Columbia Pictures Television

Columbia Pictures Television (CPT) was the second name of the Columbia Pictures television division Screen Gems (SG). The studio changed its name on September 4, 1974.

Columbia Pictures Television, Inc.

Former type	Subsidiary of Sony Pictures
Industry	Television production Television syndication
Founded	September 4, 1974
Defunct	January 1, 2001
Headquarters	Culver City, California, USA
Owner(s)	Sony Corporation
Parent	Sony Pictures Entertainment

History

1974-1982

As the successor in interest to Screen Gems, it assumed productions of the daytime soap operas Days of our Lives and The Young and the Restless. During the 1970s and '80s, CPT made many co-productions with Spelling-Goldberg Productions, including S.W.A.T., Starsky & Hutch, Charlie's Angels, Fantasy Island, Hart to Hart, and T.J. Hooker. It also acquired the syndication rights to several independently produced series: Barney Miller from Danny Arnold, What's Happening! from Bud Yorkin, and Soap and Benson from Witt/Thomas/Harris Productions.

The Coca-Cola years and Columbia Pictures Entertainment

The 1980s brought significant changes to CPT. On June 22, 1982, The Coca-Cola Company bought Columbia Pictures.^[1] In 1984, CPT joined forces with Lexington Broadcast Services Company by creating a joint venture between the two companies called Colex Enterprises to distribute library shows such as Father Knows Best and The Monkees, while throughout the 1980s and 1990s other shows such as Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and The Partridge Family were licensed to The Program Exchange.

On June 18 1985, Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio sold their company, Embassy Pictures including Embassy Television and Tandem Productions to Coca-Cola. The company gained the rights to such shows as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, Good Times, Maude, Diff'rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, One Day At A Time, Who's The Boss?, and Silver Spoons, among others. Coke also made plans to spin-off Embassy Pictures and Embassy Home Entertainment.^[2] Under Coca-Cola's ownership, Embassy saw success with 227 and Married with Children. The same year, Columbia and LBS Communications launched What's Happening Now!! in first-run syndication. The show was a sequel to the 1970s ABC sitcom What's Happening!!, which they had acquired from Bud Yorkin's production company; TOY Productions.

Major changes took place in 1986. On May 6, Coke acquired Merv Griffin Enterprises, producer of the popular game shows, Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune; (the nighttime versions were distributed by King World, which is now handled by successor CBS Television Distribution. However, Sony Pictures Television handles off-net syndication reruns by broadcasting them on GSN, while sister company Sony Pictures Home Entertainment owns DVD rights, though, as game shows, are unlikely to get a proper release). Also in 1986, the former Lear units (Embassy Television, Embassy Telecommunications, and Tandem Productions) were merged to become Embassy Communications; the Tandem unit ceased production to be used after the cancellation of Diff'rent Strokes but remained in-name-only, while the Columbia and Embassy units continued to exist separately until 1988. Also on the same year on August 28, CPT acquired Danny Arnold's Four D Productions, Inc. for $50 million.^[3][4] In November, the studio formed a new first-run syndication unit; Coca-Cola Telecommunications due to Coca-Cola merging the distribution unit of Columbia Pictures Television and The Television Program Source (a syndicator that was a joint venture between Alan Bennett, former King World president Robert King, and CPT that was created on October 15, 1984, which Coca-Cola had a small investment in originally, and notably distributed the 1985-1986 nighttime syndicated version of The Price is Right and was slated to distribute a new version of The Match Game for syndication in 1987).^[5][6] Coca-Cola Telecommunications also took some programs that were or slated to be distributed under the Columbia Pictures Television banner including What's Happening Now, The Real Ghostbusters, Dinosaucers, and Punky Brewster as well as taking the US distribution rights of Hardcastle and McCormick from Colex. Punky Brewster, a former NBC in-house production, Columbia acquired the rights to Punky from NBC because fin-syn regulations prevented the network from producing more episodes for syndication after they cancelled it. During the fall of 1986, the sitcom Designing Women began a successful seven-year run on CBS. The same year, Tri-Star Pictures formed Tri-Star Television and produced the short-lived series Downtown. Tri-Star produced more series in 1987, Take Five, Nothing in Common, My Two Dads, and Werewolf.

In late 1987, Coca-Cola spun-off their entertainment holdings to a separate company (which they partially owned) called Columbia Pictures Entertainment after a film Ishtar turned out to be a notorious failure. On February 8, 1988, Columbia/Embassy Television and Tri-Star Television formed the new Columbia Pictures Television and Embassy Communications was renamed to ELP Communications. Meanwhile, Colex Enterprises, Coca-Cola Telecommunications, and Embassy Communications (the distributor arm) were merged into the new Columbia Pictures Television Distribution. All shows now ended with the Columbia logo between 1988 and 1991.

The Sony years to the end

On November 8, 1989, Sony Corporation bought Columbia Pictures Entertainment for $3.4 billion and the next day, Sony acquired the Guber-Peters Entertainment Company (formerly game show production company Barris Industries with the library of game shows including The Newlywed Game, The Dating Game, and The Gong Show) for $200 million after hiring film producers Peter Guber and Jon Peters to run the company. In August 1991, CPE changed its name to Sony Pictures Entertainment and TriStar Television was relaunched that same year. Throughout the 1990s the studio launched such successful shows as Beakman's World on TLC and CBS in 1992, Mad About You on NBC in 1992, Ricki Lake, The Nanny on CBS in 1993, Party of Five, NewsRadio, Malcolm & Eddie on UPN in 1996, and the short-lived cult animated series The Critic on ABC and FOX in 1994. One of the most successful by far was Seinfeld, a Castle Rock Entertainment production which Columbia distributed in syndication.

During this time company acquired a vast back catalog of independently produced game shows with the acquisition of Stewart Tele Enterprises and Barry & Enright Productions. Along with the Chuck Barris and Merv Griffin game shows they already owned, these were part of the basis of the Game Show Network, launched on December 1, 1994. The same year when SPE formed Columbia TriStar Television and its global arm Columbia TriStar Television Distribution in 1995. In 1998, the name ELP Communications was folded entirely into Columbia TriStar Television and now only operates as an in-name unit. On January 1, 2001, Columbia Pictures Television was retired for good and was folded into Columbia TriStar Television. On September 16, 2002, Sony Pictures changed the name of its TV subsidiary to Sony Pictures Television.^[7]

Notes

CPT Holdings, Inc.

CPT Holdings, Inc. was introduced in 1988 as a copyrighting name and the holder for classic shows for Columbia Pictures Television from recent buyouts. It is currently a service mark of Sony Pictures Television

Other than its own series Designing Women and its daytime drama The Young and the Restless, the company holds What's Happening!!, The Joker's Wild, incarnations from Pyramid, The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and 3's a Crowd.

During the years of Columbia Pictures Television, the company identified itself in the credits as Columbia Pictures Television, CPT Holdings, Inc., Columbia Pictures Television, Inc. and Columbia Pictures Television Distribution. Many series such as the remastered version of Bewitched uses the CPT Holdings, Inc. copyright replacing the original Screen Gems copyright.

Colex Enterprises

Colex Enterprises was created in 1984 as a partnership between CPT and Lexington Broadcast Services Co. The venture ended in 1988 and was succeeded by CPTD, which was succeeded in 1995 by CTTD, then in 2001 by CTDT which is now known as SPT since 2002.

Colex was most popularly known for distributing classic shows from the libraries of Screen Gems, CPT, and the later films of Bob Hope (The Seven Little Foys, The Lemon Drop Kid, etc.).

See also

• Columbia TriStar Television
• TriStar Television
• Columbia Pictures
• TriStar Pictures

External links

• Columbia Pictures Television at the Internet Movie Database

Notes and references

1. ^ "Coke Completes Columbia Merger". New York Times. June 23, 1982. Retrieved 2010-03-14.
2. ^ Coke buys Embassy: 485 million., normanlear.com
3. ^ "Columbia Pictures Television Group acquires Four D Productions Inc.". PR Newswire. August 28, 1986. http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-4349754.html. Retrieved 2011-5-1. 
4. ^ "COMPANY NEWS; Coke Suit Pact". New York Times. August 30, 1986. http://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/30/business/company-news-coke-suit-pact.html?scp=1&sq=Four%20D%20Productions%20sold%20to%20Coke&st=cse. Retrieved 2011-05-17. 
5. ^ [1], davidgleason.com
6. ^ [2], davidgleason.com
7. ^ Sony Pictures Entertainment Renames Television Operations; Domestic and International Divisions Take Sony Name, prnewswire.com