The Virginian Series Nine Opening 

@AgentMelton G'day. Yes. The video you see is from Australia. Most countries where it aired (i.e. Ireland) in syndication used these titles so that viewers would know what they were watching. There was a lot of goodwill that was traded when Universal originally changed the name in 1971. It was a double-edge sword which brought in new viewers, but lost so many who did not know what was going on. This addendum to the titles was an attempt to communicate what was up.

@RagShop1 That is exactly what I brought up to him as to why the show might have been cancelled and he denied it...the rural purge. Or as Pat Buttram used to say, "Any show that had a tree in it!" No. The reason Mr. Drury gives is that it was strictly an economic decision on the part of NBC and Universal. Turned out they were wrong and to this day, nothing in that time slot EVER out-rated or made as much money for the studio or network as "THE VIRGINIAN".

@AgentMelton The biggest difference is that every episode on the DVD is in color. As strange as it sounds, the final episode that Jim starred in was syndicated in B&W. It was not so odd at the time because in 1971 there were still several countries, including Australia, that were not full color.

I will say I never realized the revamp was actually billed as THE VIRGINIAN a.k.a.THE MEN FROM SHILOH.

@tomservo56954 When it went into syndication, it was re-titled to the name by which it had been known for the eight series prior.

@tomservo56954 It could be very easily argued that moving to a schedule of nothing but talk, reality, and non-scripted programmes broken up by the occasional drama or sitcom would result in higher margins. As a matter of fact, that pretty much describes the BBC at this point! I think the point Jim was making was that while there were other shows that had success in that time-slot, none of them ran for nine solid years like "THE VIRGINIAN."

I believe Mr. Drury, too. The networks then had some foggy idea that contemporary urban dramas were the next big thing and largely purged Westerns and in CBS's case, country oriented comedies like The Beverly Hillbillies and its spinoffs, Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. I think this notion was largely bull but that was the thinking among TV execs back then.

@chuckcollins (part 2) In addition, for the 1969-70 season, the show dropped out of the Nielsen Top 30 for the first time in its run--CBS moved THE GLEN CAMPBELL GOODTIME HOUR and THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES against it and both shows finished in the Top 20. To top it off, for 1971-72, the time slot replacements, both from Universal (ADAM-12 and the original COLUMBO/McCLOUD/MACMILLAN & WIFE rotation) outpulled SHILOH's numbers the previous year. (part 3)

The show had good ratings I wonder why they canceled it?

It sounds like they were going for a more Morricone type theme. What a terrible choice - the original was so much better.