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| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | |
| Founded | October 21, 1994 |
| Founder | Larry Lyttle |
| Products | Television programs |
| Parent | CBS Studios |
Big Ticket Television, Inc. (also known as Big Ticket Entertainment and Big Ticket Pictures) is an American production company. Big Ticket is a subsidiary of CBS Studios (formerly CBS Paramount Television and CBS Television Studios), a division of Paramount Global. It is best known for producing the syndicated mainstay Judge Judy from 1996 to 2021.
The company was launched on October 21, 1994, under the Spelling Entertainment Group, who named former Warner Bros. Television and Spelling Television executive Larry Lyttle to run the division. [1] [2] Lyttle wanted to name the company Blockbuster Television, after its parent company Blockbuster, Inc., but Viacom opposed the idea due to the chain's fate being unclear. [3] Viacom by that time owned Blockbuster Inc. and its 67% stake in Spelling Entertainment Group. [4] Lyttle chose the name "Big Ticket" by driving by a Blockbuster store and noting Blockbuster's "big ticket" logo. [3] Big Ticket was created primarily as an outlet for non-drama TV series from Spelling, which was largely known for hit dramas at that time. All of its programming was distributed by Spelling's syndication arm, Worldvision Enterprises, until Worldvision was folded into Paramount Domestic Television, later CBS Television Distribution, and now CBS Media Ventures.
In 1999, Spelling Entertainment was bought out by Viacom Productions, resulting in Paramount Domestic Television (which Viacom had owned since its 1994 acquisition of Paramount Pictures) becoming Big Ticket's distributor in June 1999. On June 29, 2003, Paramount Television combined Big Ticket Television's production operations with its network and syndication outputs after Lyttle left the employ of Viacom. [3] [5] In 2006, PDT became CBS Paramount Domestic Television and later CBS Media Ventures (formerly CBS Television Distribution) in 2007.
Big Ticket's most widely viewed productions are the courtroom series Judge Judy (ended in 2021) and Judge Joe Brown (ended in 2013), with the former debuting in 1996 and the latter in 1998. This left Judge Judy as the company's only program in the 2013-14 television season, although most of the production is done by CBS as the company has been largely a figurehead organization since the CBS takeover of Viacom's television unit. In Fall 2014, Big Ticket also began to produce the three-judge court show Hot Bench , which is created and executive-produced by Judge Judy Sheindlin through her own production company, Queen Bee Productions.
Big Ticket also produced the sitcom Moesha , its spin-off The Parkers and the stop-motion animated comedy Gary & Mike for UPN, the dramas Hack created by David Koepp & starring David Morse and Wolf Lake created by John Leekly & starring Lou Diamond Phillips for CBS (only five episodes of the latter aired on CBS before cancellation, but all nine were shown on UPN), and the talk show parody Night Stand with Dick Dietrick for syndication. For the second (and final) season of the court series Swift Justice , Big Ticket became the production company after the series moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles and shared a studio with Judge Judy and Judge Joe Brown.
The company's most recent program is The Drew Barrymore Show , which launched on September 14, 2020. As of the 2022–23 television season, Hot Bench and The Drew Barrymore Show are the only programs under Big Ticket management remaining in production.
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.
Republic Pictures Corporation was an American film studio corporation that originally operated from 1935 to 1967, based in Los Angeles, California. It had production and distribution facilities in Studio City, as well as a movie ranch in Encino.
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.
Worldvision Enterprises, Inc. was an American television program and home video distributor established in 1954 as ABC Film Syndication, the domestic and overseas program distribution arm of the ABC Television Network. They primarily licensed programs from independent producers, rather than producing their own content.
Rysher Entertainment, Inc. was an American film and television production company and distributor. It was founded in 1991. In 1993, Rysher was acquired by Cox Enterprises, and was closed in 1999.
Judge Joe Brown is an American arbitration-based reality court show starring former Shelby County, Tennessee criminal court judge Joseph B. Brown. The series premiered on September 14, 1998 and ran through the 2012–13 television season for a total of fifteen seasons. Joe Brown was the second highest paid daytime television personality behind Judge Judy during the time the show was running.
Paramount Television Studios, formerly the second incarnation of Paramount Television, is the television arm of American film studio Paramount Pictures, a division of Paramount Global, founded on March 4, 2013 by its predecessor, Viacom, following an emerging vigorous business with the technological expansion of television via streaming services. Paramount also recognized that television could give them little to fall back on when films fail, except for studio stage rentals.
Showtime Networks Inc. is an American entertainment company that oversees the company's premium cable television channels, including its flagship service Paramount+ with Showtime. It is a subsidiary of media conglomerate Paramount Global under its networks division.
Paramount Global Content Distribution is the international television distribution arm of American media conglomerate, Paramount Global, originally established in 1962 as the international distribution division of Desilu Productions. With the sale of Desilu to Gulf+Western, then-owners of film studio Paramount Pictures, in 1968, the division evolved into Paramount's first foray into the international television industry in the 1970s.
Spelling Television Inc. was an American television production company that went through several name changes. It was originally called Aaron Spelling Productions, then Spelling Entertainment Inc. and eventually part of Spelling Entertainment Group. The company produced popular shows such as The Love Boat, Dynasty, Beverly Hills, 90210, 7th Heaven, Melrose Place and Charmed. The company was founded by television producer Aaron Spelling on October 25, 1965. The company is currently an in-name-only unit of CBS Studios. A related company, Spelling-Goldberg Productions, co-existed during a portion of the same time period and produced other well-known shows such as Family, Charlie's Angels, Starsky & Hutch, and Fantasy Island but these series are not part of the modern day library now owned by Paramount Global. Another related company, The Douglas S. Cramer Company co-existed during a portion of the same time period, produced shows like Wonder Woman, Joe and Sons, and Bridget Loves Bernie and television films like Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway.
CBS Productions was a production arm of the CBS television network, now a part of Paramount Global, formed in 1952 to produce shows in-house, instead of relying solely on outside productions. One of its first productions was Studio One, a drama anthology series.
CBS Media Ventures, Inc. is the television broadcast syndication arm of the CBS Entertainment Group division of Paramount Global, founded on September 26, 2006 by CBS Corporation from a merger of CBS Paramount Domestic Television and King World Productions.
The Financial Interest and Syndication Rules, widely known as the fin-syn rules, were a set of rules imposed by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States in 1970. The FCC sought to prevent the Big Three television networks from monopolizing the broadcast landscape by preventing them from owning any of the programming that they aired in prime time. The rules also prohibited networks from airing syndicated programming they had a financial stake in. The rules also led the networks to spin off their syndicated divisions, such as CBS' CBS Enterprises, which was renamed Viacom in 1971 and spun off; ABC's ABC Films, which was sold to its five executives and later renamed Worldvision Enterprises; and NBC's syndicated division NBC Films, which was sold to National Telefilm Associates (NTA) for $7.5 million. The latter two deals both occurred in March 1973.
Paramount Domestic Television (PDT) was the television distribution arm of American television production company Paramount Television, once the TV arm of Paramount Pictures. It was formed in 1982 originally as Paramount Domestic Television and Video Programming, the successor to Paramount Television Domestic Distribution, Paramount Television Sales, and Desilu Sales.
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.
Richard P. Rubinstein is an American film and television producer, who has worked mainly in the science fiction and horror genres. In the 1970s and 1980s he collaborated frequently with horror director George A. Romero, including on the seminal zombie films Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985). He also produced 1984–1988 anthology horror television series Tales from the Darkside. In the 1980s and 1990s Rubinstein produced a substantial number of projects based on the writings of horror novelist Stephen King.
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.
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