With KGO's strong nighttime 50,000 watt signal reaching as far north as Vancouver, BC, and as far south as Los Angeles, he attracted a regional audience in the West.

[2] Crane, along with KRLA general manager John Barrett, were the original people "responsible for creating the Top 40 (list of the most requested pop songs)," said Casey Kasem in a 1990 interview.

[3] In 1963, Crane moved to New York City to host Night Line, a 1:00 a.m. talk show on WABC-TV, the American Broadcasting Company's flagship station.

[5] The New Les Crane Show debuted nationwide with a trial run (telecast nightly for a week) in August 1964 starting at 11:20 p.m. in east coast cities on the ABC schedule.

ABC network officials used videotapes of two episodes from the August 1964 trial run to pitch The New Les Crane Show to affiliates that had not yet signed up to carry the program.

[6] More affiliates signed up for a November relaunch of The New Les Crane Show, and Look ran a prominent feature story with captioned still photographs from the August episodes.

[6] A video clip from this telecast, preserved at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, indicates that the issue had to do with presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

The UCLA Film & Television Archive has a digitized collection of clips from the Les Crane Show early episodes in August 1964.

[7] It also has sound recordings of Crane's local New York television show from 1963 and 1964 that amplified phone calls from viewers, possibly including Malcolm.

The New York Times' media critic Paul Gardner considered him an incisive interviewer who asked tough questions without being insulting.

One described him as "a tall, handsome, and personable lad...."[13] In addition to Dylan, who rarely appeared on American television, Malcolm X and Richard Burton, Crane's guests on The New Les Crane Show included Martin Luther King Jr., Sam Levene, George Wallace, Robert F. Kennedy, the voice of radio's The Shadow, Bret Morrison (air dates and other episode details unknown for these five guests), Ayn Rand (night of December 15–16, 1964) and Judy Collins (same night as Rand, separate segment).

Possibly alarmed by Ali's statements on the first telecast hosted by Crane,[14] they proceeded to remove most of the controversy and emphasized light entertainment.

[15] After the summer 1965 run ended, network executives relocated the show from New York to Los Angeles, and the fall season began there.

The Paley Center for Media has available for viewing the first 15 minutes of an episode from shortly before executives finally cancelled ABC's Nightlife, which happened in early November 1965.

Crane can be seen and heard delivering his monologue, joking about words that could be censored (he mouthed them silently or technicians silenced them) and bantering with co-host Nipsey Russell.

In a radio interview, year unknown, that Cass Elliot did after the 1968 disbanding of the group of four singers, she says the following: "We were watching this special on the Hell's Angels and one of the guys, Les Crane or somebody, asked them, uh, 'What do you call your women?'

"[17] The last several episodes of ABC's Nightlife coincide with the time frame when Phillips, Elliot, their two fellow singers and Lou Adler had daily studio sessions in United Western Recorders in Los Angeles and needed a name for their group.

[19] Viewer phone calls included one from a woman who told Wicker and other men who appeared on-camera with him that she had a male relative whom she knew was a homosexual.

[19] Several months later, members of a lesbian advocacy group, the Daughters of Bilitis, tried to appear on Crane's show but were less fortunate than the groundbreaking men, as the New York Times reported.

[20] A panel discussion of lesbianism that was to have been presented Friday night [June 19, 1964] on the Les Crane television show on WABC-TV was ordered canceled by the station's legal department.

When Caprice was informed about the reel of clips from a handful of episodes that can be viewed at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, she replied that she had never seen it and she did not know whether her father was ever aware of it.

Crane had another acting part in 1967, starring as Jack, the leader of three detectives in I Love a Mystery, a pilot film for a proposed television series based on the popular radio show that had aired from 1939 to 1944.

It consists of Crane and two guests, Joseph Lewis and Jack Lindsey, discussing the policies of California governor Ronald Reagan.

[23] Though Crane thought the poem was in the public domain when it was recorded, the rights belonged to the family of author Max Ehrmann, and royalties were distributed accordingly.

[citation needed] When asked about the recording during an interview by the Los Angeles Times in 1987, Crane replied, "I can't listen to it now without gagging.

[6] Look photographer Bob Sandberg captured the two younger children watching their mother and Crane play the game of Go[6] on the lawn of their home in Oyster Bay, Long Island.