Warner Bros. Television

From The TV IV

Warner Bros. Television

Founded	1955
President	Barry Meyer Alan F. Horn
Notable Works	The O.C. The West Wing ER Friends Veronica Mars Supernatural

Warner Bros. Television (WBTV) is the television production and distribution unit of Warner Bros. Entertainment, a division of Time Warner Inc.

[edit] History

WBTV was formed in 1955, debuting its first series that year when the anthology program Warner Bros. Presents premiered on ABC; of the three rotating series in that show (King's Row, Cheyenne and a TV adaptation of the Warner Bros. movie Casablanca), only Cheyenne lasted beyond Warner Bros. Presents' only season, continuing for a total of eight seasons until 1963. With the popularity of the western genre during the early years of television, WBTV contributed to the success of TV westerns with the production of such shows as Maverick, Colt .45, The Alaskans, Sugarfoot and Bronco (a Cheyenne spinoff).

In addition to its western lineup, WBTV also produced shows in other genres like 77 Sunset Strip, Bourbon Street Beat, Hawaiian Eye, The Gallant Men, F-Troop, The F.B.I., The Bugs Bunny Show and its later incarnations, Kung Fu, Wonder Woman and Alice. During its early years of TV production, WBTV made extensive use of stock footage from the Warner Bros. film library for its shows. It produced shows exclusively for ABC until 1963, when NBC premiered the series Temple Houston. Jack Webb briefly headed WBTV for about ten months in 1963, but Temple Houston was the only series he successfully pitched to a broadcast network during that period. WBTV established its distribution arm, Warner Bros. Television Distribution, in the 1960s.

In 1967, the film studio Seven Arts Productions purchased WB founder Jack Warner's controlling interest in that studio and merged the two studios as Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, with the TV unit accordingly being renamed Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Television and the classic WB shield company logo changed at that point to a stylized "W7" logo within a modified shield. Kinney National Services, a parking and office cleaning company expanding into media, purchased the assets of Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in 1969 and the TV company returned to its original name of WBTV, with a newly-adopted logo consisting of a stretched shield with simple "WB" lettering within and a banner beneath the lettering reading "A Kinney Services Company", reflecting its ownership at the time. Kinney sold its non-entertainment assets in 1972 and renamed itself as Warner Communications (now known as Time Warner), and the classic WB shield briefly made its return on WBTV shows from February to September that year, when that logo was replaced by the new Warner Communications corporate logo of a stylized W (designed as a "\\'") within a TV tube shape. The classic shield logo made its return in 1984 and has been used on WBTV shows, with some slight modifications, ever since.

WBTV parent Warner Communications acquired Lorimar-Telepictures in 1989 and split that company's operations. Lorimar Television ran as a separate TV production unit before merging into WBTV in 1993. Telepictures, which initially produced syndicated programming for WBTV's distribution unit, was relaunched following Time Warner's 1996 purchase of Turner Broadcasting to replace Turner Program Services as the distributor of non-WBTV-produced programs whose syndication rights were acquired by WBTV or Turner. Telepictures has since returned to its original function of producing syndicated shows, such as The People's Court, The Tyra Banks Show and TMZ on TV, for distribution by WBTV. The company formed another distribution unit, Warner Bros. International Television, in 1996 for the international distribution of its shows outside North America. It served as a program supplier for co-owned entity The WB Television Network from that network's 1995 formation until 2006, and it presently continues in that role with The CW (created through a 2006 merger between The WB and CBS Corporation's UPN).

[edit] List of shows produced by Warner Bros. Television

Note: Shows distributed by WBTV from the libraries of Turner Broadcasting, pre-acquisition Lorimar, Telepictures, Hanna-Barbera, Ruby-Spears Enterprises, Cartoon Network, post-1974 Rankin-Bass Productions, pre-1986 MGM Television and MGM/UA Television, Wolper Productions, New Line Television, HBO and certain shows from New World Television and independent companies are listed separately in the Warner Bros. Television Distribution article.

Title	Format	Network	Years
Warner Bros. Presents	Anthology	ABC	1955–56
Cheyenne	Western	ABC	1955–63
Maverick	Western	ABC	1957–62
Sugarfoot	Western	ABC	1957–61
Colt .45	Western	ABC	1957–60
Bronco	Western	ABC	1958–62
Lawman	Western	ABC	1958–62
77 Sunset Strip	Crime drama	ABC	1958–64
Hawaiian Eye	Crime Drama	ABC	1959–63
Surfside 6	Crime drama	ABC	1960–62
The Bugs Bunny Show	Animated anthology	ABC	1960–68
		CBS	1968–73
		ABC	1973–75
		CBS	1975–85
		ABC	1985–2000
The Gallant Men	Military drama	ABC	1962–63
F Troop	Sitcom	ABC	1965–67
Temple Houston	Western	NBC	1963–64
The F.B.I.	Crime drama	ABC	1965–74
The Road Runner Show	Animated anthology	CBS	1966–68
		ABC	1968–73
Kung Fu	Drama	ABC	1972–75
Wonder Woman	Adventure	ABC	1975–77
		CBS	1977–79
Alice	Sitcom	CBS	1976–85
The Dukes of Hazzard	Adventure	CBS	1979–85
Love, Sidney	Sitcom	NBC	1981–83
Scarecrow and Mrs. King	Spy drama	CBS	1983–87
V	Science fiction	NBC	1984–85
Night Court	Sitcom	NBC	1984–92
Growing Pains	Sitcom	ABC	1985–92
Spenser: For Hire	Crime drama	ABC	1985–88
Head of the Class	Sitcom	ABC	1986–91
Full House	Sitcom	ABC	1987–95 ¹
Murphy Brown	Sitcom	CBS	1988–98
Just the Ten of Us	Sitcom	ABC	1988–90
Family Matters	Sitcom	ABC	1989–97 ¹
		CBS	1997–98
Life Goes On	Drama	ABC	1989–93
The Flash	Adventure	CBS	1990–91
Sisters	Drama	NBC	1991–96
Step by Step	Sitcom	ABC	1991–97 ¹
		CBS	1997–98
Hangin' with Mr. Cooper	Sitcom	ABC	1992–97 ¹
Living Single	Sitcom	FOX	1993–98
Babylon 5	Science fiction	Syndication	1993–97
		TNT	1997–98
Kung Fu: The Legend Continues	Drama	Syndication	1993–97
ER	Medical drama	NBC	1994–09
Friends	Sitcom	NBC	1994–2004
Living Single	Sitcom	FOX	1993–98
MADtv	Sketch comedy	FOX	1998–09
The Drew Carey Show	Sitcom	ABC	1995–2004
The Wayans Bros.	Sitcom	The WB	1995–99
The Parent 'Hood	Sitcom	The WB	1995–99
Jesse	Sitcom	NBC	1998–2000
The West Wing	Political drama	NBC	1999–2006
Gilmore Girls	Drama	The WB	2000–06
		The CW	2006–07
Smallville	Superhero drama	The WB	2001–2006
		The CW	2006–present
Without a Trace	Police procedural	CBS	2002–09
What I Like About You	Sitcom	The WB	2002–06
Everwood	Drama	The WB	2002–06
Two and a Half Men	Sitcom	CBS	2003–present
The O.C.	Teen drama	FOX	2003–07
One Tree Hill	Teen drama	The WB	2003–06
		The CW	2006–present
Cold Case	Police procedural	CBS	2003–present ²
Joey	Sitcom	NBC	2004–06
Supernatural	Paranormal drama	The WB	2005–2006
		The CW	2006–present
Twins	Sitcom	The WB	2005–06
The War at Home	Sitcom	FOX	2005–07
The Class	Sitcom	CBS	2006–07
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip	Comedy-drama	NBC	2006–07
Gossip Girl	Teen drama	The CW	2007–present ²
Aliens in America	Sitcom	The CW	2007–08 ²
Life Is Wild	Drama	The CW	2007–08 ²
Pushing Daisies	Dramedy	ABC	2007–09
Chuck	Action comedy	NBC	2007–present
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles	Science fiction	FOX	2008–09
The Mentalist	Crime drama	CBS	2008–present
Eleventh Hour	Crime drama	CBS	2008–09
Fringe	Science fiction	FOX	2008–present
Privileged	Dramedy	The CW	2008–09 ²
Southland	Crime drama	NBC	2009–present
Hank	Sitcom	ABC	2009–present
The Middle	Sitcom	ABC	2009–present
The Vampire Diaries	Fantasy drama	The CW	2009–present
The Beautiful Life	Drama	The CW	2009 ²
Eastwick	Fantasy drama	ABC	2009–present
The Forgotten	Crime drama	ABC	2009–present
V	Science fiction	ABC	2009–present