Television

The film made its television debut on the HBO cable network in June 1976, and its broadcast TV debut in November of that year in two parts on the NBC network, where it became at that time the highest-rated television program ever presented on a single network, watched by 47.5 percent of the households sampled in America, and 65 percent of television viewers. Ironically, it was surpassed the following year by the mini-series Roots, a saga about slavery in America.