Radio: Top Ten

Last week, for the first time in TV history, NBC failed to get a single show in the Trendex top ten:

1) The $64,000 Question (CBS)

2) The Ed Sullivan Show (CBS)

3) I Love Lucy (CBS)

4) General Electric Theater (CBS)

5) Shower of Stars (CBS)

6) Disneyland (ABC)

7) The Honeymooners (CBS)

8) Talent Scouts (CBS)

9) Jack Benny (CBS)

10) Red Skelton (CBS)

The Nielsen rating, covering an earlier period, tends to confirm the Trendex findings. It lists only two NBC shows -at fifth and sixth -in the top ten. Almost as painful to NBC was the news that 1) the Colgate Variety Hour, unable to dent CBS’s popular Ed Sullivan Show, had asked to be released from its NBC contract, and 2) NBC’s Milton Berle (Tues. 8 p.m.) had his stranglehold on that hour broken for the first time when his rating dipped below that of his CBS opposition, Phil Silvers.