Paramount Television
Paramount Television was an American television production and television distribution company based in Los Angeles ( California ). It was created in December 1967 as the direct legal successor to Desilu Productions and went on January 17, 2006 in CBS Paramount Television .
The company produced and distributed the television series Happy Days , Cheers , Frasier and the Star Trek franchise as well as Entertainment Tonight , Paramount's daily news magazine from the entertainment industry.
Predecessor company
Desilu Productions
The predecessor company Desilu Productions was founded in 1950 by the actor couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz . The original purpose was the production of her sitcom I Love Lucy for the television network CBS from 1951 . The success enabled the purchase of a separate studio property in 1954, which was followed by the former studio property of RKO Radio Pictures at the end of 1957 . Arnaz sold his stake in Desilu in 1962 to Ball, who henceforth both ran the studio and was the leading actress in her own sitcom. Because of the workload, Ball finally sold her company to the Gulf + Western conglomerate in 1967 .
Among the produced by Desilu television series to find Our Miss Brooks , The Untouchables ( The Untouchables ), The Andy Griffith Show , The Lucy Show , Star Trek ( Star Trek ), Cobra, accept ( Mission: Impossible ) and Mannix .
Paramount Pictures
Paramount goes back to the film production company Famous Players Film Company founded by Adolph Zukor in May 1912 , which in 1916 took over the film distribution company Paramount Pictures Corporation . It was only in the course of restructuring following bankruptcy that the entire company was given the name Paramount Pictures in 1936 . During the “golden era” of Hollywood Paramount was one of the five “major” in the studio system , which went down in 1948 with the ban on vertical integration .
The end of the "golden era" and the advent of television , which caused the number of cinema visits to decline steadily, led Paramount to attempt in the 1950s to enter the television business with Telemount Productions . The first attempt was in 1952 the television series Cowboy G-Men , which was produced together with the cooperative radio network Mutual Broadcasting and distributed in syndication . A second attempt in 1957 with the television series Sally for NBC failed after a year; the idea of getting into the production of television programs was then given up.
In the 1960s, Paramount plunged into a serious crisis and began divesting investments to make money. Managing director Barney Balaban (born 1887) had to leave the company in 1964; Founder Adolph Zukor (born 1873) - Balaban's foster father and Paramount's chairman of the board - had to watch the company lose its leadership. When the decline became apparent in 1966, Paramount was finally sold to Charles Bluhdorn's conglomerate Gulf + Western.
history
Takeover of Desilu television production
Desilu and Paramount were merged under Gulf + Western, and in December 1967 Desilu Productions became "Paramount Television", the television subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. With the new studio logo, five current Desilu television series became Paramount productions in the middle of their season, including The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) and The Lucy Show (1962–1968) in their last year of broadcast as well as Star Trek ( 1966–1969) and Mission: Impossible (1966–1973) in the second year of broadcasting - the latter two series later made it to feature films with Paramount Pictures. Mannix (1967–1975), Desilu's only new start that year, only experienced a few weeks of the eight-year term under the Desilu logo.
Paramount Television's first new production was Here's Lucy in the fall of 1968 , but it was created in collaboration with Lucille Ball Productions . After the first season, Paramount withdrew from production and sold the proportionate rights to Lucille Ball, who later sold their series to Telepictures - part of Warner Bros. Television since 1989 .
Plans for an own television network
In the 1970s, Paramount Television (together with its parent company Paramount Pictures) had plans to build a fourth television network . The cornerstone of the planned Paramount Television Service was to be a new Star Trek series, the preproduction of which began in 1977 under the working title Star Trek: Phase II . After the management of Paramount finally buried the network plans, the already well-developed series concept was reworked into a movie, realized as Star Trek: The Motion Picture and published in 1979 by Paramount Pictures.
The idea of a fourth television network was initiated by Barry Diller , who served as President and CEO of Paramount Pictures Corporation and under the successful television series such as Laverne & Shirley (1976) - a spin-off from Happy Days (1974) - Taxi (1978) and later also Cheers (1982) were realized. The network idea, which was repeatedly rejected by Paramount's board of directors , Diller took with him to 20th Century Fox when he left in 1984 . There he met with open ears from Rupert Murdoch , whose News Corporation acquired several independent television stations and started a fourth terrestrial television network in the USA in 1986 with the Fox Broadcasting Company .
From G + W to Viacom
After Bluthdorn's death in 1983, Martin S. Davis became the new CEO of Gulf + Western and transformed the highly diversified conglomerate into a pure entertainment and media company, which was renamed Paramount Communications on June 5, 1989 and finally bought by Viacom on March 11, 1994 .
Paramount Television (PTV) remained under Viacom as the umbrella brand for the television business. With the restructuring implemented in 1995, the production arm appeared for the first time under the name Paramount Network Television , while the existing sales arm was renamed Paramount Domestic Television and swallowed the Viacom sales arm Viacom Enterprises . The Viacom production arm Viacom Productions , founded in 1974, remained as an independent PTV department.
Around 17 years after the Paramount Television Service proposed by Diller, the United Paramount Network (UPN) - a joint venture between Viacom and Chris-Craft Industries - started on January 16, 1995 with Star Trek: Voyager . The now fourth Star Trek series was the cornerstone of the new network and, like the majority of UPN programming, was produced by Paramount Television. When Chris-Craft left the broadcasting business in 2000 due to high losses, Viacom took over the UPN network completely, while the associated television stations (so-called affiliates ) were bought up by the News Corporation .
Further Viacom acquisitions
After Viacom acquired a 20% stake in the Spelling Entertainment Group in 1994 through the acquisition of the video rental chain Blockbuster Video , the remaining 80% in the group of companies were acquired in 1999. In the same year Viacom also announced the acquisition of the old CBS Corporation , the legal successor to Viacom's original parent company CBS. Both takeovers were completed in 2000 after an antitrust review. Through the acquisitions, Viacom came to an extensive number of television production and television distribution / syndication companies.
The former Spelling subsidiaries were immediately converted into business units of Paramount Television . Spelling Television and Big Ticket Television remained as independent PTV production units. The sales unit Worldvision Enterprises including the film library was integrated into Republic Pictures , whose catalog was from then on distributed by Paramount Domestic Television and its sister unit Paramount International Television . The latter also became the international distribution unit for the Rysher Entertainment film library .
The subsidiaries of the former CBS Corporation, however, continued to exist as independent companies, on the one hand the production arm CBS Productions founded in 1952 , on the other hand the sales arm CBS Enterprises founded in 2000 , which also comprised the syndication arm King World Productions , which was acquired by CBS in January 2000 . The latter also integrated the film library of Eyemark Entertainment , which was founded in 1963 by Westinghouse Broadcasting under the name Group W Productions and renamed in 1995 after the merger of Westinghouse and CBS.
In 2000, Paramount Television also acquired the syndication rights for the DreamWorks Television- produced sitcom Spin City ; unconsciously anticipating the takeover of DreamWorks SKG by Viacom five years later .
The production unit Viacom Productions , which had been operating independently for 30 years , was dissolved in 2004 and replaced by Paramount Network Television . The last television series started under this name was the first season of The 4400 , which was produced for the cable station USA Network ; From the second season, the production took place by Paramount Television. Although never formally canceled, Spelling and Big Ticket limited themselves to their already running television productions from this point on.
In 2004, the first steps were also taken to merge the television units operated in parallel from Paramount and CBS. The international sales units CBS Broadcast International and Paramount International Television were merged to form CBS Paramount International Television . The production units CBS Productions and Paramount Network Television received only the common name CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group .
In the course of 2005, Paramount Television and its related CBS entities were undergoing extensive restructuring , triggered by the proposal by Viacom board member Sumner Redstone to split the company into a film and cable television company and a broadcasting and publishing company. The initiated takeover of DreamWorks, which could only be completed in February 2006, therefore only came into effect at the successor company.
Viacom split
On December 31, 2005, part of the previous merger was effectively reversed and Viacom was split into two separate companies: the new Viacom (including Paramount Pictures) and the CBS Corporation , to which the entire Paramount Television umbrella brand was assigned. This means that a good 38 years after the purchase of Desilu Productions and the merger with Paramount Pictures, the television division was separated from the film division.
Effective January 17, 2006, Paramount Television and CBS Productions were merged under the new parent company CBS Paramount Television (legally CBS Studios, Inc. ). Ongoing television productions were provided with the existing Paramount studio logos until the end of the season, in the case of Paramount Domestic Television sales until May 28, 2006, in the case of the Paramount Network Television production unit until June 10, 2006.
UPN also became part of the CBS Corporation and on January 24 - just one week after the reorganization of CBS Paramount Television - the two networks UPN and The WB merged with Warner Bros. Entertainment to form the new, joint The CW Television Network on January 18 Announced September 2006.
On March 4th, 2013, the new Viacom, Paramount Television reissued.
Web links
- Paramount Television in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lieberman, David. "Paramount To Return To TV Series Production." Deadline.com (March 4, 2013).