The Julie Andrews Hour

The Julie Andrews Hour was a weekly television variety series starring Julie Andrews that was produced by ATV and distributed by ITC Entertainment. It aired on the ABC network in the United States.

In order to secure Andrews for the series, Sir Lew Grade and ABC offered her an extremely lucrative contract.

"The Julie Andrews Hour" premiered on ABC Wednesday, September 13, 1972 at 10:00 P.M. ET to rave reviews. Unfortunately, its time slot proved to be daunting because it was up against the popular CBS detective series, Cannon. Another reason for the low ratings was that the lateness of the hour was not conducive to family viewing since children were in bed by that time. On Thanksgiving Eve, November 22, 1972, "The Julie Andrews Hour" devoted an entire episode saluting Walt Disney. To make it more of a "family special" , ABC switched the time slot of "The Julie Andrews Hour" that night to 8:30 P.M. and The ABC Wednesday Movie Of The Week to 9:30 P.M. The ratings improved a little so ABC then made a decision to alternate Andrews' time period each week (one week it would be 10:00 P.M. and the next week, it would be 8:30 P.M.) This continued until January, 1973 when the series was moved to Saturday nights at 9:00 P.M. The ratings went from bad to worse as Andrews' chief competition was The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show (both highly rated series) on CBS. (Ironically, Moore had been Andrews' co-star in the 1967 hit film,...... ...
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