With contributions from AaronHandyIII.
For your enjoyment, here are a selection of black & white advertisements from TV Guide magazine promoting episodes of M*A*S*H, including the very first episode. Today, TV Guide is no longer the wildly popular television magazine it once was. But back in the 1970s and 1980s it was one of the only ways to find out what was on television.
Here are some ads for specific episodes. Typically, season premieres and finales were heavily promoted with large ads while regular episodes were only given text in the listings.
In addition to new episodes, ads would be placed in TV Guide issues to promote syndicated repeats of M*A*S*H, on various CBS affiliates and other stations. M*A*S*H was (and is) shown often in numerous local markets throughout the country. The following are a sampling of these syndicated ads:
The last TV Guide advertisement for M*A*S*H likely ran in the late 1990s or early 2000s, perhaps relating to its cable debut on FX.
Published September 1st, 2003
Last updated November 10th, 2013
Magnificent as always, RJ. I got some more original CBS ads, if ya want ’em. 😉
By the formatting of the ad, I believe the last in the series of pics on this page is not a cable ad but a local syndication ad from an ABC affiliate, circa 1980-81.
I was going to make the same comment about the last syndicated ad, as ABC and some of its affiliates used that format for its ads in the 1980-81 tv season, which I remember most for its 11-week strike delay.
The CBS Late Movie ad is most likely from the E New England edition of TV GUIDE, where the affiliates at the time were ch. 3 in Hartford, CT, ch. 6 in New Bedford, MA, and ch. 7 in Boston. WPRI-TV was and still is the ABC affiliate in Providence, RI, though it was affiliated with CBS until some point in the late 70s, switching ABC for CBS with New Bedford’s ch. 6.