This chart traces the weekday ratings of the WCCO-TV program Axel and His Dog from its premiere on Thursday, August 5, 1954, through December 1956. Ratings for the competing programs on KSTP-TV, WTCN-TV (& WMIN-TV), and KEYD-TV (or later, KMGM-TV) are also included. The rating is the percentage of all television sets in the metro area (whether being watched or not) which are tuned to a particular show.

The Y axis shows the timeline, and the X axis represents the average rating that each show achieved for that particular month. The vertical lines that occasionally bisect the chart indicate points when the schedule of Axel and His Dog was changed. This usually resulted in the show facing different competing programs.

It's interesting to note that for much of the first six months of the program's existence, Axel and His Dog was third in a field of three. However, the program began featuring "The Little Rascals" on Monday, December 27, 1954, and the ratings took a strong upswing in January 1955. By April, Axel and His Dog was in first place.

During the summer of 1955, ratings for Axel (as well as his competition) declined. Subsequent ratings data show that this was a normal seasonal occurance -- kids presumably were outside playing instead of watching TV. A schedule change in September briefly pitted Axel against his old rival Captain 11 (which Axel won easily) but then he was trounced by the dreaded Mickey Mouse Club, a program that had even defeated the mighty Howdy Doody.

In early 1956 Mickey's ratings declined steeply, but in April WCCO-TV capitulated to the rodent and moved Axel and His Dog to a different time slot. Here Axel once again won his time period, although his ratings were not quite as high as the year before. At the end of 1956, WTCN-TV's Cartoon Carnival surged into the lead, perhaps thanks to a newly-acquired film package of particularly good cartoons.

Details of the next "chapter" in the story are not currently available, but Axel certainly did bounce back. A 1957 WCCO-TV ad, citing ARB data from May of that year, noted that Axel's share of the audience at that time was 37% greater than all three competing programs combined. The charts that follow this one clearly demonstrate that Axel's pre-eminent position on the local airwaves is not legend, but fact.

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