31 million) production in movie history, can now thank TV for putting Cleo into the black.