Take Your Pick, New York: Cole, Sheldon or Steele In the Greater New York broadcast television market, Dick Clark may have had the 4-5PM EST slot all to himself on ABC, (ch 7 in NY) but the next hour, 5-6PM, three competed for teen allegiance: Herb Sheldon's Teen Dance Party on ch. 5, Ted Steele's Bandstand on ch. 9 and The Clay Cole Show first on 13, then "Pix" 11. It wasn't until Alan Freed took over the helm from Sheldon that channel 5 clearly emerged as the winner, until Freed fell from grace in the Payola scandal. Cole was somewhat an icon for his telecasts from New Jersey's Palisades Park, also title to Freddie Canon's hit. Eventually, the bandstand format grew weary with teens. However, in the early 60's, once horror movie host turned disc jockey John Zacherle would emerge on the area's first UHF TV station, 47 (WNJU) with his Discoteen show, created by Barry Landers. Problem: few households had proper antenna set-ups which could receive UHF, and NY channels in that band would have a hard time garnering ratings until the 70's, when vaudeville comedian Floyd Vivino would do shtick at 5 on channel 68, which became a teen cult show, save the dancing (WBTB's West Orange NJ studios weren't big enough). ABC held on to American Bandstand, running it on Saturday afternoons in the 70's while urban oriented Soul Train ran in popular syndication, on Pix-11 (WPIX) in the New York market. By the 80's, AB had it, but the Soul Train choo chooed on and remains the only teen dance show currently running in the East Coast. Failed attempt: America Goes Bananas from Cleveland was relegated to cable channels while USA Network's Dance Party USA got in hot water for too much beach bikini dancing and 80's Soap Factory from the Jersey Shore never failed to catch on. 1960's prime time network Hullabaloo & Au Go Go shows had ample dancing (of sorts), but were categorized as variety shows. Don Cornelius may have his domestic legal problems, but his Soul Train, like the Energizer Bunny, is the dance show that keeps on going and going and going.

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