# 1977–78 United States network television schedule
The 1977–78 United States network television schedule is the lineup of prime-time programs carried by ABC, CBS, and NBC, the three major English-language commercial broadcast networks, from September 1977 through August 1978[1](https://fantasy-television.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule). All times are Eastern and Pacific, with exceptions such as [Monday Night Football](https://www.edgepedia.org/monday-night-football)[1](https://fantasy-television.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule). PBS was also in operation that season, but each of its local stations set its own schedule[1](https://fantasy-television.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Networks covered | ABC, CBS, and NBC, the three major English-language commercial broadcast networks; PBS operated separately with locally set schedules[1](https://fantasy-television.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule) |
| Season span | Prime-time hours from September 1977 through August 1978[1](https://fantasy-television.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule) |
| Top-rated show | *Laverne & Shirley* (ABC), estimated audience 23,036,400 households[2](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/ratings/1977-1978-tv-show-ratings) |
| TV households | 72,900,000 households with television formed the ratings base for the season[2](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/ratings/1977-1978-tv-show-ratings) |
| Production cost | The 73 shows on the 1977–78 schedules cost the networks $601,215,000 in total[3](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Radio-Programming/Radio-Programming/Broadcast-Programming-3rd-Edition-Cliff-Greer1977.pdf) |
| Notable debut | *Soap*, Susan Harris's long-gestating soap-opera spoof, premiered on ABC's Tuesday lineup[5](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/schedules/1977-1978-tv-schedule) • [11](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/shows/soap) |
| Mid-season replacement | On CBS, *The Incredible Hulk* (#26, 19.9 rating) replaced *Switch* effective March 10, 1978[4](https://americantvdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule) |
## The fall 1977 prime-time grid
The fall lineup placed ABC's strongest comedy block on Tuesday, where *Happy Days*, *Laverne & Shirley*, *Three's Company*, *Soap*, and *Family* ran consecutively from 8:00 to 10:00 pm[5](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/schedules/1977-1978-tv-schedule). CBS answered on the same night with *The Fitzpatricks*, *M\*A\*S\*H*, *One Day at a Time*, and *Lou Grant*[5](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/schedules/1977-1978-tv-schedule).
| Day | ABC | CBS | NBC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries; The Six Million Dollar Man; The ABC Sunday Movie | 60 Minutes; Rhoda; On Our Own; All in the Family; Alice; Kojak | The Wonderful World of Disney; The Big Event |
| Monday | The San Pedro Beach Bums; ABC NFL Monday Night Football | Young Dan'l Boone; The Betty White Show; Maude; Rafferty | Little House on the Prairie; NBC Monday Night at the Movies |
| Tuesday | Happy Days; Laverne & Shirley; Three's Company; Soap; Family | The Fitzpatricks; M*A*S*H; One Day at a Time; Lou Grant | The Richard Pryor Show; Mulligan's Stew; Police Woman |
| Wednesday | Eight is Enough; Charlie's Angels; Baretta | Good Times; Busting Loose; The CBS Wednesday Movie | The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams; The Oregon Trail; Big Hawaii |
| Thursday | Welcome Back, Kotter; What's Happening!!; Barney Miller; Carter Country; The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour | The Waltons; Hawaii Five-O; Barnaby Jones | CHiPs; Man from Atlantis; Rosetti and Ryan |
| Friday | Donny & Marie; The ABC Friday Night Movie | The New Adventures of Wonder Woman; Logan's Run; Switch! | The Sanford Arms; Chico and the Man; The Rockford Files; Quincy, M.E. |
| Saturday | Fish; Operation Petticoat; Starsky and Hutch; The Love Boat | The Bob Newhart Show; We've Got Each Other; The Jeffersons; The Tony Randall Show; The Carol Burnett Show | The Bionic Woman; NBC Saturday Night at the Movies |
[5](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/schedules/1977-1978-tv-schedule)
On ABC, a debuting news brief aired all seven nights at 9:58 pm[1](https://fantasy-television.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule).
## Nielsen standings
ABC dominated the top of the 1977–78 ratings. *Laverne & Shirley* led all programs with an estimated audience of 23,036,400 households, followed by *Happy Days* at 22,890,600 and *Three's Company* at 20,630,700[2](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/ratings/1977-1978-tv-show-ratings). The top ten also included CBS's *60 Minutes*, *All in the Family*, *Alice*, *M\*A\*S\*H*, and *One Day at a Time*, NBC's *Little House on the Prairie*, and ABC's *Charlie's Angels*[2](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/ratings/1977-1978-tv-show-ratings). A contemporaneous ranking of the season's series places *Laverne and Shirley* first, *Happy Days* second, *Three's Company* third, *Charlie's Angels* fourth, and *All in the Family* fifth, with *Little House on the Prairie* and *60 Minutes* tied for sixth[6](https://ctva.biz/US/TV-Ratings/CTVA_NielsenRatings_1977-1978.htm).
Per-episode ratings recorded in schedule notes include 60 Minutes at 24.4 (tied with [Charlie's Angels](https://www.edgepedia.org/charlies-angels) and [All in the Family](https://www.edgepedia.org/all-in-the-family)), All in the Family at 24.4, Alice and M\*A\*S\*H tied at 23.2, [Little House on the Prairie](https://www.edgepedia.org/little-house-on-the-prairie) at 24.1, and The Big Event at 19.4[1](https://fantasy-television.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule). In one source's audience-based ordering, *The Big Event – Sunday* ranked 30th at 14,142,600 households, the last position in the season's top thirty[2](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/ratings/1977-1978-tv-show-ratings).
## Mid-season changes
Schedules were not static through the season. On Sunday, ABC's winter lineup replaced *The Six Million Dollar Man* with *How the West Was Won* (rank 11, 22.5 rating), and NBC replaced *The Big Event* with *Project U.F.O.* (rank 19, 21.2)[1](https://fantasy-television.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule). On CBS, Sunday brought a follow-up run of *The Carol Burnett Show* in place of *Kojak*, then *Dallas* in the spring and *Switch* in the summer[1](https://fantasy-television.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule). On Friday, CBS's regular-season *Switch!* slot was affected when The Incredible Hulk took over the network's effective March 10, 1978, entering the season at number 26 with a 19.9 rating[4](https://americantvdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule). Alternate Monday and Friday titles recorded for the season include *Lucan* on ABC Monday, *Tabitha* on ABC Friday, *James at 15* on NBC Thursday, and *Quark* on NBC Friday[7](https://www.reruncentury.com/primetime/1977-1978/).
## Pickups and cancellations
Full-season pickups after the fall were extensive on all three networks. ABC picked up seventeen series, among them *Barney Miller*, *Charlie's Angels*, *Donny & Marie*, *Eight is Enough*, *Happy Days*, *The Love Boat*, *Monday Night Football*, *Soap*, *Starsky and Hutch*, and *Three's Company*[4](https://americantvdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule). CBS renewed fourteen, including *60 Minutes*, *Alice*, *Dallas*, *The Jeffersons*, *Lou Grant*, *M\*A\*S\*H*, and *All in the Family*, the last renewed in spite of [Norman Lear](https://www.edgepedia.org/norman-lear)'s wishes to end the series[4](https://americantvdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule). NBC's pickups numbered six: *The Big Event*, *CHiPs*, *Little House on the Prairie*, *Quincy, M.E.*, *The Rockford Files*, and *The Wonderful World of Disney*[4](https://americantvdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule).
Cancellations and endings after the season included, on ABC, *Baretta*, *Fish*, *The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour*, *The San Pedro Beach Bums*, and *The Six Million Dollar Man*; on CBS, *The Betty White Show*[4](https://americantvdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule).
## Production costs
The 1977–78 schedules, totaling 73 shows, cost the networks $601,215,000 in production commitments[3](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Radio-Programming/Radio-Programming/Broadcast-Programming-3rd-Edition-Cliff-Greer1977.pdf). Individual episode budgets varied widely across the 8:00 to 8:30 slot: ABC's *Donny and Marie* (ABC) cost $300,000 per episode, CBS's *Wonder Woman* (Warner Bros Television) $375,000, and NBC's *Sanford Arms* (Bud Yorkin) $180,000[3](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Radio-Programming/Radio-Programming/Broadcast-Programming-3rd-Edition-Cliff-Greer1977.pdf). In the 9:00 to 9:30 hour, CBS's *M\*A\*S\*H* (20th Century Fox) cost $210,000 against NBC's *Big Hawaii* (Filmways TV) at $365,000[3](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Radio-Programming/Radio-Programming/Broadcast-Programming-3rd-Edition-Cliff-Greer1977.pdf).
## Context of the season
**The family viewing ruling.** In 1976 a U.S. District Court ruled that the networks' adoption of the family viewing policy, which reserved the hours before 9:00 pm for shows appropriate for all ages, constituted a violation of the First Amendment[8](https://time.com/3917142/the-reason-tv-was-allowed-to-get-dirty-any-time-of-day/). The Writers Guild and plaintiffs including Norman Lear and Allan Burns established that the FCC had pressured the networks into the policy[8](https://time.com/3917142/the-reason-tv-was-allowed-to-get-dirty-any-time-of-day/). TIME had reported in 1975 that attempts to rearrange schedules to fit the policy had contributed to a decline in ratings[8](https://time.com/3917142/the-reason-tv-was-allowed-to-get-dirty-any-time-of-day/).
**Soap's long road to ABC.** In early 1975, despite the success of *All in the Family*, *Sanford and Son*, *Maude*, *The Jeffersons*, and *Good Times*, Norman Lear could not convince any of the three networks to pick up his new project, a spoof of soap operas; CBS, which had financed the pilot, declined to exercise its option on the material[9](https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13792680.42). Two years later the show premiered in ABC's Tuesday block and finished the season as the number 13 program with an estimated audience of 16,038,000 households[2](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/ratings/1977-1978-tv-show-ratings).
A content analysis of prime-time offerings during the 1977–78 fall, winter, and spring seasons at three network-affiliated stations in a medium-sized market, covering 40 consecutive weeks from September 3, 1977 through June 9, 1978, found that five program types (movies, comedy, crime drama, drama, and specials) accounted for nearly 78% of prime-time programming, that affiliate preemption of the network feed occurred less than 3% of the time overall, and that non-entertainment programming was scant at 2.4%[10](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01463377909369340).
## References
1. [1977–78 United States network television schedule, Fantasy Television Wiki](https://fantasy-television.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule)
2. [1977-78 Top-Rated TV Shows, Classic TV Database](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/ratings/1977-1978-tv-show-ratings)
3. [Broadcast Programming, 3rd Edition (Cliff Greer, 1977), WorldRadioHistory](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Radio-Programming/Radio-Programming/Broadcast-Programming-3rd-Edition-Cliff-Greer1977.pdf)
4. [1977–78 United States network television schedule, American TV Database Wiki](https://americantvdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/1977%E2%80%9378_United_States_network_television_schedule)
5. [1977 - 1978 TV Schedule, Classic TV Database](https://www.classic-tv.com/features/schedules/1977-1978-tv-schedule)
6. [CTVA Nielsen Ratings 1977-1978, The Classic TV Archive](https://ctva.biz/US/TV-Ratings/CTVA_NielsenRatings_1977-1978.htm)
7. [RerunCentury: 1977-1978 Historic TV Schedules](https://www.reruncentury.com/primetime/1977-1978/)
8. [The Reason TV Was Allowed to Get Dirty Any Time of Day, TIME](https://time.com/3917142/the-reason-tv-was-allowed-to-get-dirty-any-time-of-day/)
9. [Watching TV: American Television Season by Season, 1977–78 Season chapter, JSTOR](https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13792680.42)
10. [Prime time television in a medium-sized market: A content analysis, Communication Quarterly 27(3)](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01463377909369340)
11. [interviews.televisionacademy.com](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/shows/soap)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Awards and screen reference*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 20, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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