Type | Unrealized broadcast television network |
---|---|
Country | |
Availability | Unlaunched |
Founded | April 1978 by Barry Diller |
Owner | Gulf+Western |
Parent | Paramount Pictures |
Key people | Charles Bluhdorn Barry Diller Martin Davis Richard Frank [1] Michael Eisner Jeffrey Katzenberg [2] Mel Harris |
Former names | Paramount Programming Service [3] |
Callsigns | PTVS |
The Paramount Television Service, Inc. (or PTVS for short and also known as Paramount Programming Service [3] ) was the name of a proposed but ultimately unrealized "fourth television network" [4] from the U.S. film studio Paramount Pictures (then a unit of Gulf+Western, now owned by Paramount Global). It was a forerunner of the later UPN [5] (the United Paramount Network), which launched 17 years later.
In 1974, Barry Diller started his tenure as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Paramount Pictures Corporation. With Diller at the helm, the studio produced television programs such as Laverne & Shirley (1976), Taxi (1978), and Cheers (1982). With his television background, Diller kept pitching an idea of his to the board: a fourth commercial network. [6]
Paramount Pictures purchased the Hughes Television Network including its satellite time in planning for PTVS [7] in 1976. They also hired Rich Frank of KCOP-TV and a member of the Operation Prime Time steering committee. [3] Plans relating to the proposed launch of the Paramount Television Service were first announced on June 17, 1977. [8] Set to launch in April 1978, its programming would have initially consisted of only one night a week. [6] [9] Thirty "Movies of the Week" would have followed Star Trek: Phase II [10] on Saturday nights. Planned too was a series derived from Paramount's version of The War of The Worlds (1953) as "backup" for Phase II; a pilot presentation was completed by the film's producer George Pal. PTVS was delayed until the 1978-79 season due to cautious advertisers. [11] [12]
At the time, Star Trek was being broadcast on 137 stations in the United States in syndication, and it was expected that the new television as an effort for the station could become the fourth national network in the United States; [13] Diller and his assistant Michael Eisner had hired Jeffrey Katzenberg to manage Star Trek into production with a television film due to launch the new series at a cost of $3.2 million – which would have been the most expensive television movie ever made. [14]
Despite Barry Diller's best efforts, the Paramount board, and studio chief Charles Bluhdorn, passed on the network, as Bluhdorn worried that PTVS would lose too much money. [15] Six months before the launch, Paramount canceled the network before PTVS was set to debut. [6] Ultimately, Star Trek: Phase II was transformed [16] into Star Trek: The Motion Picture [17] (1979). Diller then took his fourth network idea with him when he moved to 20th Century Fox to start the Fox Broadcasting Company. [6]
Meanwhile, Paramount, long successful in syndication with repeats of Star Trek ,[ citation needed ] with several impressively popular first-run syndicated series [18] by the turn of the 1990s, in Entertainment Tonight , Hard Copy , Webster (which moved from ABC for its last two seasons), The Arsenio Hall Show , Friday the 13th: The Series , War of the Worlds (unrelated to the 1970s attempt) and Star Trek: The Next Generation . [19]
On February 9, 2017, Viacom announced that Spike would take on the new branding of the Paramount Network in early 2018, as the company switches to a focus on six prime ViacomCBS brands with most of the company's backing and resources. [20]
Paramount Pictures Corporation, doing business as Paramount Pictures is an American film and television production and distribution company and the namesake subsidiary of Paramount Global. It is the sixth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest film studio in the United States, and the sole member of the "Big Five" film studios located within the city limits of Los Angeles.
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that operated from 1995 to 2006. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' subsidiary, United Television. Viacom turned it into a joint venture in 1996 after acquiring a 50% stake in the network, and subsequently purchased Chris-Craft's remaining stake in 2000. On December 31, 2005, UPN was kept by CBS Corporation, which was the new name for Viacom when it split into two separate companies. On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner jointly announced that the companies would shut down UPN and competitor The WB to launch a new joint venture network later that year. UPN ceased broadcasting on September 15, 2006, with The WB following two days later. Select programs from both networks moved to the new network, The CW, when it launched on September 18, 2006.
Star Trek: Phase II was the initial working title for what officially became titled Star Trek II, an unproduced American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as a sequel to the original Star Trek, which had run from 1966 to 1969. The plans for the series were first developed after several failed attempts to create a feature film based on the property, coupled with plans for a Paramount Television Service (PTS) as a fourth broadcast television network in the United States.
Harve Bennett was an American television and film producer and screenwriter.
The Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN) was an American television network that was operated by the Prime Time Consortium, a joint venture between the Warner Bros. Domestic Television subsidiary of Time Warner and Chris-Craft Industries. First launched on January 20, 1993, and operating until 1997, the network mainly aired drama programs aimed at adults between the ages of 18 and 54. At its peak, PTEN's programming was carried on 177 television stations, covering 93% of the country.
WWHO is a television station licensed to Chillicothe, Ohio, United States, serving the Columbus area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Manhan Media, Inc., which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of ABC/MyNetworkTV/Fox affiliate WSYX, for the provision of certain services. Sinclair also operates TBD station WTTE under a separate LMA with Cunningham Broadcasting; however, Sinclair effectively owns WTTE as the majority of Cunningham's stock is owned by the family of deceased group founder Julian Smith. The three stations share studios on Dublin Road in Grandview Heights ; WWHO's transmitter is located in the Franklinton section of Columbus.
CBS Studios, Inc. is an American television production company which is a subsidiary of the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. It was formed on January 17, 2006, by CBS Corporation as CBS Paramount (Network) Television, as a renaming of the original incarnation of the Paramount Television studio.
Big Ticket Television, Inc. is an American production company. Big Ticket is a subsidiary of CBS Studios, a division of Paramount Global. It is best known for producing the syndicated mainstay Judge Judy from 1996 to 2021.
WRBW, branded on-air as Fox 35 Plus, is a television station in Orlando, Florida, United States, serving as the local outlet for the MyNetworkTV programming service. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox outlet WOFL. The two stations share studios on Skyline Drive in Lake Mary; WRBW's transmitter is located in unincorporated Bithlo, Florida.
KCOP-TV. branded Fox 11 Plus, is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox outlet KTTV. The two stations share studios at the Fox Television Center located in West Los Angeles; KCOP-TV's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.
In January 2006, the United States' two "second-tier" television networks, UPN and The WB, announced they would both cease operations on September 15 and 17 respectively, and their operations would be transferred to a new joint-venture "fifth" network, The CW. Meanwhile, Fox Television Stations signed up with MyNetworkTV, a new "sixth" network owned by then-parent company News Corporation's Fox Entertainment Group.
Viacom Productions was a television production arm of Viacom International. Viacom Enterprises was also a movie production, and a sports production. The division was active from 1971 until 2004, when the company was folded into Paramount Television 10 years following Viacom's acquisition of Paramount Pictures, and led Perry Simon to move itself to Paramount for a production deal.
The Paramount Television Network, Inc. was a venture by American film corporation Paramount Pictures to organize a television network in the late 1940s. The company built television stations KTLA in Los Angeles and WBKB in Chicago; it also invested $400,000 in the DuMont Television Network, which operated stations WABD in New York City, WTTG in Washington, D.C., and WDTV in Pittsburgh. Escalating disputes between Paramount and DuMont concerning breaches of contract, company control, and network competition erupted regularly between 1940 and 1956, and culminated in the dismantling of the DuMont Network. Television historian Timothy White called the clash between the two companies "one of the most unfortunate and dramatic episodes in the early history of the television industry."
Star Trek is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. Since its creation, the franchise has expanded into various films, television series, video games, novels, and comic books, and it has become one of the most recognizable and highest-grossing media franchises of all time.
BHC Communications, Inc. was the holding company for the broadcast property of Chris-Craft Industries. BHC stands for "broadcasting holding company".
In American television terminology, a fourth network is a reference to a fourth commercial broadcast (over-the-air) television network, as opposed to the Big Three television networks that dominated U.S. television from the 1950s to the 1980s: ABC, CBS and NBC.
The original incarnation of Viacom Inc. was an American mass media and entertainment conglomerate based in New York City. It began as CBS Television Film Sales, the broadcast syndication division of the CBS television network in 1952; it was renamed CBS Films in 1958, renamed CBS Enterprises in 1968, renamed Viacom in 1970, and spun off into its own company in 1971. Viacom was a distributor of CBS television series throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and also distributed syndicated television programs. The company went under Sumner Redstone's control in 1987 through his cinema chain company National Amusements.
The first and original incarnation of Paramount Television was the name of the television production division of the American film studio Paramount Pictures, that was responsible for the production of Viacom television programs, until it changed its name to CBS Paramount Television on January 17, 2006, due to the Viacom split.
In 1995, Viacom and Chris-Craft Industries' United Television launched United Paramount Network (UPN) with Star Trek: Voyager as its flagship series, fulfilling Barry Diller's plan for a Paramount network from 25 years earlier. In 1999, Viacom bought out United Television's interests, and handed responsibility for the start-up network to the newly acquired CBS unit, which Viacom bought in 1999 – an ironic confluence of events as Paramount had once invested in CBS, and Viacom had once been the syndication arm of CBS as well. During this period the studio acquired some 30 television stations to support the UPN network as well acquiring and merging in the assets of Republic Pictures, Spelling Television and Viacom Television, almost doubling the size of the studio's television library.
Appearing at the same session with Masini and Cox Rich Frank president of Paramount Television Distribution said the studio has not given up on ... of Star Trek original TV movies and occasional specials The service will be offered if sufficient advertiser interest can be lined up he said.
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