The Lawrence Welk Show - Move To Syndication and Public Television

Move To Syndication and Public Television

While the show was highly rated, ABC canceled it in 1971 for two reasons. The first was that the network had to cut programming due to the institution of the Prime Time Access Rule in 1971; the other was the fact that Welk's viewership was mostly of people over forty-five, mostly because of the music he chose to play, but also because younger viewers, the core viewing target that networks coveted, were typically out during the Saturday night time slot. Over the course of the early 1970s, several variety shows (including Welk's, but ranging from long-running series such as The Ed Sullivan Show, The Hollywood Palace and The Red Skelton Show to more contemporary shows such as Hee Haw, The Johnny Cash Show and This Is Tom Jones) were pulled from network schedules (particularly ABC and CBS) in a demographic move known colloquially as the "rural purge".

In response to ABC's move, Welk started his own production company and continued producing the show for syndication. Some independent stations put it in its old Saturday timeslot, and in many cases, it drew higher ratings than the network shows scheduled at that time. In many markets, the syndicated Lawrence Welk aired before the start of network prime-time on Saturday nights (7 p.m. Eastern Time); also in many areas, it competed against another show that was cancelled by CBS and resurrected in syndication, also in 1971 — Hee Haw. Welk's program was among a group of syndicated niche programs, others including Hee Haw and Soul Train, that flourished during this era. (The success of Lawrence Welk and Hee Haw in syndication and the network decisions that led to their respective cancellations were the inspiration for a novelty song called "The Lawrence Welk-Hee Haw Counter-Revolution Polka," performed by Roy Clark, one of the co-stars of Hee Haw.)

Welk retired in 1982; at the time of his retirement, he was 79 years old, making him the oldest host of a regularly scheduled entertainment television series to date (a feat later surpassed by Bob Barker in 2003). Classic shows — largely, from 1967 to 1982 — were repackaged with new footage (either Welk or the show's cast introducing segments) for syndication during the 1982–1983 season as Memories with Lawrence Welk, after which they were withdrawn from distribution for a short time. In 1985, The Lawrence Welk Christmas Reunion was produced. It was the last show in which Welk appeared with the musical family.

The Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, acquired the broadcast rights to the series in 1986. In order to introduce the show to a new generation, they produced a documentary film, Lawrence Welk: Television's Music Man, hosted by Kathy Lennon of The Lennon Sisters. The film was a retrospective on Welk's life and career, featuring interviews with surviving members of Welk's "musical family", and scenes from the show. After its airing, reformatted versions of the Welk show were released to public television stations. Welk continued to film new host segments until his death, after which select members of the "musical family" took over as hosts. Reruns continue to air to this day (in many markets airing on Saturday nights at 7 pm, the same time the show aired during its original run), with new and updated interviews with surviving cast members (Mary Lou Metzger hosts wraparounds that feature interviews, while Bobby Burgess currently hosts the ones that do not). The shows are occasionally "recut" and interspersed with segments from other episodes for time and diversity purposes; for instance, a rebroadcast of Gail Farrell's 1969 debut actually featured an added song by Anacani, who hadn't joined the show until 1973.