<P> When ABC picked up the game show Do You Trust Your Wife? from CBS in November 1957, they renamed the program as Who Do You Trust? and scheduled the program at 3: 30PM ET--almost in the middle of Bandstand . Instead of shortening or moving Bandstand, ABC opted to just begin Bandstand at 3PM, cut away to Who Do You Trust? at 3: 30PM, then rejoin Bandstand at 4PM . In Philadelphia, however, WFIL opted to tape - delay the game show for later broadcast in another time slot, and to continue on with Bandstand, though only for the local audience . </P> <P> A half - hour evening version of American Bandstand aired on Monday nights from 7: 30 p.m. to 8: 00 p.m. (ET), beginning on October 7, 1957 . It preceded The Guy Mitchell Show . Both were ratings disasters . Dick Clark later stated that he knew the prime - time edition would fail because its core audience--teenagers and housewives--was occupied with other interests in the evenings . The Monday - night version aired its last program in December 1957, but ABC gave Clark a Saturday - night time slot for The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beech - Nut Show, which originated from the Little Theatre in Manhattan, beginning on February 15, 1958 . The Saturday show would run until 1960 . </P> <P> The program was broadcast live, weekday afternoons and, by 1959, the show had a national audience of 20 million . In the fall of 1961, ABC truncated American Bandstand's airtime from 90 to 60 minutes (4: 00--5: 00pm ET), then even further as a daily half - hour (4: 00--4: 30pm ET) program in September 1962; beginning in early 1963, all five shows for the upcoming week were videotaped the preceding Saturday . The use of videotape allowed Clark to produce and host a series of concert tours around the success of American Bandstand and to pursue other broadcast interests . On September 7, 1963, the program was moved from its weekday slot and began airing weekly every Saturday afternoon, restored to an hour, until 1989 . </P> <P> Production of the show moved from Philadelphia to the ABC Television Center in Los Angeles (now known as The Prospect Studios) on February 8, 1964, which coincidentally was the same weekend that WFIL - TV moved from 46th and Market to their then - new facility on City Line Avenue as well as the day before the Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan show . The program was permanently in color from September 9, 1967 . The typical production schedule consisted of videotaping three shows on a Saturday and three shows on a Sunday, every six weeks . The shows were usually produced in either Stage 54 or Stage 55 at ABC Television Center . </P>

Why was the american bandstand an important part of television