ABC Movie of the Week

The ABC Movie of the Week was a weekly television anthology series, featuring made-for-TV movies, that aired on the ABC network in various permutations from 1969 to 1976, though ABC continued to premiere new TV films every Sunday prime time night until 2005.

From 1961, prime time screenings of films from major motion picture studios had been a ratings success for all three television networks eventually leading to a demand for more films for 90-minute or two-hour time slots. The series was the brainchild of young executive Barry Diller, then head of prime time programming at ABC (and later a cofounder of the Fox network). Operating on a small budget ($400,000-$450,000 per film) but featuring the work of talented producers like Aaron Spelling and David Wolper (both of whom later developed hit series of their own), and different production companies such as Bing Crosby Productions and Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas' production company, the Movie of the Week helped energize the made-for-TV movie format with fresh story concepts, veteran TV actors and potent production values. The attention-grabbing opening titles were designed and animated by Harry Marks using the same groundbreaking slit-scan process, or "stargate effect," that had been pioneered by Douglas Trumbull for 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Movie of the Week provided ABC (long a distant third in the ratings) with a bona fide hit and, along with Monday Night Football, helped establish the network as a legitimate competitor to rivals CBS and NBC. The films themselves varied in quality and were often escapist or sensationalistic in nature (suspense, horror and melodrama were staples), but some were critically well received. For example, Duel (1971), based on a Richard Matheson short story from Playboy, was director Steven Spielberg's first feature film, catapulting his career and enabling him to move from television to theatrical films.

...
Wikipedia