Decline & Fall

Two of television's oldest live dramatic shows were consigned to oblivion last week. Both Kraft TV Theater and Westinghouse's Studio One announced that they were giving up at the end of the present season.

Their demise capped a long decline for TV's live weekly dramas, a once flourishing genre. Philco-Goodyear TV Playhouse and Robert Montgomery Presents have long since preceded them into the long, unsponsored night. Like the others, Kraft and Studio One have both been in a long slide downward; both have been subjected to recent, last-gasp transfusions; neither revived. Studio One will be replaced by Desilu Playhouse, a series of 48 hour-long films produced in Hollywood by Desi Arnaz. Westinghouse paid $11 million for the package, claimed to be the largest single deal in TV history. Kraft will cut down to half an hour, which will be occupied by Comedian Milton Berle--his first steady job on television since 1956.

In earlier days, the live weeklies were TV's equivalent of a combined experimental and stock theater. They featured original scripts, played by able and often unknown actors. But the shows were expensive. Filmed shows could hope for reruns, allow mistakes to be corrected, could be produced more conveniently in Hollywood, where sets did not have to be struck within minutes to make room for the next show. Most important, originality proved hard to sustain at a high level, week in and week out; for every Marty, Patterns or Twelve Angry Men, there were a score of workaday playlets of no notable distinction.

Increasingly, sponsors (and viewers) have turned to the bigger, more lavish, monthly shows, which can afford better scripts, hire more expensive directors, afford big-name stars. The spectaculars are increasing in number, and, at their best, have mounted shows that the weeklies cannot match. As for their worst, TV is discovering what Hollywood has long known: if viewers must watch a second-rate drama, they would rather watch name stars playing it.

* Sid Caesar, Berle's successor as king of the TV comedians, was faring less well. Reunited early this year with Imogene Coca, Caesar tried a comeback on ABC, ran into the heavy opposition of the Dinah Shore Show on NBC. Last week Sponsor Helena Rubinstein announced that she would drop him at month's end.

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