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- The following is the 1963–64 network television schedule for the three major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1963 through August 1964. The schedule is followed by a of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1962–63 season. ABC began its new fall schedule a week early, beating CBS and NBC out of the starting gate. New series debuting this week included sci-fi anthology The Outer Limits, police/lawyer series Arrest and Trial, drama The Fugitive, and game show 100 Grand. ABC also completely revamped its Friday night schedule, with three new series: detective show Burke's Law, sitcom The Farmer's Daughter, and boxing program The Fight of the Week. Fight would mark the end of boxing on network television. Weekly boxing telecasts had debuted on network TV in 1940 and had enjoyed a run on all networks at various times, but after September 11, 1964, weekly primetime boxing series would disappear entirely from network television. ABC introduced two variety hours that fall with The Jimmy Dean Show and the short lived The Jerry Lewis Show. CBS's success with rural comedies The Andy Griffith Show and The Beverly Hillbillies had convinced the network that rural sitcoms would continue to be popular. As a result, CBS president James Aubrey added what some critics described as an "endless procession of country clones [of] the wildly successful Beverly Hillbillies" to the network's schedule. Petticoat Junction, from the same producers of Hillbillies, debuted on September 24. CBS also brought two show business veterans to weekly variety television that year with Judy Garland and Danny Kaye. Westerns continued to be popular on television, and all three networks scheduled several Western series. NBC, in particular, retained a number of Westerns on its fall 1963 schedule: two returning series The Virginian and Bonanza, and new series Temple Houston, and . NBC's Western-heavy schedule would pay off, as Bonanza again became the second highest-rated TV series in the Nielsen ratings that year; The Virginian reached #17. CBS's Gunsmoke reached #20. On July 17, 1963, NBC removed The Robert Taylor Show from the lineup due to conflicts between the producers and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. All times are Eastern and Pacific. New fall series are highlighted in bold. Each of the 30 highest-rated shows is listed with its rank and rating as determined by Nielsen Media Research. This network TV season is also notable for being the season when the JFK Assassination took place on Friday, November 22, 1963. Many programs that were originally scheduled to air on that weekend on all three networks (and on the day of the assassination) on prime time had to be pushed back to the following weekend due to all three networks doing news coverage that would last until November 26. This became a landmark TV season when The Beatles made their American debut on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. An estimated 73 million people tuned in to watch the Fab Four perform on the show, which made it one of the highest rated TV episodes in the history of prime time television. Yellow indicates the top 10 programs for the season. Cyan indicates the top 20 programs for the season. Magenta indicates the top 30 programs for the season. (en)
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