Afternoon movie

The afternoon movie was a popular practice of local television stations from the 1950s through the 1970s. It consisted of the daily weekday showing of old films usually between 12:30 and 2:00 P.M; if the film ran two hours or more, it was split into two parts. Atlanta local station WSB-TV, for instance, would show films in this time slot under the umbrella title Armchair Playhouse. Popular titles, such as House of Wax , The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, the 1935 Mutiny on the Bounty, or National Velvet, would often turn up as afternoon movies (years later, in 1978, National Velvet was shown on network television, by CBS).

WABC-TV in New York City ran The 4:30 Movie weekdays from 1968 to 1981. Other ABC owned-and-operated stations also used the format at different times in the afternoon.

As more and more films began to be televised by entire networks in prime time, and as more and more soap operas and daily syndicated programming filled the network airwaves and became extremely popular, the daily afternoon movie on TV was gradually phased out on the local affiliates belonging to the three major commercial networks (NBC, CBS and ABC).

Today, films are often shown locally on commercial stations in the afternoon during a weekend (especially since there are now so many more television channels), but none are shown in the afternoon on a weekday on the local affiliates.