From The TV IV

United Artists Television (UATV) was an American television production and distribution company.

[edit] History

UATV was founded in 1956 as the television arm of the United Artists film studio. UATV produced a number of popular shows for the American networks like The Outer Limits, The Patty Duke Show, Gilligan's Island and The Fugitive.

UATV purchased Associated Artists Productions (AAP) in 1958, inheriting the pre-1948 Warner Bros. film library and the Popeye cartoons AAP had acquired from Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios (Paramount Pictures' animation unit), which made the animated shorts between 1933 and 1957. In 1960, UATV bought and merged Ziv Television Programs, a television syndicator and production company, leading to a name change for the merged company to Ziv-United Artists. Despite the merger, Ziv-United Artists, like when it was UATV, did not have much success with its series in prime time network television, and the company phased out Ziv's operations and returned to its original name, UATV, in 1962.

Two of what would be UATV's most successful series in the long term, The Fugitive and Gilligan's Island, made their debuts one year apart, on September 17, 1963 and September 26, 1964 respectively. Part two of the Fugitive series finale, which aired on August 29, 1967 and saw the clearing of protagonist Richard Kimble (David Janssen) of the charge of murdering his wife and the killing of the actual culprit, the one-armed man Fred Johnson, drew 30 million viewers and was the highest-rated episode of a TV series in history until the "Who Shot JR" episode of Dallas on November 21, 1980, while the series itself has had a lasting legacy on American television and also spun off a 1993 film based on the show, starring Harrison Ford as Richard Kimble. Gilligan's Island did respectably well in its original network run on CBS, and became more popular in syndication following its last-minute cancellation in 1967 (it had been slated for a fourth season), leading to several spinoff TV movies, two animated series and a reality series called The Real Gilligan's Island.

In 1967, insurance company Transamerica purchased United Artists and UATV. With the purchase, UATV followed its parent company's lead and incorporated Transamerica's stylized T logo in 1968. Beginning in 1969, UATV co-produced The Pink Panther Show with DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and later distributed the show in syndication.

Transamerica sold United Artists, including UATV, to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1981. UATV dropped the Transamerica T logo in favor of briefly using the stylized UA logo adopted by United Artists in 1982 before MGM merged its television unit, MGM Television, with UATV to form MGM/UA Television, although shows carrying a UATV copyright byline continued to be produced until 1995.

MGM Television now owns and distributes most of the shows originally made and distributed under the UATV banner, with a few exceptions:

• Gilligan's Island was retained by Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting following that company's 1986 purchase of most of MGM/UA's physical and intellectual properties. The series copyright is now shared by Turner and the estate of Phil Silvers, whose production company Gladasya co-produced the show, with distribution handled by Warner Bros. Television (which, with Turner, are both owned by Time Warner)
• The Fugitive, which was co-produced with Quinn Martin's QM Productions, was later distributed by ABC Films (which became Worldvision Enterprises in 1973). Worldvision and QM were both purchased by Taft Broadcasting in 1979. The QM catalog later went to Spelling Entertainment, which was later purchased by Viacom, whose Paramount Television assumed the distribution rights before Viacom split into two companies, CBS Corporation and a new Viacom. CBS retained ownership of Paramount Television (which was renamed CBS Paramount Television), whose distribution unit, since renamed CBS Television Distribution, now owns the distribution rights to The Fugitive
• East Side/West Side, which was co-produced with CBS and Talent Associates, was initially distributed by CBS Films, which became Viacom in 1971. After Viacom's purchase of Paramount Pictures in 1994, the distribution rights passed to Paramount Television. East Side/West Side is now distributed by CBS Television Distribution

[edit] List of shows produced by United Artists Television

Title	Format	Network	Years
Men Into Space	Science fiction	CBS	1959–60
The Human Jungle	Medical drama	ITV	1963–65
East Side/West Side	Drama	CBS	1963–64
The Patty Duke Show	Sitcom	ABC	1963–66
The Fugitive	Drama	ABC	1963–67
The Outer Limits	Anthology	ABC	1963–65
Gilligan's Island	Sitcom	CBS	1964–67
The Hollywood Palace	Variety	ABC	1964–70
My Mother the Car	Sitcom	NBC	1965–66
Mona McCluskey	Sitcom	NBC	1965–66
Hey, Landlord	Sitcom	NBC	1966–67
The Rat Patrol	Military drama	ABC	1966–68
The Mothers-in-Law	Sitcom	NBC	1967–69
The Pink Panther Show	Animated anthology	NBC	1969–78
		ABC	1978–79
Thirtysomething	Drama	ABC	1987–91
James Bond Jr.	Animated adventure	Syndication	1991–92

[edit] External links

• United Artists Television at the Internet Movie Database