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So each night viewers must make the decision whether to watch Robert Montgomery Presents, or Studio One, I Love Lucy or Medic, Disneyland or Arthur Godfrey, George Gobel or Gunsmoke. Shrewd Pat Weaver made these decisions even more difficult by spotting his 90-minute Spectaculars in places calculated to do the most audience harm to rival CBS. This year, NBC is back with 47 more Spectaculars, and CBS is replying in kind. Some TV families, rent with quarrels about which show to turn to, have ended in the divorce court.
The Challenge. One canker of doubt, however, is disturbing all the hallelujahs about the glorious new TV season. Its name: The $64,000 Question. The instant, smash success of the quiz show dreamed up by Lou Cowan has brought a flood of imitators promising to give contestants everything from a producing oil well to a quarter of a million dollars. The industry is quivering with the unmistakable impulse of a new "trend." NBC's Weaver, instead of planning new telecasts from Mars or from the bottom of the sea, has been closeted with Question's sponsor (Revlon), promising them the moon if they will move the show to NBC. And CBS's Stanton is equally busy trying to keep the show on CBS. Instead of becoming memorable as the year TV came of age, this season may go down in history as the one in which TV took the same dismal turn as radio and lost itself in an endless morass of giveaway shows.
Sullivan can view the current uproar without too much concern. Last month he started on a 20-year contract with CBS that guarantees him $176,000 a year for seven years for producing his show. During the following 13 years, he does not have to produce anything but will draw $100,000 annually for his promise not to create a show for a competing network. In February, Ed moves his program to Hollywood for two months while he stars in that ultimate tribute to a living celebrity, a Warner Bros. film biography called The Ed Sullivan Story.
But Ed thrives on challenge. He is ready to fight fire with fire if this becomes the year of the big-money quiz shows. Says he: "The nice thing about my program is that it has room for everything. If what people want are giveaways, then we'll add giveaways, too."