Ziv Television Programs

Last updated

Ziv Television Programs, Inc. was an American production company that specialized in productions for first-run television syndication in the 1950s.

Contents

History

The company was founded by Frederick Ziv in 1948 and was a subsidiary of his successful radio syndication business, which had begun in 1937. The company produced recorded programs and sold them directly to local television stations. The television syndication service proved lucrative during the late 1940s and early 1950s, as local television stations wanted to fill their schedules during hours outside of "prime time". By 1955, Ziv was producing more than 250 half-hour TV episodes a year. [1]

Ziv expanded beyond the United States, establishing four European subsidiaries in the fall of 1954. The company's first sale in Europe was Mr. District Attorney , bought by Radio Diffusion Francaise, with Ziv International of France overseeing dubbing of episodes into French. The trade publication Variety reported in February 1955 that Ziv's overall international budget had been increased to $2 million, which meant that its international activities "will operate at a loss for some time". [2]

Needing more space to accommodate increasing production, in December 1954 Ziv purchased 92 percent of American National Studios in Hollywood. The trade publication Billboard said that the six-acre purchase was reported to have exceeded $2 million. It had more than double the space of Ziv's previous facility. [3]

As the Big Three television networks began offering programs outside of prime time, Ziv's popularity and business began to decline. The market for first-run syndicated television programming began to dwindle, and the company, to attempt to save its business, began to produce programs which aired over the networks in 1956. In 1960, the company was purchased by United Artists and merged with their television unit to become Ziv-United Artists, but two years later, the name changed back to United Artists Television after the TV studio phased out Ziv Television Programs' operations. [1] [4] In 1962, shortly before the name change, Ziv-UA tried a hand in changing its focus on independent television producers. [5]

Today, most of the rights to Ziv's TV shows are distributed by MGM Television and SFM Entertainment, while some of them have fallen into the public domain.

ZIV International, on the other hand, was established as an unrelated production company and distributor of Americanized anime shows in the 1970s and 1980s. This company was linked to this former organization only by the similarity of its name.

Selected list of shows produced or distributed

Related Research Articles

The year 1962 involved some significant events in television. Below is a list of notable events of that year.

The year 1960 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1960.

The year 1959 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1959.

The year 1958 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1958.

The year 1957 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1957.

The year 1956 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1956.

The year 1955 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events during 1955.

The year 1954 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events in 1954.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Best</span> American actor, musician, artist (1926–2015)

Jewel Franklin Guy, known professionally as James Best, was an American television, film, stage, and voice actor, as well as a writer, director, acting coach, artist, college professor, and musician. During a career that spanned more than 60 years, he performed not only in feature films but also in scores of television series, as well as appearing on various country music programs and talk shows. Television audiences, however, perhaps most closely associate Best with his role as the bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the action-comedy series The Dukes of Hazzard, which originally aired on CBS between 1979 and 1985. He reprised the role in 1997 and 2000 for the made-for-television movies The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion! and The Dukes of Hazzard: Hazzard in Hollywood (2000).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gloria Talbott</span> American actress (1931–2000)

Gloria Maude Talbott was an American film and television actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boris Karloff filmography</span>

Boris Karloff (1887–1969) was an English actor. He became known for his role as Frankenstein's monster in the 1931 Frankenstein, leading to a long career in film, radio, and television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivan Tors</span> Hungarian playwright, film director, screenwriter, and film and television producer

Ivan Tors was a Hungarian playwright, film director, screenwriter, and film and television producer with an emphasis on non-violent but exciting science fiction, underwater sequences, and stories involving animals. He started a Miami-based film studio now known as Greenwich Studios, and later a music company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Dobkin</span> American actor, director and screenwriter (1919–2002)

Lawrence Dobkin was an American television director, character actor and screenwriter whose career spanned seven decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthology series</span> Form of broadcast entertainment

An anthology series is a written series, radio, television, film, or video game series that presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a different cast in each episode, but several series in the past, such as Four Star Playhouse, employed a permanent troupe of character actors who would appear in a different drama each week. Some anthology series, such as Studio One, began on radio and then expanded to television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Four Star Television</span> Defunct American television production company

Four Star Television, also called Four Star International, was an American television production company. Founded in 1952 as Four Star Productions by prominent Hollywood actors Dick Powell, David Niven, Charles Boyer and Joel McCrea, it was inspired by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz founding Desilu Productions a year earlier. McCrea left soon after its founding to continue in films, television and radio, and was replaced by Ida Lupino as the fourth star—although Lupino did not own stock in the company.

<i>Science Fiction Theatre</i> 1955 American TV series or program

Science Fiction Theatre was an American science fiction anthology television series that was produced by Ivan Tors and Maurice Ziv and originally aired in syndication. It premiered on April 9, 1955, and ended on February 9, 1957, with a total of 78 episodes over the course of two seasons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Pate</span> Australian actor (1920–2008)

Michael Pate OAM was an Australian actor, writer, director, and producer, who also worked prolifically as a supporting actor in Hollywood films and American Television during the 1950s and 1960s.

The NTA Film Network was an early American television network founded by Ely Landau in 1956 that operated on a part-time basis, broadcasting films and several first-run television programs from major Hollywood studios. Despite attracting more than 100 affiliate stations and securing the financial support of Twentieth Century-Fox, the network proved unprofitable and was discontinued by 1961. The NTA Film Network's flagship station WNTA-TV is now WNET, one of the flagship stations of the Public Broadcasting Service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Harvey (actor, born 1911)</span> American actor (1911–1963)

Don Carlos Harvey was an American television and film actor.

Frederic W. Ziv Company produced syndicated radio and television programs in the United States. Horace Newcomb's Encyclopedia of Television described the company as "by 1948 ... the largest packager and syndicator of radio programs" and later "the most prolific producer of programming for the first-run syndication market during the 1950s."

References

  1. 1 2 Anderson, Christopher (2007). "ZIV TELEVISION PROGRAMS, INC". The Museum of Broadcast Communications. Retrieved 2008-08-08.
  2. ↑ "Ziv Sells 'Mr. D. A.' for French Market". Variety. February 16, 1955. p. 28. Retrieved April 5, 2023.
  3. ↑ "Ziv Buys Six-Acre American National Studios in Hollywood". Billboard. January 1, 1955. p. 4. Retrieved April 17, 2023.
  4. ↑ "New name for Ziv-UA" (PDF). Broadcasting . September 3, 1962. p. 50. Retrieved September 14, 2023.
  5. ↑ "Ziv-UA no longer to film own shows" (PDF). Broadcasting . May 7, 1962. p. 80. Retrieved September 14, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.