 In February 1950 , Hooper 's competitor A. C. Nielsen bought out the <unk> system . DuMont did not fare well with the change : none of its shows appeared on Nielsen 's annual top 20 lists of the most popular series . One of the DuMont Network 's biggest hits of the 1950s , Life is Worth Living , received Nielsen ratings of up to 11 @.@ 1 , attracting more than 10 million viewers . Sheen 's one @-@ man program – in which he discussed philosophy , psychology and other fields of thought from a Christian perspective – was the most widely viewed religious series in the history of television . 169 local television stations aired Life , and for three years the program competed successfully against NBC 's popular The Milton Berle Show . The ABC and CBS programs which aired in the same timeslot were cancelled . 
