1955-56 United States network television schedule

The 1955–56 United States network television schedule was for the period that began in September 1955 and ran through March 1956.

The $64,000 Question had debuted on CBS during summer 1955 and became the #1 program on U.S. television. The three networks "rushed to copy this latest hit format, quickly filling prime time with similar contests". (It would not be until fall 1958 that it would be confirmed that several of these new quiz shows were rigged.)

For years, ABC had "struggled to cobble together a TV schedule", but following the network's major success with Disney-produced series Disneyland in 1954, other Hollywood film companies began embracing television. MGM assembled clips for MGM Parade on ABC; ABC also hired Warner Bros. for a Tuesday night program called Warner Brothers Presents. The hour-long umbrella series featured TV adaptations of three Warner Brothers movies: Cheyenne, Casablanca, and Kings Row. Of the three new series, only Cheyenne was a hit with viewers, and ABC began contracting with other Hollywood studios for Westerns. Immediately following Warner Brothers Presents, ABC scheduled The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. This Western was also produced in conjunction with a Hollywood studio: Desilu Productions.

CBS had its own Western hit with Gunsmoke, which also debuted in fall 1955. Over the next few years, "the rush to Westerns had become a virtual stampede so that, by the fall of 1959, viewers had their choice from a staggering twenty-eight different Western-based prime time series." Around 1955, live drama anthologies, the staple of early television programming, were being phased out by the networks in favor of filmed fare: Westerns, police dramas, quiz shows, and adventure series.

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