Jan. 7, 1957|
|Jan. 21, 1957|
|Feb. 4, 1957|
|Feb. 18, 1957|
|March 4, 1957|
|March 18, 1957|
Coupled with poor ratings, the Nat King Cole Show suffered from lack of a consistent national sponsor. Occasionally the quarter-hour telecast was bankrolled by Arrid deodorant and/or Rise shaving cream. More often than not, the program was sustained by NBC. Cole seemed painfully aware of his tenuous predicament. The words with which he ended the program of February 11, 1957 were less than confident. With his theme song playing in the background, Cole told his viewers: "Well, I guess folks, that's about it for tonight. We expect to be around this same time next week—same station—same show, we hope. Until then, see you later."
Despite poor ratings and a sporadic pattern of sponsorship, NBC expanded The Nat King Cole Show to thirty minutes, raised its operating budget, and placed the program in prime time competition as a summer experiment. The revamped show premiered on Tuesday, July 2, at 10 P.M. (EST). It was suicidal scheduling. Opposite it was a formidable CBS rival, the formidable quiz show, The $64,000 Question—a glitzy give-away show and the fourth-ranking program during the 1956-57 season.
Cole and his friends seemed determined to save the series by showing its potential to win over viewers. More important, the show became a battlefield in the civil rights movement. To rescue this most dignified African American program in TV history, some of the biggest talents in show business volunteered to appear on Cole’s showcase for the union-approved minimum wage. Men and women whose energies commanded TV salaries in five figures now appeared with Cole for a few hundred dollars. Among them were Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Martin, Julius LaRosa, Peggy Lee, the King Sisters, Sammy Davis, Jr., Pearl Bailey, Robert Mitchum, Frankie Laine, and Mel Torme.
With a new time and an extended format, ratings of The Nat King Cole Show improved. When Harry Belafonte was a guest on the program of August 6, the show came within three Trendex rating points of its CBS rival. Cole later noted that his summer program was the top-rated show in New York City, and that it was eighth in the Los Angeles area."
The insurmountable problem for Cole, however, was his failure to attract a national sponsor. Despite improved popularity, with no advertiser willing to buy the series, NBC was compelled to sell the time slot to the Singer Sewing Machine Company for The Californians, an adult western which premiered in the fall.
In defense of NBC, the network tried to salvage the program. It had sustained the series throughout the summer, and beginning September 17, it carried the half-hour Nat King Cole Show on Tuesday evenings at 7:30 P.M. (EST). Now the show was offered as a cooperatively sponsored feature. By this arrangement a local business, or a national advertiser wanting only single-market exposure, could purchase the show in a given city. Thus, Regal beer sponsored the program in New Orleans; Coca-Cola paid for it in Houston; in San Francisco its underwriter was Italian Swiss Colony wine; Rheingold beer handled it in Hartford and New York City; and in Los Angeles it had two sponsors, Gallo wine and Colgate toothpaste. Still, the program attracted only thirty sponsors nationwide.
As far as the network was concerned, the cooperative arrangement was not as profitable as having a single national underwriter. During the summer NBC had sustained the series in seventy-six cities. With a low number of co-op advertisers in the fall, the network demanded that the show be rescheduled in January to a less expensive time slot—Saturdays at 7:00 P.M. This move, however, was unacceptable to Cole. Given the day and time (6:00 P.M. in the Midwest and 5:00 P.M. in some areas), a time when "most people are eating or shopping," Cole accepted the cancellation of his series. The last telecast of The Nat King Cole Show was on December 17, 1957.
Nat Cole’s was not a failure. For fifty-nine consecutive weeks it appeared on NBC. During that span, the network acted responsibly toward the sin