At the beginning of the 1950s, most U.S. movie houses still programmed double features at least part of the time. The major studios promoted the benefits of recycling, offering former headlining movies as second features in the place of traditional B films. Their longer running time appears to have both accommodated and hastened the progressive abandonment of the traditional "variety program" of newsreel/cartoon/short preceding the feature presentations at many theaters. With television airing many classic Westerns as well as producing its own original Western series, the cinematic market for B oaters in particular was drying up.